Han Solo gets his own trilogy

Han, Chewie, Lando and the Millennium Falcon are some of the most iconic characters from the Original Star Wars trilogy. Longtime fans of the Star Wars saga will remember reading about the adventures of the galaxy’s most notorious space pirate before he met up with Luke, Leia and Ben Kenobi through the character bios and many Expanded Universe books that have been written about them, including A. C. Crispin’s Han Solo trilogy, and Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures

Well, now we finally get to see for ourselves these mythic events and characters brought to life on the big screen for the first time when Solo: A Star Wars Story opens in cinemas worldwide on May 25th.

Fans will finally get to witness the legend of Solo’s humble beginnings and shady past as an orphan growing up on his home world of Corellia. How he and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca first met, how he joined a gang of thieves running scams under the mentorship of their leader, and how he eventually won the famous Millennium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, from his sometime friend Lando Calrissian in a card game.  

Most of us have heard how Han escaped his life of crime on Corellia to joined the Empire as a TIE pilot only to be disillusioned and discharged from the Imperial navy when he refused to participate in the enslavement of Wookiees and saved the life of one such Wookiee named Chewbacca, whose custom was to swear a life debt to Han. Together they became one of the most notorious partners running spice for the Hutt clans, one of whose members was Jabba the Hutt.

It will be interesting to see just how much of this original backstory of Han Solo is kept in the film as much of the Expanded Universe books are no longer considered canon by Disney when they bought Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise. But from the evidence seen in the new trailers for the film online it would seem that much of Han Solo’s legendary life remains intact although we will see how much of it was altered and where new directions are explored.

As we have seen in Rogue One (2016) and The Last Jedi (2017), some of the vast non-canon material produced for the Expanded Star Wars Universe could eventually end up being used in a Star Wars film somewhere in the future, thus returning it to canon status.

Solo:  A Star Wars Story reportedly features a mud planet called Mimban, which was first introduced by Alan Dean Foster, the ghostwriter of the first Star Wars novelization, in the very first expanded Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye back in 1978, which is a non-canon novel continuing the adventures of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa shortly after the events of A New Hope. Mimban will now make it’s feature film debut in Solo.

First reports of the Premiere showing of Solo in Hollywood and at Cannes last week are very encouraging with many people proclaiming it a fun fast ride with plenty of surprises that will satisfy the hard core faithful followers of the saga. 

By all accounts the decision to bring in longtime friend of George Lucas and veteran Oscar winning director Ron Howard half way through production to finish the project on time has paid off and saved the film from potential disaster. (or at least from a delayed release) The important thing now for fans to remember is not to dwell on the production woes but to judge the finished product on the screen. 

I’m looking forward to seeing a different kind of Star Wars movie we haven’t seen before from the point of view of beloved characters not associated with the Force or the Jedi Knights. Han Solo has no special powers, he’s the quintessential cynic loner with a conscience who stumbles through one pitfall after another while selfishly pursuing riches. He never imagined he would one day meet a princess who would convince him to join a rebellion to defeat the tyrannical Empire he was once a part of.

JP