With Solo: A Star Wars Story less than a month away, burning questions regarding Han Solo’s origins will finally be answered. Or will they? Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan, the men responsible for writing the story arc of the film, have stated in a recent interview on The Star Wars Show that it’s less about Han Solo’s early years and more about “how he became the cynical guy” we know and love in. In anticipation of the film’s release, the roguish smuggler’s origins aren’t the only mysteries surrounding the Solo name that bear investigating; there are secrets involving his entire family! His wife, Leia Organa, and his son, Jedi-in-training Ben Solo now Dark Side warrior Kylo Ren, each have ruminations about their lives that lend a layer of enigma to the House of Solo.
The Star Wars Saga has traditionally focused on the story of the Skywalker family, but most of their family secrets have long since been exposed. It’s time to direct that Death Star beam at the Solo Family and blow the lid off it. What’s the deal with Han’s military record? Could he always understand Chewbacca? Was Ben Solo always such a whiny brat? Did Leia always have Force powers? We’ve got a bad feeling about this...
25 HAN COULD UNDERSTAND WOOKIES AS A BOY
A running gag in the classic Star Wars trilogy was that Han could understand his copilot Chewbacca but no one else could. Chewie doesn’t agree with the kooky mysticism Obi-Wan Kenobi is spouting aboard the Millennium Falcon? He lets out a warbling growl and Han nods, “Boy you said it, Chewie.” Shyriiwook is an incredibly complicated language for other alien species to learn (not, apparently, for certain goldenrod protocol droids), so it stands to reason that Han would have had to spend many years mastering how to banter with his first mate.
When Han was a boy living on the streets of Corellia, he fell in with a gang of space pirates. Their cook, an elderly Wookie female named Dewlannamapia, took a shine to the boy and became like a surrogate mother to him, dishing out maternal advice with her meals and teaching him the language of her homeworld.
24 LEIA ALWAYS HAD FORCE POWERS
The Skywalker family has always been extremely strong with the Force. The men in the clan have often gotten all the credit for this, but Leia could have been just as powerful a Jedi as her famous brother had her heart not been deeply committed to the Rebel Alliance and restoring the Republic. In the novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope, we learn in a passage that she used “a warm, light feeling” within her to expel the effects of Darth Vader’s interrogation droid, as well as drown out the “coldness of his rage”.
In Empire Strikes Back, she could telepathically “hear” Luke call out to her for help, and in Return of the Jedi, she sensed he wasn’t hurt when the second Death Star exploded. Recently, in The Last Jedi, she used the Force to survive in the vacuum of space.
23 BEN SOLO SHOWED ALL THE SIGNS
When wondering where it all went wrong, and how a person could become a homicidal maniac, one usually looks to signs like the mistreatment of living things or sudden fits of rage. Apparently, young Ben Solo was so accomplished at the latter that it earned him a reputation of fear long before he would become Kylo Ren.
According to the novelization of The Last Jedi, when Ben would get angry he would fly into horrible rages and start breaking everything in sight. This naturally concerned his parents, who knew the Skywalker in him gave him great strength in the Force, and could possibly be used for evil. A darkness lurked in Ben Solo which, when it was finally exploited by Supreme Leader Snoke, was allowed to break free.
22 HAN SOLO IS FROM A ROYAL FAMILY
As it turns out, Leia isn’t the only part of the Solo family bringing the distinguished connections. According to Star Wars Legends Han may in fact be a descendent of the famous House of Solo, its patriarch none other than Berethron e Solo, who ruled Han’s homeworld of Corellia during the Golden Age of the Old Republic. This was revealed in the book The Courtship of Princess Leia when it was determined only a suitor of royal blood could wed the Princess of Alderaan.
The Clone Wars destroyed almost all of the family records of the famous Houses on Corellia, but sometime during the era of the New Republic, a sixth generation descendant of Berethron surfaced, one Korol Solo, who was said to be related to Han. Unfortunately, none of this could be proved, and Han grew up an orphan with no knowledge of his heritage.
