Han + Leia

The Princess and the Pauper

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This page will be updated as I can. This page is currently a place-holder for much more to come so keep checking back.

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Han and Leia's relationship throughout the movies:

Consider this your spoiler warning

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Star Wars(:)
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith



Leia is born on Polis Massa to Padme Amidala Skywalker who dies shortly thereafter. Having her original surname [Amidala Skywalker] swept away for her own safety she is soon adopted by Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan and his wife and becomes the princess of Alderaan.

Han would have been a little boy at this point. According to George Lucas I believe he was actually supposed to have been raised on Kashyyk by the Wookiees but I'm not sure if he [Lucas] still holds to this.

There was actually some discussion of Han having a guest appearance as a little boy on-screen in Episode III but the script became so complex so quickly that the scene was never written or cast. This would support the fact that Han was supposed to have lived on Kashyyk as a child.

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Star Wars
Episode IV: A New Hope

[It was supposed to have this title all along. At first Fox wouldn't allow it.]

Leia (Amidala Skywalker) Organa (age 17)
Han Solo (age 28?)

When Luke agrees to leave Tatooine with Obi-Wan after Owen and Beru's respetive deaths at the hands of the Storm Troopers (remember the Clones? Yeah, that's them) they go to Mos Eisley to secure a transport seeing as Obi-Wan seems to have hidden out on Tatooine for about seventeen years since the events of Episode III. They meet Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot and friend Chewbacca in a Cantina there. Obi-Wan secures transport for a ridiculous price, probably realizing that he won't ever have to pay it.

When "fate" leads them to the Death Star and they are pulled in they lure two Storm Troopers up into the Millenium Falcon and Han and Luke steal their uniforms and manage to get up to the control room along with Obi-Wan and Chewbacca. Obi-Wan leaves them there, in essense to go confront Darth Vader.

Han doesn't like sitting around and waiting for the old man to come back and becomes restless. R2-D2 (who is still with C-3PO, in spite of them having been mind wiped since the events of two decades ago) is carrying a message from Princess Leia of Alderaan which was to Obi-Wan. When R2 is fooling around with the circuits trying to find something he finds that Leia is in fact there in a holding cell, awaiting execution.

Luke, having seen Leia through the hologram message, instantly developed a connection with her. Whether it was infatuation or not is up for debate considering at this point a love triangle developing between Han, Luke and Leia is expected and canon. Luke, ever chivilrous, courageous and action-oriented decides that they cannot just sit there and do nothing. (Much like his mother in many ways, in my opinion. Notice the parallel between this and when Padme decides to go help Obi-Wan in Ep. II).  Han protests in spite of the fact that he had just finished saying that he didn't want to sit there and do nothing. Han, ever running from law, has no intention of walking into any kind of detention center willingly. Somehow Luke convinces him and they re-don their Storm Tropper helmets and take Chewbacca down to the holding cell, pretending that he is cuffed. 3PO and R2 stay behind in the control room.

When Han, Luke and Chewbacca reach the detention center they have to kill and incapacitate several Imperial Officers and manage to rouse suspicion. Luke quickly goes to free Leia and once she's out of the holding cell the ellaborate plan is "don't get caught or killed", more or less.

Leia and Han argue from the moment they begin speaking to one another. Han tends to "sweetly" talk down to Leia, calling her "Your Worship", "Princess", and "sweetheart" often. Leia, in spite of being very short (5'1, the Webmistress's height... go short people) doesn't take much lip off the smuggler though.

When Leia makes all of them jump down a garbage chute (not knowin what it was) to evade the Trooper's fire they end up in a trash compactor. A creature that lives in the compactor grabs Luke and nearly drowns him until it lets go and disappears. The trash compactor then immediately whirs to life and the walls begin closing in on the four "unlikely heroes" of this particular Star Wars saga.

When Luke manages to contact 3PO and R2, R2-D2 manages to shut down the trash compactor just in time. At this point Han and Leia hug one another, thrilled to not be flat, dead, or both.

