Han Solo may be the most famous and beloved character in the Star Wars pantheon, which is why it makes sense that he was the first one elected to get his own standalone movie.

Growing up, he was everyone’s favorite character-- he was a hero who didn’t seem to care that he was a hero, who never seemed interested in the bigger picture but instead lived for the moment. This is a guy with a lot of charm and a lot of ego, but who also has proven to show a whole lot of heart as well.

Since his reintroduction and tragic end in The Force Awakens, fans have been mourning the loss of the beloved character.

With his absence hanging over The Last Jedi, it makes perfect sense to finally grant the hero with his own standalone prequel in Solo: A Star Wars Story. It’s hard to imagine a world without Han Solo and fans still aren’t quite ready to see that, so the prospect of going back to the beginning is more enticing than ever.

However, there are a lot of different facets to Solo as a character. There are some things about him that are fairly contradictory, but being such a mess of contradictions is a large part of what makes the character so relatable.

Han Solo starts out as a criminal with a heart of gold and becomes a hero with a decidedly selfish edge.

He’s got strengths and weaknesses that only the truest of fans might be aware of, but all of those things go into making him one of the most legendary heroes the Star Wars universe has ever known.

With that said, here are the 8 Powers Only True Star Wars Fans Know Han Solo Has (And 7 Weaknesses).

15. Power: Speaks Multiple Languages Fluently 

This is probably one of the things that people most take for granted about Han Solo, but it’s also one of the most important elements of the character.

Without this ability, Han would not even be able to talk to his best buddy, Chewie. The fact that he can understand Chewbacca even though he cannot physically speak the language is impressive.

Chewbacca, of course, also understands him in kind. The communication between the two of them is unique and goes beyond the basics of what people might think of when they think of language.

Han also has been demonstrated to speak many other alien languages, especially the language of the Hutts and Jabba in particular.

One of the few connective subplots between each movie in the original trilogy is the fact that Han owes Jabba the Hutt a great deal of money. There was a deal that went wrong, Han got in over his head and thought that he could talk his way out of it.

Being able to talk his way out of things is key for Han Solo.

It’s a crucial part of the job, as a smuggler, pirate, and sometimes con man, so Solo has to have the skill to be able to talk his way out of any situation—or at least attempt to, by being able to speak the native language of any creature he might be trying to broker a deal with.

14. Weakness: His Ego

More than anything else, the one thing that has gotten Solo in the most trouble over the years is his assuredness that he can handle any situation.

His reputation often precedes him— although not in A New Hope, in which he is actually offended that Obi-Wan hasn’t heard of him— and because of that, he tends to think that he’s a pretty big deal.

That’s the mindset Han always seems to have when he gets himself in over his head. Most of the time, he appears to be confident that he can talk or charm his way out of any situation.

In actuality, though, Han’s attempts to appeal to his own ego often make things worse.

Usually, it’s the people around him who make sure that Han is able to survive so many of the dangerous situations he gets himself into. This is also one of the things that makes Han’s friendship with Chewbacca so important.

For Han, Chewie isn’t just a best friend and first mate, he’s also something of a body guard. Chewie looks out for Han in a way that Han desperately needs even if he would probably never admit it. That’s why their chemistry works so well.

13. Power: One of the Best Pilots in the Galaxy

This might be one of the things that Han brags about most often, but it truly is deserved.

The Millennium Falcon is and will always be the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Han has flown through some extremely dangerous things and come out on top. Some of his earlier adventures look like a cake walk compared to his later days spent out-flying the Empire.

In his first appearance back in the original movie, Han proved this reputation by flying the Falcon away from a fully-armed and stocked Death Star after he and the others made such a daring escape.

In The Empire Strikes Back, in what still might be the best example of Han’s skills as a pilot, he navigates the Falcon through an asteroid field that causes any Tie Fighters on their tail to crash, and even once he accidentally lands inside a hungry creature, Han manages to fly out before the thing can chomp down on them.

