Desperate to escape, Han took the Falcon into an asteroid field, counting on his ship’s deflector shields and his own quick reflexes to get through the tumbling rocks unscathed. It might not have been his best decision -- asteroids hammered the freighter despite Han’s attempts to evade them. But the asteroids pounded the TIE fighters into dust, and Han hid the Falcon in a deep cavern.

As Imperial bombers sought to flush the Falcon out of hiding, Han and Chewie tried to get her hyperdrive working again. But their efforts were cut short by an unwelcome discovery – they weren’t in a cave, but the stomach of a massive space slug. The Falcon had to flee, rocketing away from the slug and finding herself once again under the Empire’s guns.

The Falcon emerged from the asteroid field with the Star Destroyer Avenger and her TIE fighters in hot pursuit, only to have her hyperdrive fail again. With her main rear deflector shield down, Han turned the ship around and attacked the Avenger. The seemingly suicidal gesture was actually a ruse – Han roared past the Star Destroyer’s bridge, cut his engines and attached the freighter to the giant warship before her technicians could pick the Falcon up on sensors. The Avenger’s captain concluded the freighter had escaped, and the Imperial task force dispersed, leaving the Falcon free to detach and float away. Unfortunately for Han, the bounty hunter Boba Fett was on his trail, and had anticipated the trick.

The Falcon limped to nearby Bespin, where Han sought help from Lando, now the administrator of Cloud City. His old smuggling compatriot ordered his technicians to repair the freighter, but didn’t reveal that Vader and Fett had arrived before Han, and were forcing Lando to betray him.

Vader handed Han over to Fett, but Lando was able to rescue Leia and Chewie from the Empire and escape with them and the droids aboard the Falcon. What Lando didn’t know was that the Empire had deactivated the Falcon’s hyperdrive. When Lando tried to escape into hyperspace, he fared no better than Han had. Fortunately, Cloud City’s main computer had informed Artoo of the Empire’s sabotage. Artoo reactivated the hyperdrive, saving his friends.

Han emerged from carbonite a changed man, dedicated to the rebel cause and determined to defeat the Empire. After Lando was given the tough assignment of leading the rebel assault on the second Death Star, Han urged his old friend to take the Falcon, noting that she was the fastest ship in the fleet. He was pleased when Lando agreed, though he couldn’t resist exacting a promise that Lando return the freighter without so much as a scratch.

At Endor the Falcon led the attack on the Death Star, with Lando and his co-pilot Nien Nunb coordinating their efforts with Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles. The rebel fleet found itself caught between a still-shielded Death Star and an Imperial task force, and Ackbar ordered a retreat. But Lando insisted they had to give Han more time, and moved to battle the Empire’s Star Destroyers. When Han finally brought down the Death Star’s protective shield, the Falcon raced into the battle station’s superstructure with Wedge’s X-wing right behind her.

The Falcon lost her main radar dish in a collision inside the cramped interior of the Death Star, but reached the battle station’s main reactor. Lando fired concussion missiles at the reactor, then streaked for the surface, reaching safety just as the reactor exploded, destroying the Emperor’s weapon. Lando let out a cry of glee – the Alliance had won.

Rey was familiar with the ships at Niima Outpost, but rarely gave much thought to the junk-pile freighter Unkar Plutt kept beneath a tarp. But when she, Finn, and BB-8 desperately needed a way off Jakku, the ship she’d dismissed as an old crate was the only method of escape.

To Rey’s surprise, the battered old freighter handled like a fighter. Pursued by First Order TIE fighters, Rey sought refuge in Jakku’s Graveyard of Ships while Finn manned the freighter’s guns. Rey could only hope her extensive knowledge of the terrain and the old wrecks would let her turn the tables on their pursuers.

Unkar’s old crate proved both fast and tough in combat, and Rey’s piloting skills and Finn’s talents as a gunner enabled them to escape the planet.

But years of substandard or nonexistent maintenance had left the freighter in poor condition. Rey immediately had to make repairs to prevent the propulsion tank from overflowing and filling the ship with poisonous gas.

Rey completed the repairs, but the freighter was seized by a massive craft’s tractor beam and drawn into the new arrival’s gaping forward hangar.

