Wes Janson

Warning: This infobox has missing parameters: parents, pronouns, children, siblings, partners, families, feathers and unrecognized parameters: era

"Good shot, Janson!"

―Wedge Antilles, to Wes Janson during the Battle of Hoth^[src]

Wes Janson was a human male pilot from Taanab^[1] who served in the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Galactic Civil War. Janson was to have flown in the Battle of Yavin as Red Six, but was grounded prior to the battle and replaced by Jek Porkins, who died in the conflict.^[3] Around 3 ABY, Lieutenant Janson participated in the Alliance's defense of their base in the Battle of Hoth, serving as a gunner for Wedge Antilles, who was piloting a T-47 airspeeder in Rogue Squadron.^[2]

During the battle, he was the first member of Rogue Squadron to successfully take down an Imperial walker with the harpoon and tow cable gambit devised by Commander Luke Skywalker.^[2]

Following the battle, Janson boarded an X-wing starfighter and, along with Antilles, went on to escort the transport, the Bright Hope, away from Hoth.^[1]

Behind the scenes

"I play a stormtrooper, in a walker, who's trying to shoot down my own bloody plane."

―Ian Liston, the actor who portrays Janson, on The Empire Strikes Back^[src]

Wes Janson was portrayed by Ian Liston in The Empire Strikes Back, in which he was credited only as "Janson (Wedges’s Gunner)”. During filming of The Empire Strikes Back, a call was put out for an actor, not an extra, to play an AT-AT gunner. That was Liston's original role in the film, but he was later asked by an assistant director with whom Liston had previously worked to take the role of Janson since the original actor had fallen ill. Thus he ironically played both an Imperial and a Rebel, and in one sequence of the film is in effect trying to shoot himself down.^[4] Regarding his scenes as Janson with Wedge Antilles, Liston revealed in 2005 that he and actor Denis Lawson were never actually on set together—Liston's double took his place when the scene focused on Lawson (Antilles) and vice versa.^[5]