In The Empire Strikes Back, why does Han significantly outrank Luke?
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.
You are viewing a single comment
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!
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.