Han Solo Star Wars: Who He Is, Who Plays Him and What Happens to Him

Han Solo is a smuggler and starship pilot in Star Wars, played by Harrison Ford in four films and by Alden Ehrenreich in Solo: A Star Wars Story. He is hired in Star Wars (1977), directed by George Lucas, to carry Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi away from Tatooine, and he flies the Millennium Falcon, the ship that defines him. His copilot Chewbacca travels with him throughout.

He is credited as Han Solo in every film. The only other name he carries is the surname Solo, which the Imperial Navy gives him in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Two actors play him. Harrison Ford is credited as Han Solo in Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980, directed by Irvin Kershner), Return of the Jedi (1983, directed by Richard Marquand) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, directed by J.J. Abrams). Ford is billed second behind Mark Hamill in the original trilogy, and sixth in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Alden Ehrenreich plays the younger Han in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), directed by Ron Howard, and he is billed first in that cast. Woody Harrelson plays Tobias Beckett, the smuggler who recruits him in that film.

How did Harrison Ford get the role of Han Solo? The film credits do not say how he was cast, and no audition story is documented for the 1977 production. What the credits do show is the result: he is billed second in Star Wars (1977) and is credited in the role again in 1980, 1983 and 2015.

Where does he sit on the timeline? Solo is the earliest of his five films in story order, the original trilogy follows, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens is set thirty years after the Empire fell. Han's age is not given in any of the films' credits. For newcomers, the Star Wars movies in order guide shows where each of these films falls.

Han Solo's story runs from an orphan on Corellia in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) to his death in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and the five films were released in a different order from the one in which they tell it. In release order he is a finished smuggler first and a young one last, so his backstory arrives forty-one years after his debut.

In story order, Han and Qi'ra are young orphans on the industrial world Corellia, working for a criminal gang. They try to flee on a transport, but Qi'ra is caught at the checkpoint and Han escapes alone. He joins the Imperial Navy and is given the surname Solo, is expelled from flight academy, and ends up as an infantryman on Mimban. There Tobias Beckett, played by Woody Harrelson, has him thrown into a pit with a Wookiee named Chewbacca, and Han talks Chewbacca into working with him. The crew fails to steal coaxium on Vandor-1 when Enfys Nest and the Cloud Riders hijack it, so Han proposes stealing raw coaxium from the mines of Kessel to repay the crime boss Dryden Vos. He wins the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian in a card game, and flies it through the Kessel Run to escape an Imperial blockade. The film ends with Han winning the Falcon back from Lando and setting course for Tatooine.

In Star Wars (1977), the Han who is hired on Tatooine is a finished smuggler who takes the job for money. He helps Luke and Chewbacca rescue Leia from a cell on the Death Star, leaves the others in the climax, and comes back at the last moment to send Vader's fighter spinning away. Leia honors both Han and Luke with medals.

The Empire Strikes Back moves him from rescuer to rescued. He finds Luke nearly frozen on Hoth, then flees in the Falcon with a damaged hyperdrive through an asteroid field. At Cloud City his old friend Lando is forced to hand the group to Darth Vader, who uses Han to test freezing a person in carbonite. Boba Fett takes the frozen Han to Jabba the Hutt. Return of the Jedi opens with the rescue from Jabba's palace, and Han then leads the strike team with Leia on the forest moon of Endor, where the Ewoks help them.

The Force Awakens finds him again as the Falcon's owner. Rey and Finn escape Jakku in the Falcon and are found by Han and Chewbacca, who take them to Maz Kanata's cantina. Han and Chewbacca later join Finn in the infiltration of the First Order's base, and Han confronts his son there.

One structural point matters for anyone sorting the films. Solo gives the Falcon an origin story, but the original trilogy never depends on it: Star Wars (1977) introduces the ship without explanation, and the Solo events only fit around that. The result is a character whose arc is clearest when each film is read in its own order of release and then rearranged by chronology.

Han Solo's defining relationships are with Chewbacca, his copilot, and Leia Organa, whom he helps rescue in Star Wars (1977) and who mourns him after Kylo Ren kills him in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Chewbacca is Han's closest companion, from their meeting on Mimban in Solo: A Star Wars Story to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The two are hired together by Luke and Obi-Wan in Star Wars (1977), and the Wookiee has his own profile.

