Luke blew up the freakin’ Death Star and he only gets to be commander. Han wants to skip out on the whole rebellion thing and he gets to be a general.
Keep in mind, Han was promoted for the mission on Endor, so he wasn’t a general during ESB. The rebellion kind of promoted people as needed (or just straight up willy-nilly, see Lando being given a rank of general or whatever.)
Also, like in rebels, they promoted a teenager to “lieutenant”…. Because he was a half-trained Jedi… (yeah that went well,)
Further, after Hoth Luke was off at dagoba doing Jedi training; and while not shown, there was probably some time there.
Also, banging one of the main leaders gets you faster promotions than being the sister of said leader.
Also, banging one of the main leaders gets you faster promotions than being the sister of said leader.
Luke, after almost banging his sister: “Damn! This close to a promotion!”
“You are in your sister… but we do not grant you the rank of general”
Chewie, realizing he never got that kiss: “RAWRRlRLrlrlrlrlrRLrlrlrLRRLlrRl.”
Poor guy
Also, Han had a ship and could lead a squadron/attack force, plus he had a ton of experience.
Shooting womprats in beggars canyon is experience!
Yeah. Training by the Carida naval academy, flushing out and lots and lots of smuggling experience…
Endor was post-Empire. He was a general on Hoth.
When Rogue Squadron is using the com links and looking for them after they camped out for the night, doesn’t Rogue 2 refer to both as Captain though?
Looks like we were both wrong. Luke is a Commander and Han is a Captain in Empire and this article basically answers my question, so should I delete the thread?
https://screenrant.com/why-han-outranks-luke-star-wars-original-trilogy
nah leave it was a fun read
Ok. Sounds good!
No.
“Captain Solo. Do you copy?” “Commander Skywalker. This is Rogue 2.”
So, Han is a Captain and Luke is a Commander in ESB. Tho, I don’t know why Han gets a promotion to General when he’s just been frozen in carbonite between films.
The years you don’t do any fuckups count double
Han was promoted for the mission on Endor.
This. It says a lot about the personnel available to the Alliance and the optics, namely the importance they placed on the ground mission, and the fact that they needed to set expectations for how Han would be treated by his new troops.
I think it is more that Han Solo became general after ESB, not that he became one for Endor.
Even though Solo is captured, he does cause Cloud City to flip to the rebels, giving Han an army and navy. At the time, generals were both military leads and the people who were able to mobilize a fighting force. Even if Lando is kept as a high ranking officer, that would be enough to make Solo a general.
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Han was a graduate of the Imperial Military Academy before being discharged for saving Chewbacca from slavery.
He was awarded the Corellian Bloodstripes during that period of time.
Unless the new Canon retconned all of that away.
Yeah but all the deep lore was written after the movies, so it can’t really be used to explain the movies. The lore is crafted to fit these exact kind of holes.
Han Solo’s pants have a stripe on them in the movie and suddenly some novel spins it up into a whole thing - every family on his homeworld has a unique stripe, or some shit, and his exact one means such-and-such about him…
No, the costume designer put a stripe on his pants.
Luke is a 19 year old kid with a gift for piloting small spacecraft.
Han Solo is an adult with actual command experience.
Luke was basically a kid, not general material
Combat ability does not equal command ability. Point Luke at someone and he’ll ruin their whole year, but he’s not good at leading people into combat or organizing groups of soldiers.
Han had previous military training, both in Legends and the new Disney Canon.
Was that between Solo and A New Hope? Because I don’t remember him having any training in Solo.
They skipped it over in Solo. He washed out of the navy’s pilot academy at Carida; his big mount and, ah, in-imperial stature were the problem.
There was a scene with him in the army, but most training is implied with a black screen.
He joined the Imperial academy then the Navy, then kicked out of the Navy and sent to the Mimbam where he was the PFI in trenches
Let’s just not remember anything from Solo
Han was already a Captain of a ship and crew, capable of that kind of complex ‘Generalling’ as demonstrated by supporting Luke’s run on the trench.
Luke was a flyboy kid off the farm, albeit a savant.
I bet Luke put in a request for Han to be a general just to mess with him.
My head cannon is that it’s more of a positional title than a rank. The real US Navy does this all the time. You can be an O-5 (rank of Commander) and be called a Captain if you’re the CO of a ship. Similarly you can be called “Commodore” if you run a squadron of boats which is usually a rank of O-6 (Captain).
So my guess is, in the time between ANH and Hoth in ESB, Han led a land campaign and keeps the honorific. Luke is sticking to his X-wing in that time and (due to his growing Jedi-ness) is apt to be a supporting team player in an existing squadron.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that making him a “general” was a negotiation chip used to get Han to stick around.
I don’t thinks that’s written anywhere. But that’s my head canon based on the characters as we know them at that point in the story.
I assumed it was just because he’s smart and thinks well on his feet. Most rebels are probably angry and dumb teenagers and early 20s. And he owns a ship and already has helped rescue the princess.
Yeah i think this was penned in one of the very first EU novels. Mid to late 90s. Might even be part of the original Thrawn trilogy, as I have Yaspin in my brain attached to the memory. Might also be a KJA novel.
Edit - suffice to say, if memory serves, Han sees it for what it is, and stays for princess reasons.