Of course, moments like these also depend on the strength of a good co-pilot. Without a doubt, Han’s a stellar pilot on his own, but it works best when he has Chewie there to back him up.

Chewbacca manages to take all of Han’s best strengths and elevate them that much more.

12. Weakness: More Than A Little Greedy

Han Solo might have a lot going for him, but one thing that especially got him into trouble early on was his greed.

Han’s arc in the original Star Wars has everything to do with the fact that he’s only out for himself, he’s only in it for the money. The reward for saving the Princess is the selling point for him.

By the end of the movie, he proves that there’s more to him than just that— but that doesn’t negate just how money-driven Han was up to that point.

Especially with the context of Solo now in place, Han has already been a thief, smuggler, and professional scoundrel for years before the events of the original movie.

That greed has defined him for a long time and by all accounts, it’s actually something he takes pride in.

He can be selfless, of course, and has saved the day more than once, but there are plenty of things Han has been known to do just because the price was right.

Even The Force Awakens reveals that after Han and Leia split up, he left the burgeoning Resistance to go back to the life that he had always known. He became a smuggler again and got up to the same old tricks because the prospect of money has always been too good for Han to pass up.

11. Power: Great at Strategic Thinking

One of the most exciting things about Han as a character is that his background and his place in the Rebellion seem totally at odds with one another, yet they can compliment each other in truly interesting ways.

Being a smuggler and often finding himself in the crosshairs of crime bosses and general low lives, Han has had to figure out how to think himself out of any situation over the years. Some times a plan goes bad, and it requires a new plan to be thought up on the spot.

Most Rebellion officials aren’t trained to think that way and so Han becomes a valuable asset to a team that must have been at least a little hesitant to have him around at first.

However, Han has demonstrated time and again that he can think outside the box and problem solve on the spot when the sitatuation calls for it. He’s actually great under pressure, more often than not.

Han can problem solve in a way that most of the trained Rebellion soldiers and pilots cannot. Even though it’s surprising on one level that a man like him would become a General, it does make some degree of sense at the same time.

10. Weakness: Not As Charming As He Thinks He Is

While it’s true that Han and Leia did eventually wind up together, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.

It took a long time for Leia to see past the ego, greed ,and the cocky attitude before eventually seeing the good-hearted hero who he actually proved himself to be.

However, his attempts to woo her— or aggressively insist that she had feelings for him— never came off as much of anything but obnoxious at the time. That’s part of what gets Han into trouble so often.

It’s the same principle as his ego. There are some situations when Han tends to think pretty highly of himself.

It doesn’t just extend to women, either, or anything romantic. Han thinks he’s one of the most charming, good-looking guys in the galaxy and therefore tries to act as such. He’s always left baffled and confused when it never really goes his way.

Han simply can’t charm everyone, though. Leia eventually warmed up to him because of how genuinely sweet he thought he was being and how sure of himself he was, but more often than not, his total belief in his unwavering likability has gotten him into all kinds of trouble.

It was even a dig at his ego that convinced him to fly Obi-Wan and Luke to Alderaan in the first place.

9. Power: Gifted At Hand-to-Hand Combat

Born and raised in a completely different environment than Luke or Leia, Han Solo has had to train himself for any number of situations.

While he’s maintained a mostly positive attitude, he’s had it pretty rough.

Han is a brawler. If a situation gets out of control, as they almost always do, it’s important that he knows how to handle himself in a fight. This is especially important if he gets separated from his blaster or anything else he can use to take aim at his enemies.

Han’s a great shooter, as evidenced by his encounter with Greedo in A New Hope. However, a guy like him has to be able to fight in close quarters as well.

This is a skill that he doesn’t get to demonstrate all that much. Instead, it’s something that he only falls back on in extreme situations, but when he needs to fight, he has no problem doing so.

Han’s more than capable of throwing a well placed punch.

In Return of the Jedi, Han even manages to put up a pretty good physical fight when he can’t even see, accidentally hitting Boba Fett in the process and sending the bounty hunter screaming in the Sarlacc Pit.

