What was Luke's "score to settle"?

His score to settle was with society, and that's why he's a loner and non conformist. Luke hated rules and regulations. I don't think he wanted to get revenge on anyone, he just wanted to live his life on his own terms.

Thanks. That sounds about right. We are asked to draw our own inferences.

I think that Luke tends to think more simply and more direct. It seems to me likely that he got a parking ticket for a "Violated" parking meter when he was there taking care of county or municipal business. He had a few beers, got his mitts on a big pipe cutter, and thought, "I'm gonna show these jerks something."



The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

Thanks for the explanation, Badlands. You point out one of the challenges of making a movie based on a novel--what to do with all of that exposition on the page. I'll have to read the novel to get a better sense of how 'bad' Luke was originally. It's hard to make Paul Newman into an entirely bad guy. Whenever he played shady characters in other films, he was usually pretty charming or pretty AND charming. The movie has been a huge success, and it was very important to my teenage self, so I can't imagine another version. I just accepted the 'cuttin' the heads of off parking meters' confession at face value and accepted his free spirit without much back story. He touched me then as a martyr. But now I'm more curious about holes in plots, motivation, etc.