ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY The Ultimate Guide to Han Solo

By The Editors of Entertainment Weekly

Unlike Luke, Leia and even Darth Vader, he has remained Star Wars' most intriguing enigma. Now, 41 years after he first appeared onscreen, the real Han Solo is about to be revealed. In ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY The Ultimate Guide to Han Solo go inside the new movie Solo: A Star Wars Story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Entertainment Weekly
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547842858

Book preview

EWspecialeditions.com

Foreword

Origin Story

THE MAN WE NEVER KNEW

Unlike Luke, Leia and even Darth Vader, he has remained Star Wars’ most intriguing enigma. Now, 41 years after he first appeared onscreen, the real Han Solo is about to be revealed.

BY JEFF LABRECQUE

Alden Ehrenreich and Joonas Suotamo’s fresh takes on Han Solo and Chewbacca in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

When Han Solo first appeared onscreen in Star Wars, 47 minutes into a movie about talking robots, an asthmatic black-masked henchman and references to a mystical all-powerful Force, he was the character that most 1977 moviegoers gravitated toward. Part Bogart, part Eastwood, Harrison Ford’s Solo represented the classic Hollywood outlaw who sticks his neck out for nobody—or so he claims—and when cornered, he most definitely shoots first and asks questions later.

But the history of the space pirate, whose only real friend is a surly 7-ft. tower of hair called a Wookiee, has remained tantalizingly out of reach.

When George Lucas reached deeper into his Star Wars Bible to tell the galaxy’s ultimate origin story—Darth Vader—in the prequels, he couldn’t resist filling in the gaps of several key character biographies, from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s to the infant Skywalker twins’. (Even Boba Fett—who had a mere four lines in The Empire Strikes Back—got a before-he-was-famous close-up in Attack of the Clones.)

We know Han’s destiny: a reluctant hero who marries the Rebel princess and is later murdered by their deranged son Ben, a masked disciple of the dark side who adopts the name Kylo Ren. But even after the completion of his arc, his formative years remained a black hole.

Until now. On May 25—41 years to the day after the original Star Wars opened in theaters—Solo: A Star Wars Story will introduce a younger, less cynical Han (Alden Ehrenreich) just as he’s beginning to make his personal jump to light speed.

Every rabid fan has his own list of burning questions: How did Han originally link up with the mighty Chewbacca, and what is the source of their unbreakable bond? What were the circumstances when he won the Millennium Falcon from sometime friend Lando Calrissian? Can the Kessel Run look as spectacular onscreen as it does in our imaginations? And mostly, what—or who—made Han into the cavalier rogue we first met at Mos Eisley cantina, a fugitive smuggler in the criminal underworld who’d kill rather than give up his beloved ship?

In The Force Awakens Han famously said, Chewie, we’re home, as they boarded the Falcon. For Han the Falcon was likely the best home he ever knew, but Solo turns back the clock even further and explores the hives of bandits that layered scum (if not outright villainy) upon his impressionable psyche. We might know Han’s fate, but a lot has to go wrong for him before it begins to go right.

Harrison Ford’s original space cowboy from A New Hope.

A long time ago . . .

NEW MOVIE

FLYING SOLO

Set a few years before the original film, Solo: A Star Wars Story explores the untold tale of everyone’s favorite galactic scoundrel. Prepare to meet a whole new Han.

By Anthony Breznican

Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.

Han Solo just can’t help being a good guy—much to his disappointment. Try as he might to live outside the law, to care about nothing, to embody his loner name, he finds himself inexorably pushed and pulled by the tractor beam of his own decency. Just when you think he’s gone forever, he comes back to save the day.

That’s now literally true. Fans saw his journey end in The Force Awakens, but with the stand-alone Solo: A Star Wars Story, Han returns to the fight. The movie, with 28-year-old Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) stepping into the cockpit for Harrison Ford, ventures back in time to the character’s origin, several years before the events of 1977’s original Star Wars, for what Lucasfilm describes as a Western crossed with a film noir, all set in the criminal underbelly of a galaxy being torn apart.

The Han movie is very Han about its own arrival. It swooped in at the last minute with a first trailer and detailed revelations just a few months before release, all amid intense internal drama and second-guessing. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie) parted ways with Lucasfilm in the midst of production over creative clashes. Then, mere days later, Oscar winner Ron Howard—who recalls hearing George Lucas’s original Star Wars pitch on the set of 1973’s American Graffiti—came aboard to pilot the movie home. With luck, and some skill—which Han always counted on in equal measure—this bumpy flight will smooth out in the end.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy describes Solo as a heist, gunslinger-type movie. That roller-coaster-like train in the trailer is called the Conveyex, and Han has to prove his hoodlum bona fides by stealing something from on board. This Han might be a little more immature, he may be a little less experienced, and he may hone his cynicism over time, but he’s very wary, she says. He needs to gain the respect of the people he interacts with, even if they’re the lowest of the low.

Along the way Han will befriend walking carpet Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), fall head over heels for shadowy Qi’ra (Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke) and cross paths with Lando Calrissian (Atlanta’s Donald Glover) and his droid sidekick L3-37 (played by Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge). The wannabe smuggler will also face down career crooks Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and his fearsome associate Val (Thandie Newton), as well as debonair crime boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). If you’re trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad, you’re