Much of that can be chalked up to luck, but the fact that Han is able to handle himself on that Skiff still proves to be pretty impressive.

8. Weakness: His Conscience

Obviously Han Solo is a great hero and a terrific fighter in both the Rebellion and the Resistance.

A conscience and a sense of morality are incredibly important to serving a higher purpose and fighting against an oppressive galactic force. However, Han was a smuggler and a career criminal for a long time before he got caught up in the Galactic Civil War.

For a criminal, a conscience is not all that often a good thing, at least if it’s as heroic as Han’s has proven to be.

Most jobs would require those things to be left at the door, and much of Han’s dealings have been with the criminal underworld and even occasionally the Empire before he signed up with the Rebellion. He just went where the money was.

His moral center hinders Han as a smuggler, but it is the very thing that ultimately proves that he was destined for something more than that life.

It’s what allows Han to grow on to become a true legend, a war hero, and a figure who the Resistance looks up to in everything it does in its continuing struggle against the First Order. Han was too good a person to ever make a living as a villain, so he became a hero instead.

7. Power: A Master Thief

Han Solo still couldn’t have gotten to where he was in his career by the time A New Hope starts if it hadn’t been for just how good he proved himself to be as a smuggler.

Han has a knack for knowing what to do, what to say, and how to best manipulate the situation in order to take something that doesn’t belong to him. It might not be noble, but it’s something that he is very good at and it is what makes him such a legendary smuggler in the first place.

Han takes some incredibly expensive things in his early years as a smuggler before ultimately taking a different path, one that he appears to reject in A New Hope, but had truthfully begun just before that.

When the audience is introduced to Han in that movie, he is in deep with Jabba the Hutt because of a shipment that Han failed to deliver. However, that loss was actually the result of Han’s decision-- he lost it on purpose so that it would not fall into Jabba’s hands.

A degree of skill in this area actually comes in handy for the Rebellion and the Resistance, as military operations often require a degree of espionage that high level thieves would be intimately familiar with.

It’s a talent that Han has demonstrated over and over again.

6. Weakness: Too Much of a Ladies’ Man

Although his adventure to rescue the Princess does introduce Han to his eventual wife, he’s still the kind of person who would let his attempts to woo a girl dictate an entire situation.

Han has shown to be way more invested in something if he’s invested in a particular girl who’s going to be there.

He goes through so much of The Empire Strikes Back just to continue to be close to Leia. At the beginning of the movie, Han is set on leaving to return to Tatooine to pay off Jabba the Hutt.

However, he decides to stay after the attack because Leia makes a point of saying that they could need a leader like him moving forward. Han, of course, tries to push it further and make Leia admit that she wants him to stay because of her own feelings.

So much of what Han does during the events of Empire are dictated by his love of Leia.

This issue goes back to the past, as well, with the recent Marvel comics series introducing a wife for Solo that none of his newfound friends had ever even known about.

With Leia, though, it appears as though Han finally made the decision to settle down.

Even though they had been split for years before the events of The Force Awakens, that deep bond between them is still made immediately clear the moment they lock eyes with one another.

5. Power: Skilled Marksman 

Shooting is probably the most well-defined and practical talent that Han Solo has. He is an incredible shot, especially when compared to the aim of the Imperial Stormtroopers.

Han takes a shot at Greedo in his very first scene, and this scene has gone on to become one of the most legendary moments in cinema history.

Knowing how and when to shoot is the one skill that Han has never really faltered at in any of his appearances.

It’s something that proves to be quite useful to Han as a pilot as well. There are several times when he’ll either find a break in the piloting of the craft to fire at approaching ships or even hand the controls over to Chewie so that he can take over the targeting system himself.

Han’s skill as both a pilot and a marksman have gotten both his friends and himself out of almost assured destruction again and again.

This is also the one talent of Han’s that nobody ever seems to argue with him over. Some people have debated being a better pilot, many point out that he’s not as charming as he usually thinks he is, but almost no one ever argues with Han over his skill with a blaster.

