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!”
Chewie, realizing he never got that kiss: “RAWRRlRLrlrlrlrlrRLrlrlrLRRLlrRl.”
Poor guy
“You are in your sister… but we do not grant you the rank of general”
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.
(this is the scene oblin99 is referring to, the morning after Han went out after Luke.) Han was a Captain at Hoth, and was outranked by Luke… who is a commander at the time.also, the Emperor died on the 2nd death star, which is when most worlds finally shrugged off imperial occupation. (see the celebration montage of them toppling the statues and stuffs); this is generally when people say that the empire was gone, even if it took a while to, ah, tidy up.
The Empire continued to exist organizationally just much smaller, and not that nonsense sequels bullshit evil macguffin splinter group form. The Empire remnant was called on in the EU against the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. The EU that is still canon because it was canon before it wasn’t.
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!
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That is a good read but I’m going to muddy the waters a bit.
I’ll start off with saying I understand this is fiction and doesn’t necessarily directly fit into real life.
In the US military the ranks Captain, Commander, and General don’t exist in the same rank structure. Captain and General exist in every structure except the Navy and Coast Guard which have Commander and Captain. In the former, Captain is an O3 and General could be an O7 through O10. In the latter a Commander is an O5 and and Captain is an O6.
So at the end of ANH Luke as either an O3 or O6 and in RotJ he had separated. Han in ANH was and O5 and later jumped structures and was an O7.
I think you’ve got that a bit turned around. I don’t think Luke was ever referred to as a “Captain” so if indeed they’re roughly mapping to US ranks, he would be the O5 (or possible O4 as Lt. Cmdr.s are often referred to as Commander for convenience) and then, as you say, separated or inactive in ROTJ.
If we assume Han had formal ranks and wasn’t just being called Captain to acknowledge he was captain of the Falcon, he would have been the O6 in ESB and received probably some sort of brevet or field promotion to O7+ because of the importance the Alliance assigned to the ground operation on Endor. It’s conceivable that he was in the “Army” track all along though and was the O3 in ESB, but I think either the honorific or Naval track is more likely.
Lando, if the scriptwriters put much thought into it, was either rolling with a title earned at Tanaab or was on a USAF track, which builds off its heritage as the Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces.
To muddy the waters even further, I will note that it’s also tradition to refer to whoever is in charge of a ship or aircraft as captain, regardless of actual military rank (or even if they’re just civilians). And as Han Solo will tell you with great emphasis, the Millennium Falcon is his ship, and he is her captain.
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.
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Luke was basically a kid, not general material
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.
It did. The Disney continuity does have him as an Imperial veteran, but an enlisted footsoldier lower ranked than Stormtroopers. He also deserted on what was probably his first deployment.
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.
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.
There was a scene with him in the army, but most training is implied with a black screen.
Ah, ok. I barely remember 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.
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
Luke may have fired the shot that took out the death star, but don’t forget it was Han’s support that allowed him to survive that long. Seconds before, Han took out Vader’s escorts, also knocking Vader out of the way.
“General” might sound like an inappropriate rank if you compare rebel ranks to modern organization ranks. But remember rebels die a lot. Maybe they needed to promote someone.
And of Han and Luke, which one do you think negotiated harder for a position of importance? Luke loves the idea of being a soldier under other leaders. Han can’t be bothered to take orders from anyone so if he’s going to be involved at all he needs to be ranked.
This. It was a participation award, and there was no scene showing the rebel agent chatting with Luke about the award they wanted to bestow him with, only to find out whiny farmboy has shit to do that doesn’t include saving the galaxy unless it’s because his daddy ain’t his daddy anymore. 🤗
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.
Neither is Han. 🤦🏼♂️
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.
Edit. And further into the lore, the rebels would have needed people capable of leading other large groups of people to success. So they would tack on promotions or immediate ranks to retain that talent, but at levels they could use and trust.
Promoting a savant to General and giving him whatever groups of troops to achieve goals, ia much riskier than promoting the already somewhat proven Captain.
Luke was lined up for General in the short term anyways, iirc. At least in the EU canon.
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.
I bet Luke put in a request for Han to be a general just to mess with him.
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. He’s basically already a war hero.
