Han's heavy blaster pistol

Description

The heavy blaster pistol wielded by Han Solo stood out as a significantly customized variant of the standard DL-44 model produced by BlasTech Industries. Like all DL-44s, Solo's blaster provided exceptional firepower without sacrificing precision, a key factor in its suitability for a smuggler. Its adaptability also allowed Solo to implement several personalized modifications, including the eventual removal of the motion-sensitive barrel scope. This adjustment was made both to facilitate quicker draws from his holster, thereby improving reaction time, and due to Solo's confidence in his natural marksmanship. Even as he aged, Solo's speed in drawing his weapon remained remarkable.

The DL-44's capacitor could charge laser bolts at twice the standard power output without causing overheating. The pistol also featured a cooling unit located beneath the firing barrel, a necessary component given the DL-44's susceptibility to rapid overheating. Across the galaxy, the DL-44 was renowned for its power, with plasma bolts capable of penetrating the armor worn by Imperial stormtroopers.

Solo's heavy blaster also had a grip that provided a consistent hold and emitted a subtle pulse to alert the user when the weapon's energy was running low. The power cell sat close to the hair-trigger, and a detachable macroscope was positioned above the firing barrel. The grip was brown in color, while the blaster's body and barrel were primarily black and silver.

History

Origins

As a young human orphan, Han Solo turned to life as a street thief. His experiences eventually led him to the Imperial Academy, where he hoped to become a pilot. After being dismissed from the Imperial Flight Academy, he became an infantryman. During the Mimban Campaign, Corporal Solo met Tobias Beckett, an experienced smuggler. Seeing an opportunity to leave the Empire, Han defected and joined Beckett's crew. Immediately following his defection, Beckett welcomed Solo as a partner and armed the previously unarmed Han with a DL-44 heavy blaster pistol from BlasTech Industries. This DL-44, originally configured as a rifle stolen from the Imperial outpost on Mimban, was modified by Tobias. He removed the rifle attachments, including the attachable stock, disassembled the D3x macroscope, and removed the longer barrel that allowed for precise long-range shots. These modifications made it more suitable for the fast-paced situations smugglers encounter. This weapon became Han's preferred sidearm, and he carried it with him at all times.

Smuggler's sidearm

Solo's smuggling career took a turn for the worse when he was forced to jettison illegal cargo belonging to the notorious gangster Jabba the Hutt after the Galactic Empire boarded his starship, the Millennium Falcon. This incident left the smuggler in debt to the crime kingpin, who placed a bounty of 224,190 credits on his head. When Greedo, a Rodian bounty hunter, attempted to claim the bounty in Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina on Tatooine, Solo used his DL-44 to kill him after Greedo's shot missed.

Shortly thereafter, Solo agreed to provide transport to Alderaan for Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Master in hiding, and Luke Skywalker, who were on a secret mission. The agreed upon payout was 17,000 credits. Solo used his blaster during their escape from Tatooine and, reluctantly, assisted in the rescue of Princess Leia Organa from the Death Star battle station. During the rescue he used his heavy blaster pistol to steal armor from unsuspecting Imperial stormtroopers. Temporarily disguised as a Stormtrooper soldier, he used the standard-issue E-11 medium blaster rifle instead of his DL-44 for the remainder of the escape.

Alliance weapon

After the Battle of Yavin, where Solo helped destroy the Death Star superweapon, he became a celebrated and respected member of the Rebel Alliance. In 3 ABY, while patrolling the frozen planet of Hoth, the location of the Alliance's Echo Base, Solo and his longtime friend Chewbacca encountered an Imperial probe droid. To prevent the probe droid from revealing the location of the Rebel base, Solo fired his DL-44 at the droid, but it self-destructed before his blaster could inflict any damage. This alerted the Empire to the Alliance's presence, forcing Echo Base to evacuate.