21 LEIA MET VADER BEFORE A NEW HOPE
When Princess Leia is brought before Darth Vader in A New Hope and straight lies to his face-mask that she’s on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan, that was not in fact the first time she’s had a run-in with the Dark Lord of the Sith. “You weren’t on any mercy mission this time” he tells her, fully aware of her past exploits. In the Star Wars Legends novel Children of the Jedi, Leia met Vader when she was 18 and introduced to Palpatine as a new Senator.
From the canon series Rebels that takes place in the timeline from Revenge of the Sith to A New Hope, we know that Princess Leia was a hands-on Senator-in-training-wheels. She often went on “diplomatic missions” to assist the Rebel Alliance, all while keeping her true objectives on the DL from the Empire.
20 HAN SOLO GRADUATED FROM THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY
After Han was done being a space pirate on the Trader’s Luck, he followed his dreams of becoming an Imperial pilot. Yep, that’s right, future general in the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance wanted nothing more than to be an Imperial pilot. To Han, joining the Imperial Navy was a step up from the cons he’d been involved in all his young life. He wasn’t so great at the academics, but boy howdy could he whip through the flight simulations!
Though Han had a risky and unorthodox approach to his Imperial training, he nevertheless graduated valedictorian during the graduation ceremony at the Imperial Academy of Carida. Grand Moff Tarkin was present to see Han get his accolades, never knowing he would be the one to rescue Princess Leia from the Death Star a decade later and be instrumental in its demise.
19 BEN SOLO TERRIFIED HAN AT AN EARLY AGE
As a young boy, Ben Solo was prone to aggression. According to The Last Jedi novelization, the normal temper tantrums of toddlers became much more dangerous given his inherent Force sensitive abilities. Even without being a full-fledged Skywalker, his aggression if left unchecked could be used to serve the Dark Side.
Ben would often scream, yell, and break things in an apoplectic rage into his teens, causing his parents to wonder if tutelage under his Uncle, Luke Skywalker, wouldn’t temper it. Han was terrified that his son had too much of his grandfather in him. Han had lived under the boot-heel of Darth Vader and his Emperor, and worried his son would be doomed to follow in his footsteps. He lamented the loss of their closeness, as Ben used to look up to his father a great deal.
18 HAN KNEW BOBA FETT BEFORE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Contrary to the fact that Boba Fett randomly gets hired by Vader to find Han in Empire Strikes Back, the Mandalorian bounty hunter has a long history with the smuggler. Cloud City may in fact be the 3000th time they’ve met. Over about a decade the two have fought, Han has escaped, and Fett has pursued him across the galaxy dozens of times. Did that come across in the movie? Not really.
Fett tracked him across the planet Jubilar. He went after him on behalf of the Hutt clan when Han accidentally killed Jabba’s cousin. He encountered him in The Star Wars Holiday Special, and the two sort of kind of acted like friends, until he tried to capture Han for the Empire and he escaped. Even after Return of the Jedi, Legends novels devote many more storylines to their antics (beginning when Boba escapes the Sarlacc Pit).
17 BEN SOLO WAS TOLD HE WAS A MONSTER BY HIS OWN PARENTS
Han and Leia tread cautiously around their son, who was prone to fits of rage and destruction from boyhood. Unfortunately, that only served to make him feel different than everyone around him. He was treated as though he was to be feared, and he grew up internalizing the sentiment. He felt emotionally neglected and abandoned by his famous parents, often too busy with their own causes and interests to devote time to developing his coping skills.
Enter Luke Skywalker, who got the thankless task of tempering the boy and molding him into a devotee of the Light Side of the Force. When he briefly held the belief that perhaps the boy should be taken out of his misery, it was the ultimate betrayal for Ben; He had been referred to as a monster all his life, and had it confirmed by the last person he came to trust.
16 HAN SOLO HUNG OUT WITH DENGAR THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Remember the scene where Darth Vader stalks the bridge of his Star Destroyer, addressing a motley crew of bounty hunters intended to hunt down Han Solo and company? There’s a lizardman, an insect guy, a robot, Boba Fett, and Dengar. Dengar looks a little worse for wear, with almost his entire head bandaged up. What could possibly have roughed him up so much, if not last minute cosmetic surgery?
