A Look Back ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’

Solo: A Star Wars story was released in 2018. It was a film that was met with much controversy from the fandom, most claiming that its a story we don’t need to be told. The film for what it is, is actually very well done. It’s box office sales suffered from the fan backlash of The Last Jedi.

Summary/Review

In the Beginning

Orphaned children are made to steal to survive on Corellia . Young adults Han and Qi’ra make an escape from a local gang. They bribe an Imperial officer with stolen coaxium (a powerful hyperspace fuel) for passage on an outgoing transport, but Qi’ra is apprehended before she can board. Han vows to return for her and joins the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet. When the recruiting officer asks for his surname, Han explains that he is alone with no family, so the recruiter gives him the last name “Solo”.

The Beginning of a Life Long Friendship

Three years later, Han has been expelled from the Imperial Flight Academy for insubordination and is serving as an infantryman on Mimban. He encounters a group of criminals posing as Imperial soldiers led by Tobias Beckett.

Han attempts to blackmail them into taking him with them, but Beckett has him arrested for desertion. Han is then thrown into a pit to be fed to a Wookiee named Chewbacca. Able to understand Chewbacca’s language, Han persuades him to cooperate to escape.

The Coaxium Heist

Beckett, aware of the usefulness of a Wookiee’s strength, rescues and enlists them in the gang. The gang was set to steal a shipment of coaxium on Vandor-1. The plan goes wrong when the Cloud Riders, a group of so-called terrorists led by Enfys Nest, arrive. Their attack resulted in the deaths of two crew members, including Beckett’s wife, and the destruction of the coaxium.

Long Lost Love

Beckett reveals that he was ordered to steal the shipment for Dryden Vos, a high-ranking crime boss in the Crimson Dawn syndicate. Han and Chewbacca volunteer to help him steal another shipment to repay the debt. They travel to Vos’ yacht where Han finds Qi’ra, who has joined Crimson Dawn, and is Vos’ top lieutenant. Han suggests a risky plan to steal unrefined coaxium from the mines on Kessel; Vos approves but insists Qi’ra accompany the team.

She leads them to Lando Calrissian, an accomplished smuggler and pilot who she hopes will lend them his ship, a freighter called the Millennium Falcon. Han challenges Lando to a game of sabacc, with the wager being Lando’s ship. Lando cheats to win but agrees to join the mission in exchange for a share of the profits.

The Fabled Kessel Run

After reaching Kessel in the Falcon and infiltrating the mine, Lando’s droid co-pilot L3-37 instigates a slave revolt. In the confusion, they steal the coaxium, but L3 is severely damaged, and Lando is injured during the escape. Meanwhile, Chewbacca manages to find a group of other Wookies that had gone into hiding after the Empire had conquered their original homeworld, but when the others decide to take another ship to escape, Chewbacca chooses to stay with Han.

With the help of L3’s navigational computer, hot-wired into the ship’s systems, Han pilots the ship through the dangerous and uncharted Kessel Run in approximately twelve parsecs to elude an Imperial blockade. The Falcon, badly damaged, lands on the planet Savareen to process the coaxium.

During a confrontation with Enfys, who tracked the team from Vandor, Lando flees in the Falcon, deserting everyone else. Enfys explains to Han that she and her crew are not pirates, but rebels made up of victims from the tyrannical state of the galaxy trying to strike back at the syndicates and the Empire.

No Loyalty

Han becomes sympathetic to their cause and tries to trick Vos, but the crime lord reveals Beckett has already alerted him to the double-cross. Vos sends his guards to kill Enfys, but the Cloud Riders overpower them instead, leaving Vos defenseless. Having anticipated Vos’s strategy, Han tries to take the coaxium, only for Beckett to betray Vos, escaping with it and taking Chewbacca hostage. Qi’ra kills Vos and sends Han after Beckett. She contacts Vos’ superior, the former Sith lord Maul, to inform him of the mission’s failure, and claim Vos’ position. She blames the failure on Beckett, never mentioning Han. Maul orders Qi’ra to meet with him on Dathomir.

Han catches up to Beckett and confronts him, shooting Beckett before he can return fire. With his dying words, Beckett tells Han that he made a smart choice because he would have shot Han.

The Fabled Game of Sabacc

Qi’ra leaves in Vos’s yacht, while Han and Chewbacca turn the coaxium over to Enfys, who offers Han a chance to join the rebellion against the Empire; when he declines, she gives him a vial of coaxium, enough to purchase a ship of his own.

Han and Chewbacca locate Lando and challenge him to a rematch in sabacc, once again wagering the Falcon. Han wins, having stolen the card Lando was keeping up his sleeve in order to cheat, and he and Chewbacca leave for Tatooine, where Han heard a crime lord is putting together a profitable job and the film ends with the Falcon jumping into hyperspace.

Story Impact

Showed the Legend of the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo

Through the film, we see different aspects that were referenced through the Star Wars sagas. In this film we see the Millennium Falcon make the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs. We also see a few of the “jobs” that would make Han be seen as the smuggler he’s most famously known as.

The Evolution of the Falcon

We see the Falcon drastically change of the course of the film. It starts off as a weird looking version of itself and eventually changes into the ship we all know it as.

We See How Han Wins the Falcon Finally

Though it was nothing overly special in the film, we finally get to see how Han beat Lando in the game of Sabacc for the Falcon.

Showed how Han and Chewbacca Met

This film showed how the friendship between Han and Chewbacca formed. Starting as hating each other, the two eventually grow to like each other and become life long friends.

What it Meant to Me

This film, dare I say it, was the first Star Wars film I wasn’t looking forward to. I went into this film with extremely low expectations after hearing about the re-shoots it had to do, changing of the directors, and all the other controversy. Walking out of the theater after watching it, left me extremely surprised and wanting to see a sequel after the cliff hanger ending with Maul.

Don’t forget to check out Shootin’ the Sith the #Spoilerverse Star Wars Podcast.