Han-love, and how I learned to stop worrying about the future and enjoy the Solo: A Star Wars Story trailers.
A showdown looms large in the middle of the desert planet. A rag-tag group of marauders clad in dirty shrouds, cyberpunk trinkets and weaponry straight out of a Mad Max movie take center stage. Headed by a demented futurist samurai nightmare in Enfys Nest who stares at our hero through the slits of her visor. Han Solo looks the group over, eyes focused, blue as a cloudless sky—unclasping his holster and, for the first time, I believe Alden Ehrenreich is Han Solo in the Solo: A Star Wars Story trailer.
Many turns of the Endor moon ago, I was a cynic. Asking questions as late as last week whether or not Solo: A Star Wars story was too ambitious for the studio to tackle.
When the idea of a Han Solo movie was first posited I was skeptical, shrugging it off and asking, “Why?” Figuring the best Lucasfilm had to offer was some hokey dysmorphic version of Harrison Ford. Perhaps, the most celebrated rogue character to ever command screen presence.
I wasn’t interested in what made Han Solo tick, but I was interested in preserving what he was in the same way we preserve ancient artifacts and holy shrines.
But, from the strike of that first jangly chord, I was plucked right from my smartphone and transplanted into a noir space western where there may be no good guys.
Forgotten in all the pontificating (myself included) and behind the scenes problems plaguing the project is that the film was finished in the capable hands of blockbuster veterans. Lawrence Kasdan—of The Empire Strikes Back fame—and his son Jon, put the script together while Ron Howard took the long way ’round to bring it to life.
Where the trailer seems to shine is in its characters, mainly Donald Glover, who, early on, threatens to take it over with his charming, younger Lando Calrissian. Answering Han’s backhanded question about a story he’d heard, to which he answers with a wary roguish smile, proclaiming, “Everything you’ve heard about me is true,” which is entirely in line with the character.
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Chewie and Han’s banter seems to fit as well into the trailer’s more lighthearted moments and in line with their friendship. Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett will no doubt be the father figure forging the young Han’s psyche, waxing poetic on the necessities of mistrust. Qi’Ra (Emilia Clarke) vies to be the mother of spacecraft, her voice over running through the action, assuring us that she could find a ship—the ship.
Overall, the visuals carry over well with the theme of the original trilogy and its used future. If Rogue One gave us a look at the scattered and broken alliances that forged the resistance, Solo looks to bring us the mechanics of the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe. Infused with dark tones, train heists and plenty of blaster fire from the ground, and sky, we may be better off than we thought.
Although, still skeptical of the good trailer — does anyone remember Suicide Squad? If not, don’t feel so bad, you’d be right not to. And, I can’t say that I’m not unnerved by the amount of content flooding every corner of the medium that provides some sort of coin for the Mouse House. But I am content that Solo: A Star Wars Story may offer and can feel a swell of excitement as it nears.
Next: We dissect the Solo trailer frame by frame!
It’s not easy to admit, but HanSolo may echo our sentiments on May 25 when he says, “I have a good feeling about this.”