Why is Leia only a ....

[Morpheus 02]

Why is Leia Organa only a General? I mean both Han & Lando were generals in RotJ, and a younger Obi Wan was a General in the clone wars.

Shouldn't she have been at least an Admiral, if not Supreme Commander?

 

[DarKush]

It's just one of those things left unanswered. It makes me wonder if Leia actually held a post in the New Republic (Head of State perhaps?) but stepped down and eventually became a general for the Resistance. There's a lot that was left unexplained about the post-ROTJ galactic political situation. I can understand the need to not get bogged down in political discussions in film like this, and perhaps to avoid comparisons to TPM and the prequels-but I wish there had been a bit more explanation. Perhaps more set up in the opening crawl.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why is Leia Organa only a General? I mean both Han & Lando were generals in RotJ, and a younger Obi Wan was a General in the clone wars.

Shouldn't she have been at least an Admiral, if not Supreme Commander?

Admiral and General are basically the same rank. Maybe there is someone else above her in the Resistance which is why she isn't "Supreme Commander." Or, given she's apparently dropped her Princess title, maybe she's trying to craft herself as a "(wo)man of the people" and chose General since it represents authority but doesn't set her on too high a pedestal.

 

[AviTrek]

Why is Leia Organa only a General? I mean both Han & Lando were generals in RotJ, and a younger Obi Wan was a General in the clone wars.

Shouldn't she have been at least an Admiral, if not Supreme Commander?

Admiral and General are the same level. Admiral = highest rank in the navy and General = highest rank in the army.

But the whole military structure is kind of flaky in Star Wars. Why are Han and Lando suddenly generals in ROTJ. Why is a rookie pilot with no X-Wing experience given a key ship in ANH for that matter too.

Either way, Star Wars seems to use General as generic senior leadership. She may be the highest ranking officer, or she may just be an important person.

 

[DonIago]

Why is a rookie pilot with no X-Wing experience given a key ship in ANH for that matter too.

I assumed they were desperate for every pilot they could get.

 

[Chaos Descending]

"Only a General" is a comment that doesn't make any sense.

General is as high as you can possibly go in most armies.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

The Resistance is Leia's privar army & navy.

 

[Ithekro]

Princess, Senator, General.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

"General Leia" sounds more like a life choice than a title, thankfully they went for "General Organa".

 

[Jedi_Master]

Star Wars doesn't spend a lot of time delving into rank and titles. If you are in charge of some mission or troops or are just an important person you get the "General" tag.

 

[Ithekro]

This is the universe with elected queens.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The other candidates on the ballot must have died, been very unpopular or been eliminated for corruption or other misdemeanour. There's also obviously a very low age limit as she was supposedly 14 when she came to power. Perhaps the electorate thought they were voting for the most outrageous fashion sense?

 

[Tom]

Her conversation with Han implied that she was something else and they both went back to their olds ways. Han a smuggler and Leia a resistance leader.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

This is the universe with elected queens.

We have those in our universe too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy

 

[Morpheus 02]

i can't multi quote right now, but let me answer some of the points raised.
- biggs darklighter is luke's friend since childhood (according to novels, his scenes were clipped in the movie). he vouche for luke being a good pilot. being a recruited companion of obi wan kenobi helped as well. also, it might not be publicl known that anakin turned, and may have been presumed dead for Luke and Leia's sake

- admirl and general are the same rank in OUR military. but in star wars,they mix them, with commander,major and captain in the mix. but admiral ackbar has clear authority over the mission. han and lando have separate responibilities

- naboo's elected queen system seems to be unique to the human naboo society.

 

[Ithekro]

I would gather that Imperial propaganda would have had Anakin Skywalker killed at the end of the Clone Wars. I don't even know if they would have given him a heroes death or said he tried to defend Palpatine, or even if they wanted him to seem like the last loyal Jedi who died for the Republic/Empire as oppose to those other traitors the heroic clones killed off for the good of the people.

I doubt they would even give a backstory to Vader other than he saved the Emperor from the Jedi treachery.

The Resistance is all Leia's.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Why is a rookie pilot with no X-Wing experience given a key ship in ANH for that matter too.

That was because Biggs vouched for him.

 

[Ithekro]

That and they had a fighter to fill.

 

[T'Girl]

Currently there are only 20 Generals in the US military.

9 Air Force.
7 Army.
4 Marine Corp.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm not that knowledgeable about Star Wars ranks, but could it be that there are levels of Generals with matching labels? Even the highest general is still called "general" for the sake of simplicity.

As well, is Leia the type to try and pull rank because of her royalty? ANH Leia, certainly, but in ESB and ROTJ, she didn't have that attitude; indeed, in ROTJ, she was following orders. So is there a chance that even though she's a princess, she's still outranked in the military?