During the subsequent Battle of Hoth, the Millennium Falcon escaped, but its hyperdrive was damaged. This forced Solo to seek refuge from pursuing Imperial TIE Fighters and Star Destroyers within an asteroid field. Solo concealed the light freighter inside an asteroid cavern, where he used his heavy blaster pistol to clear mynocks from the Falcon's hull. He then realized that the Falcon was inside the mouth of a giant space slug after the creature reacted to the plasma bolts from his DL-44. Solo and the Falcon escaped the asteroid field and their Imperial pursuers, but Boba Fett secretly tracked them.

Fett's tracking gave the Empire an advantage, leading them to Bespin, where Solo intended to repair the Falcon. A trap was set, and when Darth Vader, a Sith Lord and Imperial enforcer, arrived, he coerced Lando Calrissian, Solo's friend, into cooperating against him. Solo attempted to shoot down the dark lord on Cloud City with his heavy blaster pistol, but Vader effortlessly deflected the bolts telekinetically using the Force. Vader then used his Force powers to take Solo's DL-44. Shortly after, Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and taken by Fett to collect Jabba the Hutt's bounty. Solo's blaster ended up with his rebel allies after their escape from Cloud City.

In 4 ABY, Luke Skywalker, now a Jedi, along with Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian, rescued Solo from Jabba's Palace, effectively ending Solo's debt to the crime lord when the Hutt was killed. Solo, promoted to the rank of Rebel Alliance General, volunteered for the mission to the Endor moon to disable the shield generator protecting the Empire's second Death Star. His DL-44 was returned to him before the mission, but the Ewoks of Bright Tree Village captured Solo and his companions and took it again. After befriending the species, Solo had his weapon returned and met up with the Rebel Alliance Special Forces to continue their mission.

During the Battle of Endor, Solo used his heavy blaster pistol against the Imperial forces to infiltrate the Death Star's deflector shield bunker. After the Alliance won, Solo rounded up the defeated Imperials at gunpoint with his DL-44 and destroyed the bunker with explosive charges. After the Death Star's destruction, Solo reunited with his companions and celebrated the end of the dark times.

Upended retirement

Following the Galactic Civil War, Han Solo and Leia Organa married and had a son named Ben. Solo retired for a time and became a successful racing pilot, abandoning smuggling. However, his son was corrupted by the dark side and destroyed Luke Skywalker's new generation of Jedi. Skywalker went into exile, and Solo returned to smuggling with Chewbacca. After the Millennium Falcon was stolen by Gannis Ducain, Solo piloted the heavy freighter Eravana. Along with his DL-44, Solo carried a LPA NN-14 blaster pistol and an EL-16 blaster rifle as backup. Despite newer models being available, Solo preferred his DL-44.

Final conflicts and destruction

Thirty years after the Battle of Endor, a conflict began between the First Order, born from the Empire's ideals, and the Resistance, led by Leia Organa. Solo stayed out of the rising tensions between the New Republic and the First Order, focusing on his smuggling business. However, when the scavenger Rey and First Order defector Finn came across the stolen Millennium Falcon during their escape from Jakku, Solo's Eravana captured the Falcon, drawing him into the Resistance conflict. Inspecting the Falcon with his DL-44, Solo found Rey and Finn, along with the Resistance astromech droid BB-8.

Realizing they weren't a threat and learning BB-8 carried a map to Luke Skywalker's hidden location, Solo helped them when the Guavian Death Gang and Kanjiklub boarded the Eravana. The gangs wanted Solo to return their 50,000 credit investments from his rathtar smuggling operation, but attempted to capture Finn, Rey, and BB-8 when they realized BB-8 was the droid the First Order was hunting. Solo only used Chewbacca's bowcaster during their escape from his heavy freighter, when the Wookiee was injured.

The escape aboard the Millennium Falcon led Solo and the group to Takodana, where Solo sought the help of Maz Kanata, a pirate, to return BB-8 to the Resistance. There, he gave Rey his secondary sidearm, the NN-14 blaster pistol. Kanata refused to help and told Solo he had been avoiding the conflict for too long. Soon after, the First Order located the group and launched an assault on Takodana Castle, forcing Solo to use his DL-44 against the attacking First Order stormtroopers. Solo gunned down numerous stormtroopers during the battle. Having been impressed with Chewbacca's bowcaster previously, Solo borrowed it again during the skirmish. Solo's blaster was temporarily taken by stormtroopers, before the Resistance Starfighter Corps overwhelmed the First Order legions and allowed Solo to retrieve it.