Obi-Wan and Darth Vader face off once again. Vader seems to only have the arrogance of Anakin Skywalker left, and not much else of the person he used to be. Especially in A New Hope, Vader is very much a shadow of his former self. Obi-Wan and Vader fight but their light saber techniques are slow and languid compared to the spectacular battles we see in Episodes I-III. Vader and Obi-Wan, have, in fact, grown old. Obi-Wan actually allows Vader to kill him and he disappears. Obi-Wan's vanishing into thin air when receiving a fatal blow is explained by one of the final points of Episode III. Obi-Wan then becomes something like Luke's "spirit guide", having merged more fully with The Force which he had only begun to teach Luke about.

Luke, Han, Leia and the two droids are forced to leave in spite of the fact that Luke's mentor had just sacrificed himself. They escape in the Millenium Falcon, just barely. Leia comforts Luke about his friend's death.

The sparks (and not the "good" kind) continue to fly between Han and Leia whose ideals, backgrounds and nearly everything else constantly clash. They become friends but it seems they do it almost begrudgingly.

To make this particular long story short we'll skip toward the end of the movie. When they are joined with the larger part of the Rebel Alliance Luke immediately joins them. By that time Leia and Luke both had hoped that Han would stay and join their cause- to defeat the Empire. Han, however, has determined that he couldn't stay even if he wanted to considering his considerable debt to Jabba the Hutt of Tatooine.

Luke and the other Rebel pilots attack the Death Star, aiming with missiles and a slightly-too-vulnerably-placed spot on the ship that would basically render the giant space station useless, if hit. Luke manages to, but only after Han comes back in The Falcon and defends him from Darth Vader's personal assault via ship. Only two of the official Rebel pilots that were involved survive the Death Star attack but it was still a phenominal victory for the Alliance.

Luke, Leia and Han all hug, celebrating. At this point there seems to be a kind of tension between both Luke and Leia and Han and Leia (of very different kinds) but there's not much indicator as to which makes more sense. As far as their personalities being compatible Luke and Leia would have been a much more reasonable pair but as well all know that wasn't to be.

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Star Wars:
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back



Several years (my guess would be about four) have passed since the near-destruction of the Death Star and the Rebel Base has been moved to the ice planet of Hoth. The Empire has isolated the planet as being the most likely place for the Rebels to be and sends down probe droids.

Han is planning to leave, to finally repay Jabba the Hutt. Leia tries to convince him not to go without even admitting that she cares about him at all personally and this angers him. We're not told why or how the tension between them has built to the point of near boiling but a lot can happen in a few years. Han tries to lure her into admitting the feelings he believes she has for him but Leia, whether at this point she had them or not, was having none of it.

Luke goes missing before Han can leave and Han goes out to look for him. Night falls and Han and Luke are still gone and missing out in the blistering cold of Hoth. Leia, Chewbacca and even R2 and 3PO are obviously worried but the base is forced to close its doors. The next day they send out a search party and Han and Luke are found. Luke is very cold and has been injured by the Star Wars version of the Abominable Snowman. He is taken back to the base and is treated as brought back to health quickly. Han continues to stay for Luke's sake.

When the group go to visit Luke once he is awake enough to converse Han and Leia still manage to argue with one another. Leia, in an audascious move, gives Luke a slightly prolonged, rather deep kiss right in front of Han and leaves the room. Luke is very pleased by this and seems to have an "I told you so" sort of aura toward Han but Han barely acknowleges it.

While Luke was unconscious he is told by "Ben"- Obi-Wan to go to a planetary system called Degobah to meet the last remaining Jedi Master, Master Yoda. When the Rebels are forced to flee Hoth after a battle with the Empire Luke obliges Ben and goes to Degobah. There he is trained as a Jedi. One of the major developments of character throughtout his training is that he finds that Darth Vader is in fact his worst fear, as well as a fear of becoming Darth Vader, perhaps subconsciously seeing some of the mysterious Darth Vader's traits within himself. Meanwhile Han and Leia share their first interrupted kiss onboard the Millenium Falcon.