To Rey and Finn’s surprise, the freighter had been captured not by the First Order, but by her previous owners. Han Solo and Chewbacca were overjoyed to recover the Millennium Falcon, once again walking the corridors they’d called home.

Unfortunately, Han’s shady dealings had caught up with him. He and Chewbacca were forced to flee their bulk freighter after two separate underworld gangs boarded with scores to settle. They rocketed away from trouble in the Falcon, with Han telling Rey, Finn and BB-8 that they were headed for Takodana.

After battling the First Order on Takodana, Han piloted the Falcon to the Resistance base on D’Qar, where the freighter received some much-needed repairs and Han and Chewie agreed to lead a dangerous mission to infiltrate the First Order’s Starkiller Base.

A planetary shield protected Starkiller Base, but Han wasn’t concerned, explaining to Finn that he could take advantage of a flaw in shield design by making his landing approach at lightspeed. This insane idea actually worked. Or at least it mostly did – the Falcon made it through the shield and crash-landed in the snow.

Han died during the mission to sabotage Starkiller Base, but Chewbacca had no time for his sorrows – he had to get off the doomed planet with his friends. He got the Falcon flying and rescued Rey and a wounded Finn, then turned the freighter on her tail and raced for space.

BB-8 and R2-D2 managed to piece together the clues revealing where Luke Skywalker had gone. Finding the long-lost Jedi master was Rey’s mission, and she boarded the Falcon with Chewie and Artoo. To her happy surprise, Chewbacca indicated she should take the pilot’s seat that had been Han’s during countless adventures.

With the droids’ reassembled star map serving as a guide, the Falcon arrived at Ahch-To and set down on the sacred island where the Jedi Order had been founded.

While Rey took her next steps into the larger world of the Force, Chewie used the Falcon as home base, working to fix years’ worth of malfunctions that had accumulated since the last time the Wookiee was aboard.

One night Luke slipped aboard and found himself overwhelmed by memories: he’d been a teenaged farmboy when the Falcon blasted off from its docking bay on Tatooine, a journey that had plunged Luke into the middle of a galactic civil war and set him on a course to understand the true legacy of the Jedi.

When Rey left Ahch-To, she had a surprising destination in mind: she wanted to board the First Order flagship Supremacy in hopes of turning Kylo Ren from the dark side. She ejected from the freighter in an escape pod, with Chewbacca promising to pick her up after she concluded her mission.

Rey failed to turn Kylo back to the light, but escaped the Supremacy and rejoined Chewie aboard the Falcon. The freighter arrived in time to blast TIE fighters attacking the Resistance’s ski speeders, drawing the First Order hunters away and destroying them in Crait’s crystal canyons. The Falcon then served as an escape craft for the surviving Resistance soldiers.

Poe Dameron flew the Falcon on a dangerous mission to the Sinta Glacier Colony to recover intel leaked from inside the First Order. The freighter took a beating from pursuing TIE fighters, and a worse one after Poe escaped the TIEs by lightspeed skipping the craft between systems.

Rey fumed when she saw what Poe had done to Han Solo’s ship. Fortunately, Resistance techs were able to get the freighter’s systems up and running again – or at least more or less – for a crucial mission to Pasaana.

Unfortunately, the First Order was in hot pursuit. Its forces impounded the Falcon on Pasaana, towing it to the First Order Star Destroyer and ticketing it for incineration.

The Falcon got a stay of execution thanks to an unlikely savior – General Hux, who was plotting against his rival Kylo Ren. Poe and Finn rescued Chewbacca and fled aboard the Falcon, arriving in time to help Rey escape from Kylo above Kijimi.

The Falcon’s landing gear was damaged, and it acquired more than a few new dings and scrapes in a rough belly landing on Kef Bir. Hasty repairs were required before the freighter could return to the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss.

While the Resistance plotted a daring strike at Exegol and its Sith fleet, Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca took the Falcon on a mission to rally the galaxy’s citizens to oppose the reborn Emperor Palpatine. Their campaign worked, and the Falcon led a ragtag navy of craft, which arrived just in time to help turn the tide for the Resistance.