Part of what has made the Star Wars saga endure over the decades is that, beneath its exotic sci-fi trappings (dazzling weaponry, grotesque alien species), it deals with recognizable human emotions and problems. At its core, this is the story of a very flawed and troubled family and how these folks go out of their way to hurt one another. These are just people, after all, burdened with the same faults and foibles as anybody else. Sometimes, however, the humanity of Star Wars can get lost amid all the pyrotechnics and lightsaber duels.
Luckily, Twitter is there to keep the franchise grounded. Specifically, an account called Dad Joke Han Solo explores the corny paternal side of Harrison Ford’s too-cool-for-school ex-smuggler. As The Force Awakens reveals, Han [spoiler!] became a father sometime after Return Of The Jedi. And, as is typical of this series, this turned out to have terrible, world-destroying, life-ruining consequences. For one thing, it turned him into a total dork, the kind who makes jokes like this one:
Or this:
Or even:
And even though Han once made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, it doesn’t mean he knows how to navigate all this newfangled technology the kids today are using.
So there it is. Once the baddest badass at the Mos Eisley cantina, Han Solo is now somebody’s clueless dad, and he still insists on embarrassing his son by referring to him as “Ben” instead of “Kylo Ren.” Reading through these tweets, you can almost imagine Han thinking of these jokes as he waited in the Millennium Falcon in the parking lot outside the Jedi elementary school his son must have attended.