Han, Leia, Chewbacca and the droids end up going to Cloud City to flee the Empire, among other things. Han believes that his former friend Lando Calrissian will help them. Lando immediately begins flirting with Leia and she is polite but doesn't seem interested. Han still manages to be jealous.

Leia changes clothes while in Cloud City and for the first time shows some of the regal and romantic elegance she inherited from her mother. Han seems to like the fact that she dresses like a girl and there was a line in there- "You should dress like a girl all the time"- that for one reason or another didn't really seem to work.

They soon discover Lando's betrayal when they find Darth Vader there. They have no choice but to follow suit and do as the Empire says for now... Han is lead to a carbon freezing chamber where things are encased in carbon for incubated, solid transport. It was never meant to put a living person in but Vader decides to test the freezing chamber on Han and if he lives he will know that it is safe to use on Luke, whom the Emperor wants to join the Empire desperately and Vader has become obsessed with finding (I think because he had found out at that point that Luke was his son, if I'm wrong please tell me).

Leia confesses her love for Han before they drop him into the chamber and he replies that he "knows" but they share a kiss that shows that he loves her too. Chewbacca tries to defend Han but Han tells him to calm down and makes him promise to take care of Leia the way he took care of him. He is dropped into the chamber and encased in carbonite. When he is found to be alive Darth Vader surrenders him to Boba Fett, the bountyhunter, to return him to Jabba the Hutt.

Lando sees his deal with the Empire spinning out of control and as soon as he gets an opprotunity tries to help Leia and Chewbacca (3PO is with them, R2 with Luke) get Han back but they don't manage to reach Slave 1 (Boba's ship) in time. Cloud City is soon returned to Calrissian's control once Luke arrives.

Luke had left Degobah before completeing his training, against Yoda's urging, because he sensed that Han and Leia were suffering. When he arrives on Cloud City he faces off against Darth Vader. Vader eventually corners him and his hand is severed and his hand and lightsaber fall down into the chasm of the shaft below. (A parallel to when Anakin's hand was severed by Count Dooku). Vader tries to convince Anakin to join him and reveals to him something shocking.... that Darth Vader... is Luke Skywalker's father. (We all know this due to all the millions of Luke-I-Am-Your-Father quips but at the time not even James Earl Jones believed it to be true.) Luke refuses to believe it and to escape Vader allows himself to fall down the shaft. For some reason that I don't think even Luke knew, he begins mentally pleading with Leia to come rescue him, seeing as he is hanging from the bottom of Cloud City with only one hand. Leia, who is now in a ship with Lando, the droids and Chewbacca, senses that Luke is in danger and has them turn around and they go to save Luke.

Luke is fitted for a prosthetic hand and mulls over in his consciousness whether Darth Vader could possibly be his father. He doesn't believe it at first because Obi-Wan had explained what happened to him this way: That Anakin was a great Jedi and a good friend to him. And that his pupil-Darth Vader- had been seduced by the Dark Side and betrayed the Order, himself, and in the end murdered Anakin. Which in a sense was true considering Jedi believe in a somewhat relative form of reality.

Back to Han and Leia... though they had both confessed their love for one another it was yet unclear at the end of Ep. V if that would ever turn out to mean much of anything...

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Star Wars:
Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi


(Two years or so after V)

The two droids are sent to Jabba the Hutt's on Tatooine with a message from Luke for Jabba. In the message Jabba is informed that Luke presents him with the two droids as a gift. Luke has come up with a plan to try to secure Han's release. Leia, disguised as a bounty hunter, later leads Chewbacca in in chains, demanding the ransome money. Jabba tries to swindle her but she holds out a bomb and Jabba comes to "terms" with her. All seems to go well and Leia manages to go and free Han from his carbonite encasement and he is alive but has been in hibernation for so long that he cannot see (it is temporary). He is very relieved to find that it is Leia who has rescued him and it seems that they might escape until Jabba discovers them. Han is imprinsoned again and Leia becomes Jabba's slave.