It turns out Dengar was racing swoopbikes with Han Solo on Corellia, where they were both born. During a race, Han brought his swoopbike down on Dengar’s, before gunning it in front of his face. Well, the swoop’s exhaust melted Dengar’s head, and the fins got locked together, causing him to get thrown from his bike right onto a crystal plant that pierced his brain. Understandably, he has a grudge against the hotshot racer.
15 HAN’S GOLDEN DICE WERE USED TO WIN THE MILLENNIUM FALCON
Recently in The Last Jedi, when Luke Force-projected himself on Crait to take on his unhinged nephew and the First Order, he also projected a pair of golden dice. At first it seemed like a curious bit of astral trolling; Kylo Ren comes upon the dice once inside the old Alliance base, and they disappear in his hand. The dice are in fact significant for two reasons, making the burn even more righteous.
First, these were the same dice that Han used in the epic game of sabacc that he played against Lando Calrissian to win the Millennium Falcon. Second, Kylo Ren played with them all the time as a boy, learning of his father’s galactic adventures. Han dangled them from the roof of the Falcon’s cockpit, and they can be seen in several shots of A New Hope if you look for them.
14 BEN SOLO WAS PROUD OF HIS FATHER’S LEGACY
Who wouldn’t be stoked to have Han Solo as your dad? Space pirate, Imperial deserter, smuggler, and freedom fighter, Han Solo has one of the most colorful and infamous character histories in the Star Wars saga. Ben loved to hear the stories of his father’s glory days, especially those involving him depicted as a war hero.
As Ben grew up, the war hero stories got usurped by the smuggling and criminal stories, and the man he had built his father up to be didn’t live up to his expectations. He put his father on a pedestal as a daring military pilot, not as a roguish space pirate. Nevertheless, his love of his father didn’t curdle until he shirked his paternal responsibilities onto his brother-in-law Luke Skywalker. Shocking absolutely no one, the famous Jedi failed to live up to Ben’s expectations too.
13 HAN SOLO HAD A SECRET FIRST WIFE
A rogue like Han Solo would no doubt leave a girl in every port, but would he be the marrying kind? In the events of Star Wars #12, before his wedding to Princess Leia Organa, he was allegedly married to Sana Starros, a fellow smuggler. Their “wedding” came about as part of a con, when a robbery required that they pose as husband and wife.
Sana maintained that their marriage was authentic. She picked up his trail in Tatooine, tracing his ship from Mos Eisley where he had picked up Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but didn’t catch up with him until after the Battle of Yavin when he was aboard a stolen Imperial shuttle with Princess Leia. Sana and Leia’s confrontation went as you can imagine, with Leia being less than impressed even when Han denied the union.
12 LEIA ALMOST MARRIED SOMEONE BEFORE HAN
At a certain point in Leia Organa’s life, her prestigious heritage decreed that when it came time for her to marry, duty called. Darth Vader, the Emperor, and the Death Star may be destroyed, but the threat of the Empire is omnipresent, and restoring the New Republic is only a lofty dream a this point. To make it a reality, the Rebel Alliance will need to make some powerful friends.
Enter the Hapes Consortium, a system full of affluent and tech-heavy worlds ready and willing to help the Alliance. That is, if Princess Leia weds the reigning monarch’s son, the hunky Prince Isolder. Han was so threatened by the royal stud that he kidnapped Leia and took her to the remote planet Dathomir to convince her to call off the wedding.
11 HAN SOLO KNOWS HOW TO WIELD A LIGHTSABER
Han Solo famously mocked Obi-Wan Kenobi’s description of both the lightsaber and the power of the Force, declaring neither was match “for a good blaster at your side”. He ate his words later on, when he was forced to pick up a lightsaber in order to slice open a Taun-Taun and stuff a frozen Luke Skywalker in it. While that may have been his first use of a lightsaber, it wouldn’t be his last, as the blaster-toting smuggler has come to use it at different times since that memorable occasion on Hoth.