Solo used his blaster pistol for the last time on the First Order's Starkiller Base, a superweapon hosted on an ice-planet that dwarfed the Death Star. Believing the superweapon could be destroyed, Solo volunteered to help Finn take down Starkiller's deflector shield and rescue Rey, who had been abducted on Takodana. After getting the Falcon through Starkiller Base's shields at lightspeed, Solo, Finn, and Chewbacca infiltrated the base and blasted their way through numerous stormtroopers. Solo used his DL-44 extensively, until the trio located Rey and made their way back to the Falcon. However, as the Resistance was suffering casualties in the battle above, Solo realized he had to cripple the Starkiller Base thermal oscillator.

After infiltrating Starkiller Base again, Solo used his heavy blaster pistol to reach the superweapon's thermal oscillator. Once there, Solo and Chewbacca placed explosive charges throughout the structure, controlled by a remote detonator, and planned to escape. However, Solo's son, Kylo Ren, was nearby, seeking to apprehend them. Seeing Ren, Solo holstered his weapon and approached his son, seeking to fulfill his promise to Organa on the D'Qar Resistance base to bring their son home. However, Ren, seeking to fully commit himself to the dark side and the Supreme Leader Snoke, murdered his father by impaling him with his lightsaber. Solo died and fell into the depths of Starkiller Base with his DL-44. When the Resistance destroyed Starkiller Base, the planet collapsed into itself and turned into a star, destroying everything, including Han Solo's remains and his blaster.

Behind the scenes

Development

The first appearance of Han's heavy blaster pistol was in the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. It subsequently appeared with Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. Since the establishment of the Lucasfilm Story Group canon in 2014, the blaster has also been featured in various publications, including comic books from Marvel Comics. It also appeared in the novelizations of the Star Wars films it was featured in, including A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy, The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to Be a Jedi?, Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens: A Junior Novel. The Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens novel Smuggler's Run: A Han Solo & Chewbacca Adventure also features the heavy blaster pistol.

The weapon was featured in the 2015 video game Star Wars Battlefront by EA DICE, in which Han Solo is a playable hero. In Battlefront, the heavy blaster features "Rapid Fire" and "Lucky Shot" abilities that allow the player to engage in both long and short ranged combat when using Solo's character. The reference books Ultimate Star Wars, Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary all contain detailed information on Han Solo and his heavy blaster pistol. Ultimate Star Wars identifies the weapon as "Han Solo's modified DL-44 heavy blaster pistol," while The Visual Dictionary identifies it as "Han's heavy blaster pistol."

When creating the blasters and weapons of Star Wars, George Lucas wanted to avoid the conventional rayguns used in many science fiction films. Lucas designed blasters based on real-world weapons, including many from World War II. Han's DL-44 was built by combining weapons, including an antique Mauser pistol and a modified barrel from the MG 81 machine gun, and detailed with "greeblies" to give it a unique look. Roger Christian helped Lucas create the weapons of Star Wars, including Han's heavy blaster pistol.

"Han shot first"

The phrase "Han shot first" refers to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene between Han Solo and Greedo in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, where both characters fire their blasters, but Greedo misses and is killed by Solo. It is a frequently debated topic among Star Wars fans about who fired first. The discussions began after the release of The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, in which changes were made by George Lucas to the original trilogy, including the cantina scene. In the original release, Solo preemptively fired his DL-44 and killed Greedo before the Rodian, who had been holding Solo at gunpoint, could fire. Lucas stated that the changes were made to avoid portraying Solo as a "cold-blooded killer" and to clarify who shot first. When asked about the subject, Harrison Ford, who played Han Solo, stated, "I don't know and I don't care."