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So in these questions,

And what is on Wookieepedia

There is plenty of info on if a Parsec was a distance measurement or a time measurement.

But, I can't find anything on the actual time it took to do the Kessel run?

How long in minutes, hours, days or months did it take to do the Kessel run?

I am also assuming that time is basically the same medium in Star wars universe as our universe.

KyloRen
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  • Read the answers to those questions: it was a mistake by Lucas... they had to retcon that later. As I stated in this answer the speed of the Millenium Falcon and every other ship in the Star Wars universe is 1.0 SOP... Speed of Plot. – MichaelK Apr 28 '17 at 11:35
  • @MichaelKarnerfors, did the Millennium Falcon do the Kessel run? As it stands it did. So how long did it take? – KyloRen Apr 28 '17 at 11:38
  • There is no answer to that question because no-one, not even George Lucas, knows. Because he never specified that. Because it was not important to the story. – MichaelK Apr 28 '17 at 11:39
  • @MichaelKarnerfors, well don't tell me here, answer the question. – KyloRen Apr 28 '17 at 11:40
  • There is no answer to the question. Because no-one knows. – MichaelK Apr 28 '17 at 11:40
  • @MichaelKarnerfors, if I am not mistaken, what you are stating is considered an answer. All you have to do is state why it is an answer and back it up with a source. – KyloRen Apr 28 '17 at 11:42
  • I'm pretty sure an approx answer is in Crispen's Han Solo trilogy. Freebie for whoever wants to dig into and earn well deserved rep – DVK-on-Ahch-To May 01 '17 at 15:23
  • Obviously the time it took to complete the Kessel Run was 35000 meters. – ThePopMachine May 01 '17 at 16:19

2 Answers2

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No-one knows the answer to that question

George Lucas was only after making the statement that the Millennium Falcon is very fast, not how fast it is.

The mention of "Parsecs" is in all likely probability a mistake, with Lucas assuming that "Parsecs" had something to do with seconds, and "Par" being a prefix akin to kilo- or Mega-. It sounded cool, it had something to do with space, so he used it. Just like Douglas Adams's "fourty-two" or Nick Kershaw's "The Riddle" it had no actual meaning, it just sounded good for the time being and plugged up a verbal hole that needed to be filled, and any attempt to interpret those things as something substantial and meaningful is doomed to fail.

Later — as your linked answers suggest — they tried to fix this and make it less willy-nilly, probably because the nerdy and more physics savvy fans started to object. But it did not turn up any better, with embarrassing concepts such as "standard timeunits" or trying to say that it had something to do with skirting the rims of black holes and whatnot.

And when we start to look at other star ships in the Star Wars universe as well, then it becomes very obvious that they are all Travelling at The Speed of Plot.

As I stated in another answer, here is an example of that phenomenon:

the Empire has time to blow up a planet, make a dash to Dantooine, search the planet, find a rebel base, examine it close enough to conclude that "it has been deserted for some time", and then report back to the Death Star... all squeezed in between the time Obi-Wan "fear[s] something terrible has happened" and the Falcon arriving in the rubble-field that is formerly known as Alderaan.

So Lucas is not at all bothering with actual speeds and making the numbers come out right. Instead he uses the space version of Gandalf's Principle of Wizardly Timeliness:

A star ship is never late, nor is it early, it arrives precisely when the author means it to.

In conclusion: no-one knows how many hours, minutes and seconds the Millenium Falcon's Kessel Run actually took, not even George Lucas himself, because he was not interested in specifying it, since it was quite simply not at all important to the story.