A short time later Luke comes to rescue his friends (Lando was around there somewhere but I'm writing this at four in the morning and need to refresh my memory). He tries to bargain with Jabba but Jabba won't have it and drops Luke into the pit with a ravenous monster for sport. Luke escapes the beast, only to be caught again. Jabba, infuriated, decides that Han, Chewbacca and Luke will call be executed for this offense. He takes them to a flesh eating pit creature that appears to be a mass of tentacles, that he has 3PO, his new translator, tell them will digest them slowly over a thousand years.  Jabba and his friends treat it all like a party and Leia miserably sits there in her slave girl costume, Jabba the Hutt holding her on something like a leash.

Luke warns Jabba to let them go or die and Jabba finds this laughable. Then Luke is pushed off the "plank" which he was supposed to jump off of to his death. He grabs the plank and flips himself back up and Han, still partially blinded (now seeing a light blur instead of a dark one) and Chewbacca are freed by a disguised Lando Calrissian.

A fight ensues and Leia chokes Jabba to death with her chain. Leia is rescued and everyone escapes from Jabba's.

Later they rejoin the Rebel Alliance. The Alliance is bigger but has found out that the Empire is in the final stages of rebuilding the Death Star and that they must act soon or the Empire will continue its reign of terror for years to come. The eventually come up with a plan. The Death Star is using a shield generator based on a moon called Endor (moon of Yavin was it?). The decide that they must send ground troops down to knock out the shield generator whilst they try to sneak up on the Death Star and bombard it.

Luke, Leia, Han and a few others end up down on Endor. Leia gets seperated from the others during a trist with the Storm Troopers and she happens upon an Ewok. After he learns to trust her he takes her back to his village. The immediately accept her as an almost royal person (fitting since she was a princess before they blew her planet up).

Luke, Han, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca are captured in one of the Ewok's traps. At first they are treated as invaders until they see C-3PO and for no apparent reason believe 3PO to be a god.

At that point they take all of them to their village and Chewbacca and Luke are put in wooden cages and Han is decided to be sacrificed to 3PO. Luke, with C-3PO's help manages to put a stop to do and Leia gets them free by asking nicely.

That night Luke asks to speak to Leia privately. He reveals to her something he had just found out recently, that Darth Vader was in fact his father...and that she was his twin sister. Leia seems quite in shock of all this but he says that he must tell her because he knows that he might die but that he must go and confront Vader and that if he does die that she is the only one strong enough with The Force that knows about it that can do anything. He then tells her that he must leave, that his presense is putting them all in danger. She protests but Luke goes anyway.

Han asks her why she can talk to Luke but not to him, and not knowing the "family secret" seems perterbed and jealous but she can't bring herself to try to argue the point and just asks him to hold her and he does.

Luke goes and turns himself in to the Storm Troopers and is taken up to the Death Star. Luke and Darth Vader have a long conversation on their way to the Emperor. Luke tries to bring out what is left of his father, the one that Obi-Wan told him about. When he mentions the name Anakin, Darth Vader, all too quickly for it to be true in my opinion, says that that name means nothing to him anymore. (Fangirl side note: I miss my Anakin! Ok..well he wasn't mine but yeah.. back to what I was saying) Luke is essentially told by Darth Vader and the Emperor that he either turn to the Dark Side or die. He is then forced to watch much of the Rebel fleet get plowed down from a distance outside the window. Luke's anger begins to swell up and finally he does swing his lightsaber at the unarmed Emperor. They were trying to ellicit anger in him and it was starting to work, but Luke had the benefit of seeing what havoc giving in to your dark primal instincts gave rise to so he forced himself to exercise self control. Darth Vader and he fight, Luke all the while trying to make Vader understand that he will not try to kill him and that he will never turn to the Dark Side. Vader, through knowing Luke's feelings, discovers that Luke has a sister and threatens her... that if Luke will not turn that perhaps she will.