Han and Leia are the relationship the original trilogy builds across three films. Han and Chewbacca rescue Leia alongside Luke in Star Wars (1977), and Leia honors both men with medals at its close. In Return of the Jedi, Han and Leia lead the strike team on Endor. By Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Han and Leia's son, Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, has become a dark warrior for the First Order, and he kills his father. Leia mourns Han alongside Rey near the end of the film, which matches his fate below.

Luke Skywalker is the young farm boy Han agrees to fly to safety, and Han repays that trust by coming back at the last moment over the Death Star. The Empire Strikes Back reverses the favor: Han reaches Luke on Hoth before the cold kills him.

Lando Calrissian runs through Han's history in both directions, and the Millennium Falcon is the thread. Han wins the ship from Lando in a card game in Solo and wins it back in a rematch. In The Empire Strikes Back, Lando hands Han to Vader on Cloud City before helping Leia and Chewbacca escape. The same friendship therefore starts as a gamble and ends as a betrayal and a repair.

Qi'ra, played by Emilia Clarke, is Han's friend from Corellia. She is caught at the checkpoint when he escapes, becomes Dryden Vos's lieutenant, and kills Vos in Solo. Tobias Beckett, played by Woody Harrelson, is the smuggler whose crew Han joins, and later the man Han shoots after Beckett double-crosses Vos. Boba Fett carries the frozen Han to Jabba.

Compared with Han and Chewbacca, whose bond is established in a pit on Mimban and never breaks across the films, the other ties each end in a loss or a reversal: Qi'ra is left behind, Beckett is shot, Lando betrays him, and his son kills him.

Han Solo is killed by his son Kylo Ren with a lightsaber in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). He goes with Chewbacca and Finn into the First Order's planet destroying base to lower its shields and rescue Rey, and there he confronts Kylo Ren, who is revealed as the child of Han and Leia. Kylo kills his father.

The Resistance pilots, led by Poe Dameron, then blow up the base. Leia mourns Han alongside Rey near the end of the film. Han's death does not end the Falcon's story: Rey, Chewbacca and R2-D2 fly on to find Luke.

Han has been in mortal danger earlier. In The Empire Strikes Back he is frozen in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett, and he is freed from Jabba's palace at the start of Return of the Jedi. His death in 2015 is therefore the only one of his departures that he does not return from.

Han Solo's age is not given in the films' credits. Solo: A Star Wars Story is set before his death and ends with him alive, heading to Tatooine.

Han Solo's best moments, in opinion, are his return over the Death Star in Star Wars (1977), the carbonite freezing in The Empire Strikes Back and the Kessel Run in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Each marks a different stage of the character, and each looks different when set beside the others.

The return over the Death Star is the clearest case. Luke is on his trench run with Vader hunting the rebel pilots, and Han arrives at the last moment and sends Vader's fighter spinning away. Star Wars (1977) cost $11 million and opened in 32 theaters, with no premiere. The scene shows the small scale of the production: a smuggler is given one moment to choose the Rebellion, and the film spends no extra time explaining why.

The carbonite scene in The Empire Strikes Back is the series' answer to that choice. Vader uses Han as a test subject for freezing a person in carbonite, and Han is given to Boba Fett to deliver to Jabba the Hutt. The Hoth scenes before it were shot at Finse, where principal photography began on March 5, 1979 in harsh conditions and avalanches, and that cold carries into the later film's mood. Compared with Return of the Jedi, which restores Han within its opening act, the sequel leaves him frozen for the whole of the middle and ending, which is why the film closes on a rescue pledge.

The Kessel Run in Solo is the one best moment Han has with the Falcon as a new ship. After L3-37 starts a slave revolt on Kessel and is destroyed, Han flies the Falcon through the Kessel Run to escape an Imperial blockade. The film was directed by Ron Howard after Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's departure, announced on June 20, 2017, and it was shot at Fuerteventura, Pinewood, the Dolomites and Fawley Power Station. It earned $393 million worldwide on a $275 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.