MichaelK
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    Up vote from me. I was hoping there was some sort of time value to how long it took... – KyloRen Apr 28 '17 at 12:06
  • @KyloRen Well unless someone comes up with a source that I have missed you are also free to make this the Accepted Answer. But do hang on to that for a while and give others the chance to answer first. :) – MichaelK Apr 28 '17 at 12:07
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    The Kessel run is a hyperspace route, but those routes don't travel in straight lines. I've always thought that the Falcon's hyperspace generator and navigation computer were more advanced than they normally are due to Han's tinkering and as a result were able to calculate slightly more efficient warping of Hyperspace Tunnels. This meant that it would complete the run using a route less than 12 parsecs long, whereas other ships would use safer, slightly longer routes. – DisturbedNeo Apr 28 '17 at 12:41
  • I never understood why Lucas / Disney never explained it away like that. Seems better than "Oh, it's not really a unit of time? Oops." – DisturbedNeo Apr 28 '17 at 12:41
  • @DisturbedNeo Well if you want to accept it that way then you are of course free to do so. My own Suspension of Disbelief just shakes its head at that retconning and says "No. Just... no". – MichaelK Apr 28 '17 at 12:46
  • Well I don't think the Death Star itself went to Dantooine, Tarkin knew how to delegate a tiny bit. – IG_42 May 01 '17 at 15:24
  • @IG_42 Indeed and I am not discounting that. But... unless they had someone in the immediate neighbourhood that is quite a feat anyway in that constrained space of time. :) – MichaelK May 01 '17 at 15:27
  • I don't accept the claim anyone assumed that par- is a prefix akin to mega-. It doesn't sound like it because it lacks a vowel. I think that's your headcanon and essentially just an unsubstantiated claim. – ThePopMachine May 01 '17 at 16:25
  • @ThePopMachine It is speculation, I agree. But - being an adherent of Occam's Razor - it makes a whole lot more sense than that black holes malarkey. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity... – MichaelK May 01 '17 at 16:27
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    @MichaelKarnerfors, Occam's Razor says he assumed that a parsec is a unit of time and reasonable is that it relates to time because 'sec' is a common abbreviation of 'second'. The next level is the unbelievable part, which is making claims about the other part of the word. – ThePopMachine May 01 '17 at 16:31
  • @ThePopMachine I cannot be arsed to quarrel with you on such a petty detail. – MichaelK May 02 '17 at 05:49
  • @MichaelKarnerfors, yeah, fine. I would have let it go except that invoking Occam's Razor doesn't end a discussion unless your explanation actually is the simplest one. – ThePopMachine May 02 '17 at 14:38
9

Around 2 hours

Disclaimer: Some of this is using content from Legends because the finer details have not had as much coverage by Disney Canon. All sources are linked, and some are quoted.

The Millennium Falcon could do 1.5 "lightspeed" (Roughly 150,000 C).

Solo cited that the Falcon was capable of attaining 0.5 past lightspeed

Millennium Falcon | Wookieepedia

This was a result of tinkering with the Hyperdrive on the Falcon.

The Millennium Falcon could also make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs. This has been retconned as follows.

The Kessel Run is through the Maw. Event horizons around black holes are dependent on the speed at which you are traveling. A standard ship has to do the run in eighteen parsecs because to cut the route any closer, the ship would get sucked in. The Falcon, however, is fast enough to straighten the route and cut over six parsecs off the distance traveled.

Parsec | Wookieepedia

and

The Millennium Falcon's superior navigation computer allowed it to travel shorter distances between points and arrive faster.

Kessel Run | Wookieepedia

In Star Wars a parsec is equal to 3.26 light years. This means the Kessel run is usually 58.68 lightyears (18 parsecs). However Solo claims to have been able to cut a path only 39.12 light years (or 12 parsecs) from Kessel to an area south of the Si'Klaata Cluster.

So mathematically speaking, a ship that can move 150,000 times faster than the speed of light can travel 39.12 light years in 2 hours and 17 minutes. Obviously I'm working with artificially specific numbers for the sake of this answer, so this is a ballpark figure at best.


There is one discrepancy I am aware of (ignoring the unholy combination of Canon, Legends, and Retcon in this answer), and that is that the Millennium Falcon's Hyperdrive is twice as fast as a Class 1 Hyperdrive, yet only moves half again as fast as lightspeed. I don't have an answer to that. Especially since these contradictory statements are both canon.

amflare
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  • I don't know if it is right or not, but +1 for the effort – KyloRen May 01 '17 at 15:17
  • Where is the leap that "1.5 lightspeed" means 150,000 times the speed of light?? – ThePopMachine May 01 '17 at 16:29
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    @ThePopMachine - The lightspeed legends article says "Lightspeed was a slang term referring to the speed at which a starship traveled through hyperspace." and that " traveling through hyperspace with a class 1.0 hyperdrive motivator was actually over one hundred thousand times faster than the speed of light". So for the sake of math I set standard lightspeed at 100,000C and since Solo says the Falcon can do "0.5 past lightspeed" I set the Falcon at 150,000C. I grant that it could mean 100,000.5C, but I doubt it. – amflare May 01 '17 at 16:46