4. Weakness: Not Always Great At Thinking On His Feet

A smuggler needs to be able to think their way out of any situation because deals almost always go south. However, things don’t always work out that way for Han.

Sometimes he tries to come up with a plan on the spot and it actually works, but there are plenty of other times during which his attempts to outthink a situation result in catastrophe.

There’s a perfect example of this in A New Hope, when Han and Luke infiltrate the control room dressed as Stormtroopers.

Up until that point, everything had been going fine, but as soon as they have to interact over the radio, Han freezes and stammers, ultimately making the situation much worse.

He’s a character with a quick wit, but it’s by no means a wit that presents itself in every situation.

It might be the most unfortunate thing about Han as a character-- the fact that while he has a knack for recognizing when a deal is getting worse all of the time, he’s not always great at turning that realization around and gaining the upper hand.

Things rarely turn out that way, but at the very least, Han seems to recognize this. For this reason, it’s smart that the character so often expects and plans for the worst.

3. Power: A Great Eye For Picking The Perfect Crew 

Han’s ability to surround himself with the right people might be the character’s most important strength. It might even be the thing that makes him most memorable.

Han works best when he’s surrounded by other people to bounce off of. He’s great at overseeing a crew of people with their own inherent strengths, as well as recognizing those strengths and knowing when he’s met someone genuinely important.

These are things that Han recognizes immediately in both Luke and Leia. His skills with language are also incredibly useful in this capacity. Han can’t even pronounce the language of his best friend, Chewbacca, but that doesn’t impact their friendship at all.

Knowing which people to attach himself to and recognizing a good thing when he has it is what keeps Han alive through the Galactic Civil War. It’s also telling, in that respect, that his untimely end in Force Awakens comes after Han has distanced himself from those same friends for many years.

With Solo now in theaters, it’s clear that this skill for picking the right people, for recognizing the characters who will help him in and out of any given situation, is something that will be clearly on display in the new prequel.

2. Weakness: Not Good With Diplomacy

It should be a no-brainer to say that Han Solo is not great at diplomacy, but the statement is still very true. It’s worth listing, because Han is a leader in the Rebellion, and diplomacy should be one of the only things he thinks about, but it just isn’t, at least most of the time.

Han’s not great at handling things in the most civil manner. Even when he tries to talk things out, they usually end in a fight.

This weakness is probably the only thing that keeps him from being one of the major figureheads of the Rebellion.

At the same time, it’s the thing that separates him from his love, Leia. These two characters work together, for the most part, because of their differences. Leia is as perfectly diplomatic as Han is roguish and brash.

It’s in her blood-- it comes naturally to her in a way that it has clearly never done for him.

Han has even rolled his eyes at diplomacy from time to time, as the idea of fighting his way out of a situation is clearly what comes naturally to him, based on virtually everything that fans have seen over the course of movies, novels, comics, and games.

Diplomacy is something that Han learns over time, and even though he somewhat embraces it, it is definitely not within his nature to do so.

1. Power: Incredible Luck

Looking over all of Han Solo’s exploits on screen, especially the original trilogy, it definitely becomes clear that luck is his greatest superpower.

Han is, after all, a very contradictory character in the best and most exciting way. In a lot of situations, he comes across as both smart and dumb at the same time.

There are so many situations that Han has a bad feeling about, situations that turn south incredibly quickly, and that he probably shouldn’t survive. However, in the original trilogy, he survives every one of them.

The fact that Han manages to take Boba Fett— one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the galaxy— out on Jabba’s skiff while blind is a perfect testament to just how lucky Han Solo truly is.

It’s even luck, by and large, that allows the heroes to escape the Death Star, especially after their plan turns south.

Luck is always on Han’s side, and that’s best embodied by Han’s iconic line, “never tell me the odds.” In part, that’s said to shut up C-3PO while he’s trying to focus on piloting, but it’s also very true.

Han doesn’t consider the odds ever because in those early adventures, things almost always work out in his favor no matter what.

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Can you think of any other powers or weaknesses that Han Solo has in Star Wars? Sound off in the comments!