CHEWBACCA

Chewie cracks our top ten, but is still owed a medal

There’s a Tradition in football that, should their team reach and win the World Cup, all footballers in the first team squad will receive a winner’s medal. regardless of whether or not they actually play in the match. if Chewbacca ever hears of this tradition, he could be forgiven for letting out a typically pained Wookiee howl.

Because Chewbacca didn’t get a medal for his part in the destruction of the first death star. and, if we’re extending the football metaphor to breaking point, he not only got on the pitch, but he came up with the most important assist of them all.

Towards the end of A New Hope, Luke asks han to join in with the rebel assault on the death star just outside yavin iv. han, keen to get back to Tatooine to repay his debt to Jabba The hutt, swerves the request and decides to leave before things get too fiery. and, as he loads his reward into the Millennium falcon, Chewbacca — his great friend and co-pilot — fixes him with an admonishing look and an imploring growl. “i know what i’m doing,” says han, less than convincingly.

The next time we see han and Chewie is when they swing dramatically back into the fray, shoot darth Vader from behind (steady), and give Luke the freedom to blow up the death star. We’ve never been privy to what made han change his mind. But there’s a very good chance that it was all Chewbacca’s doing. That, from the second they leave yavin iv, the Wookiee relentlessly hectors han into doing a volte face. That he shames his friend into embracing heroism for once in his miserable smuggler’s life.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Chewie is there, large as life and twice as smelly, when the falcon sends Vader spinning into space. and despite playing an incontrovertible part in the rebel victory, he still doesn’t get a medal. all while his best mate gets one. han’s silence, his complicity in this horrendous oversight, is not just deafening. it’s damning. There’s a very real case to be made that, without Chewbacca’s passive-aggressive persuasion of han, Luke wouldn’t have blown up the death star, the rebels would have been destroyed on yavin iv, and the empire would have won the day without breaking a sweat. Therefore, it’s not that big of a leap to suggest the mighty Chewbacca is the single most important character in the entire Star Wars saga. so, acknowledge his status, and give him a bloody medal, you space-bastards.