Han Solo: A Star Wars Story speculations!
Jondee here at Carida,
Ok, we are getting a clearer picture of the story from the casting. Alden Ehrenreich is 28 now playing Han Solo about the age I target Han to be in the film. We have Woody Harrelson, 56, as a mentor for Han Solo, I suspect he will be Montross Holdaack. Donald Glover, 34, was cast as Lando Calrissian. Lando is supposed to be a year older than Han, but this is close enough casting. Emilia Clarke, 31, is in a female role. So what can we gather from these pieces? First, let’s look at Star Wars: Rebels, it takes place in 27 and would possibly end or merge into A New Hope in 32 also the time of Rogue One. Han Solo is 31 in ANH. So five years. In 27, the first season, Lando, 27, meets the crew of the Ghost in “Idiots Array” (2015). He seems confined on Lothal and does not have the Falcon. We don’t know how Lando ended up on Lothal from Socorro, his home world (he was born in the year 2, two years after The Phantom Menace), I think this will be revealed in the film. The next season, on 28, Lando helps the Ghost escape Lothal in “Siege of Lothal” (2015). We have not seen if Lando has left Lothal at this point. I think it is possible that it would be the following year 29, three years before ANH, that the Han Solo movie takes place.
In Legends, this is the year that Lando wins the Falcon in a sabaac game with Cix Trouvee in The Hutt Gambit (1997) by A.C. Crispin. I think the movie’s events will be before this happens though or end with the Falcon in Lando’s hands. Han would be the same age as Ehrenreich, 28, so we will cover some Legends material. First, Han was born on Corellia in the year 3, 7 years before Attack of the Clones, joined the Academy and was a noted pilot, but thrown out, this is as much as canon covers. I doubt the new movie will change it. Han earned two Corellian blood stripes seen on his trousers for bravery. This may be noted in the film as some feat he did to enter the Academy on Corellia. Maybe he earns it at the beginning of the film for saving a Corellian transport in a battle that gets him into the Academy possibly on Carida. It could be Emilia Clarke’s character was a pilot for that transport or meets him in the Academy. I see her as a leader type, the new films point in that direction, she can be an instructor that would be very Top Gun. It could be that she has taken to smuggling and Han follows her there. I believe she will be a new character and not one from the Legends material, like Bria Tharen from the Han Solo Trilogy books. For some reason, I think Han’s fellow cadet pilot was Lando, they have rivalry from those days. Han says to Leia in Empire, “We go back a long way, Lando and me.” The Academy would be a place for pilots of different worlds to meet, otherwise it would be as smugglers. I suspect that we have to see Han as an Imperial pilot, that was his beginning, and would be a shock to audiences who do not know his back story.
Again, all of this could be conveyed through dialogue or in earlier scenes depending on how the film is structured, but I think the movie will be in 28, after the Academy or maybe the incident is an action scene where Han (28) rescues Chewbacca (197) also in a battle and is expelled from the Academy. I found it incredibly funny to think of scenes where Chewbacca is talking and Han is confused. Maybe we will get an attempt by Han to speak Shyriiwook which would be funny and why he gave up trying to speak it. I still believe that there will be some connection with Kashyyyk, either Han is trying to take Chewie there, or this is where Chewbacca falls for the wookie that will be his wife, Malla, who may be canon. Maybe Chewie swears his life debt there. Maybe the Imperial presence on Kashyyyk makes Han and Chewie leave. It could be an Imperial officer, Aay Zavos from the third draft?, who is after Han for his defiance with Chewbacca and chases him to the end of the movie. I think Han is trying to make a living outside of the Academy, gets involved in smuggling either from Lando (29) or the Emilia Clarke character (or both?!). I don’t think it will be like Legends, his friend Mako Spince expelled from the Academy before Han, especially when we have two perfect characters. I suspect that Han’s mentor, now that he is outside of the Academy, could be a drunk, former instructor. Yeah, I know Woody played the same part in Hunger Games, but I can’t shake that image even in Star Wars. Legends, has an early figure in Han’s life as Garris Shrike, but he is more of a Fagin figure, bringing young Han in a life of crime and this seems against what Kathleen Kennedy said about the Han Solo film. I think Woody Harrelson’s character, I’m calling him Montross Holdaack from the second draft of Star Wars, sees Han’s potential and gets him started into smuggling. Here’s the wild idea, what if Montross just happens to have a ship he won from a sabaac bet, the Millennium Falcon? Let’s go further, what if he cuts Han, Chewie, and maybe Lando into crewing the ship, for a run to Kessel? They go on this smuggling run, have adventures, for the finale, we may also get how twelve parsecs is the distance taking risks cutting it past black holes and nebula clouding sensors with asteroids. Montross completes it in twelve parsecs! This is a record and he rubs this in Han’s face, why Han uses it as a boast! So we see the Kessel Run, but not Han Solo’s record breaking run. These are all potential ideas, all, some or none of it could end up in the Han Solo film, but we will have to wait until the film’s release in 2018.