Fearing for his sister's safety and well-being his fear turns to perhaps a righteous wrath, but a deep anger none the less and he starts to fall right into the trap the Emperor and Vader had set for him. Eventually he realizes what he is doing and stops, knowing deep down that his father will not kill him. One thing leads to another and the Emperor begins torturing Luke nearly to death with Force Lightening, showing him that there is "no way the good can win". To show him that the Dark is a better and superior way. Luke does not try to fight anything but the pain and pleads with his father, "help me".

Though this article is supposed to be about Han and Leia I will continue on with my talking about Darth Vader and Luke's encounter at this point because it ties back in to what I think about Anakin/Padme.

At first it seems that Vader is calloused but slowly you begin to see him perhaps mulling it over. (His lack of facial expression makes it hard to know). I think that seeing his son in such deadly pain, it being so real and right there before his eyes, at the hands of the Emperor... Darth Sidious.... Palpatine... perhaps melted the stone and ice he'd placed over who he truly was. The good in himself that at one time had so outweighed the bad. In my mind, if I put myself in Vader's shoes (erm.... leg support thingies...)  I can just imagine voices from the past reverberating through his long frozen memory...

Padme crying out for help in his nightmares, "Anakin, help me..."

Hearing his son crying out "Father, help me..."

Seeing Palpatine, the person he once believed to be good, just as he believed himself to be, torturing his son without real cause.

Remembering Obi-Wan, some twenty-five years ago disappointedly screaming "You were the Chosen One."

Perhaps for the first time realizing what tragedy he and his arrogance had caused.

And so he turns on the Emperor, saving his son... Padme's son... from certain death, receiving what would prove to be fatal injury on his already frail body. But finally, after knowing that he was the Chosen One for more than thirty years, fulfils his purpose. He destroys the Emperor, and his own anger, hate and fear.  I am of the opinion that the prophesy that spoke of "The Chosen One" wasn't so much talking about him bringing a balance to the Force as a whole directly. I believe what really happened was that Anakin Skywalker was the only person to ever truly balance the Dark Side and the Good... and to finally come to a place where he truly understood the Force's purpose for his existance. In death Darth Vader.... Anakin Skywalker... finally found a peace that he'd spent his whole life trying desperately to find and hold onto. His mistake was holding too tightly. Only in laying eyes on his son, truly as himself for the first time, and then learning to love... and let go... did he ever find the peace that he'd been searching for all his life, and then, he died.

Now back to Han/Leia.

During the final battle that was playing out on Endor Leia is scathed by a blast from one of the Storm Trooper's guns. She sits down against the doorway since they were trying to get into the bunker to shut off the shield generator anyway and Han kneels down in front of her to make sure she was all right. A Storm Trooper comes up behind him with a gun trained straight on his back and he is frightened but Leia reveals that she still has her gun subtly and Han says "I love you" in a quite thankful way. She smiles a bit sarcastically at him perhaps and says "I know", micmicking him from before. They win the battle at long last and the shield generator is destroyed and just as Luke escapes, so is the Death Star, once and for all.

Han is beginning to suspect that Leia may have feelings for Luke, greater than her feelings for him and shows his willingness to "take himself out of the running" so to speak. But she explains to him that it isn't like that at all and that Luke is her brother and that she loves Han. The Ewoks hold a celebration of their victory and Luke returns and Han and Leia seem happy together and for the time all is well in the galaxy.

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Notes:


I've never had the opprotunity to see the original theatrical releases but I am of the opinion that even though the guy who orignally played Anakin when you see Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda's freed spirits present, did a good job. However, I think that after the prequals were made that there was nothing wrong with putting Hayden Christensen there instead because it showed Anakin more accurately as what he was when he "died". The Anakin Skywalker that was "good" was dying slowly from the time he began down the path of darkness and was truly all but dead when Padme died.


In the celebration of freedom it shows several scenes of various places all over the galaxy celebrating freedom and you even see what I think was the main street of Theed (capital of Naboo) and hear the Gungan cry, "Wesa free!"  I just thought that it was interesting.

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