In recent Star Wars comics, a rescue mission involving Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie see them fighting in an underground gladiator pit. While they all reach for available weapons, Han gets a -- you guessed it -- lightsaber, and uses it impressively well in the ensuing battle royale.
10 LEIA HAS THE ABILITY TO CLOAK HER FORCE POWERS
Before her brother Luke Skywalker was getting all the notoriety for being the Jedi who would restore the Jedi Order, Leia was, unbeknownst to her, exhibiting several latent Force abilities. Had her true calling not been to lead the Rebel Alliance, The Resistance, and to sew the seeds of the next Galactic Republic, she might have been a powerful Jedi herself.
In the original trilogy she exhibited the ability to prevent a Sith Lord from interrogating her, detected her brother’s presence, and was able to momentarily link minds with him. Before all of that, when she was an 18-year old Senator being presented before Palpatine, she was able to successfully shield her true heritage as a Skywalker from both Darth Vader and the Emperor. They had no idea she was Luke Skywalker’s twin or had any Force abilities whatsoever.
9 BEN SOLO WAS A LITTLE SNOB
If you grow up with parents known from one side of the galaxy to the other, you might grow up thinking you’re better than everyone else. Your mother is Leia Organa Solo, a member of a distinguished aristocratic family on Alderaan but also secretly the daughter of Darth Vader, who grew up to be a courageous leader of the Rebel Alliance. Your father is Han Solo, a smuggler turned freedom fighter who rose through the ranks of the Rebel Alliance and becoming a daring war hero along the way.
In the novelization of The Last Jedi, we learn that Ben grew up bragging about his family and his lineage. This could have been a defense mechanism since the causes and pursuits of his famous parents often took them away from him, leaving him in the care of wards and his Uncle Luke.
8 LEIA ALMOST FELL TO THE DARK SIDE
What would happen if Luke Skywalker accepted Darth Vader’s proposal of becoming his apprentice? If he let the Emperor use him as a pawn of the Dark Side to further the Empire’s iron rule of the galaxy? In the series of graphic novels entitled Dark Empire, these questions are explored. Luke believes he can hurt the Empire most from within, so he allows himself to assume the role of Vader’s apprentice, but soon the Dark Side begins to take hold of his mind and can no longer discern his reality or pretense.
Only Leia, his twin sister and ally in the Light Side of the Force, can come to his aid and persuade him to remember his commitment to peace and justice. He attempts to lure her to the Emperor’s side as well, and though she almost relents, proves strong enough to pull him from the brink of the abyss.
7 HAN SOLO WAS BORN DIRT POOR
Legend goes that Han Solo was found wandering the streets of Corellia as a dirty, poor orphan with no memory of how he came into such pitiable circumstances. It was once C-3PO’s task to research Han’s birthright before he could wed Princess Leia, of the noble House of Organa, at the time only allowed to be wed to a suitor of an aristocratic lineage. It surfaced that Han may very well be a descendent of Berethron e Solo, the monarch that ruled Corellia during the Golden Era of the Old Republic.
Though Berethron’s rule was just and fair, the descendants of the House of Solo were said to have squandered their fortunes, leaving Han’s father a destitute con artist and drifter. Young Han soon fell in with space pirates who -- in a Dickensian move -- used children to run their hustles.
6 BEN SOLO WAS BORN THE DAY THE GALACTIC WAR ENDED
Ben Solo was born a year following the Battle of Endor, when the iron rule of the Empire would be crushed, the Emperor and Darth Vader killed, and peace and justice restored to the galaxy. Though the civil war that had gripped the galaxy had finally ended, official politics stilled called for a meeting between representatives of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance to sign a peace treaty.
The very same day the accord was struck, Ben Solo was born, heralding a symbolic rebirth of the New Republic with the child of its staunchest believer. Leia and Han were elated, believing that their son would be able to grow up in a far less turbulent world than they had. Little did they know the darkness that was to come, and how much he would be a part of it.