For the umpteenth time, fans are addressing a potential continuity issue in the Star Wars universe, this one concerning whether or not Han Solo knew that Yoda and Chewbacca were friends.
Redditor Movie_Advance_101 broached this topic in r/StarWars by writing, “Why is [sic] Yoda and Chewbacca besties? Does Han even know that?”
The Redditor also posted a gif of Yoda saying goodbye to Chewbacca and Tarfful in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
Given Yoda’s allyship with Chewbacca and other Wookiees during the Clone Wars, and the fact that Chewbacca helped save Yoda’s life and is partly responsible for his refuge in Dagobah, it is perplexing why Chewie neither alludes to knowing Yoda nor tells Han about the legendary Jedi master during the events of the original trilogy.
The thread is flooded with explanations, chief of which is that Han probably didn’t know who Yoda was, thus Chewie didn’t consider it relevant information.
Redditor aaronupright countered that he might have, since “he was a military officer and he went to the Academy for a while.”
Another user offered another rebuttal, giving us a pretty straightforward real example we can look to.
“Learning about an exiled Jedi in the Imperial Academy would be like trying to learn about Jewish authors in a Third Reich prep school.”
Touché.
Of course, the George Lucas blame train arrived at the station on time:
“It’s just super bad prequel writing really,” JohnnyReeko wrote in another of many Reddit threads about this exact topic.
“It makes no sense because Han Solo is all like ‘The force? that doesn’t exist’ or whatever and Chewbacca should be there like ‘I fought alongside Yoda, master of the Jedi like 19 years ago you fucking ignant asshole.'”
We doubt that’s exactly how Chewie would have said it, but we get the sentiment.