A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Han Solo's mentor in the smuggling enterprise, Tobias Beckett, is the inspiration for Star Wars: The Black Series' 68th 6-in. scale action figure. Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. © 2018 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) At the 115th North American International Toy Fair, which was held in February of 2018 in New York City's Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center, Hasbro unveiled a variety of new products at its showroom. Among these was a "wave" of Star Wars: The Black Series 6-inch scale action figures which depicted characters from Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: A New Hope, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  This initial three-figure wave   consisted of: #68 Tobias Beckett   #69 Rebel Trooper #70 Han Solo (Bespin)  Hasbro shipped these figures, along with other Star Wars- themed toys and collectibles, to stores in the summer, and by July of 2018, they were available in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online retailers such as Amazon, shopDis...

Is there any chance that a young Han Solo and Chewbacca make an appearance in Star Wars: The Mandalorian? No. Not a chance. The series’ position in the timeline does not permit it. The Mandalorian  is set between  Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi  and  Star Wars: Resistance,  two stories   which are set before  Star Wars - Episode VII; The Force Awakens. Per Deadline Hollywood, which quotes the show’s creator, Jon Favreau: “After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the  Star Wars  universe.  The Mandalorian  is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic,” the  Iron Man  and  Jungle Book  filmmaker posted. So, no. There is no chance that we’ll see the character of Han Solo in this new series set “a long time a...

Some questions, apparently, keep coming back, like kudzu...or a boomerang.  On Quora, Raivo Berkins asks: Will Han Solo come back in the final installment of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy? My reply:  No, Han Solo, the iconic character played by Harrison Ford in the Original Trilogy and in  Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  will not come back in  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  His character was killed off in that 2015 film in such a way that only the dimmest and least observant person could possibly believe that he survived. Consider. In his last onscreen appearance in  The Force Awakens,  Han is: Stabbed through the heart with a highly unstable but deadly lightsaber blade wielded by his own son, Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren Right after being stabbed through the heart, Han falls deep into a chasm under the bowels of Starkiller Base, a planet-turned-into-a-superweapon even more powerful than either Death Star used by the Empire Shortly t...

The Blu-ray packaging for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. © 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment No. First of all, (and I’m tired of explaining this over and over),  The Walt Disney Company  does not, nor did it ever have, a plan “to have the audience focus on a new set of characters.” If anyone had such a plan, it would have been  Lucasfilm,  the Disney-owned subsidiary that is responsible for actually making  Indiana Jones  and  Star Wars. Second of all, creating a new set of characters for the Sequel Trilogy was always going to be in the cards, as the window for making a post- Return of the Jedi  trilogy closed sometime between 1983 and 1994, partly because of George Lucas’s divorce from Marcia Lucas and  Star Wars  burnout, and partly because when Lucas decided to go back to big-budget filmmaking, he chose to make the Prequel Trilogy instead. Meanwhile, as Steve Perry noted in his foreword to the  Shad...

On Quora, many Star Wars fan can't stop themselves from asking "Is Han Solo really dead?" and variations thereof. As a matter of fact, this is my second (and hopefully final) answer on this issue: Is there any possibility Han Solo is still alive? In Act III of  Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens,  the following events take place in the First Order’s  Starkiller Base,  a weaponized planet: Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, stabs Han in the heart with a very unstable lightsaber - fatally Han then falls from the catwalk into a deep chasm after suffering a fatal lightsaber stab to the heart A short time after  this,  the sabotage to the Starkiller Base’s shields allows Resistance X-wings to deliver a fatal attack on the base’s equivalent of a thermal exhaust port. The resulting explosion not only destroys the First Order’s facilities on the weaponized planet but the planet itself So, considering all these events, and taking into account that Han i...

Han Solo (from Solo: A Star Wars Story ). Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In April of 2018 , a month before Lucasfilm's Solo: A Star Wars Story premiered in theaters, Hasbro officially released Star Wars Black Series: Han Solo as part of one of its "waves" of action figure assortments. This figure represents the first sculpt of the young Han Solo as portrayed on film by Alden Ehrenreich; Hasbro has made at least one more variant ( Han Solo - Mimban ) in his Imperial infantry gear, but this one depicts everyone's favorite Corellian orphan-turned-scoundrel as he appears in the latter half of Solo: A Star Wars Story.   Han Solo reinvents himself after leaving behind his old life. Now, Solo is growing increasingly comfortable traveling with law-benders and scoundrels. - Hasbro character description Although Solo: A Star Wars Story was not successful at the box office, it's still part of the overall Star Wars canon. and Han - no matter if h...

(C) 2018 Del Rey Books/Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On Tuesday, September 4, Random House’s science fiction/fantasy imprint Del Rey Books published Solo: A Star Wars Story – Expanded Edition, a novelization of director Ron Howard’s 2018 film about the early adventures of a young Han Solo, a Wookiee named Chewbacca, and the roguish gambler and starship owner Lando Calrissian in the years before Han’s involvement with the Rebellion against the Empire. Written by author/podcaster Mur Lafferty ( Six Wakes, I Should Be Writing ), Solo: A Star Wars Story is based on the screenplay and screen story by the father-son team of Lawrence Kasdan ( Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark ) and Jon Kasdan ( Indiana Jones V ). It is a relatively faithful adaptation of the Kasdans’ story, but – as with all of the other Star Wars novels based on the Saga Trilogies and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Lafferty’s Solo contains material that was left out of th...

Cover art by John Van Fleet. (C) 2007 Del Rey/Lucas Books/Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Pros:  Good writing, fine characterizations, and another masterful tale set in the Star Wars galaxy Cons:  None Although Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn has written over 90 short stories, novellas, short story collections and novels since 1978, he is best known for reinvigorating the Star Wars literary universe with his best-selling Thrawn Trilogy ( Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command ). Set five years after the events depicted in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi , this three-book cycle’s mix of interstellar conflict, political intrigue and a plausible extrapolation of the characters and situations created by George Lucas in the Classic Trilogy reignited fan interest in the Star Wars saga. In addition, the popularity of Zahn’s novels helped pave the way for other authors to add their own tales set “a long time ago, in a galaxy f...

"The walls are moving!" Photo Credit: www.toyark.com  (C) 2002 Hasbro Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Luke, Han, and Chewie infiltrate the Death Star to free Princess Leia. While making their escape, they dive down a garbage chute and become trapped in a trash compactor with a hungry dianoga. Then the walls begin to close in on them, and our heroes are caught in a tight squeeze! - Manufacturer's blurb, Death Star Trash Compactor 1 & 2 In December of 2002, Hasbro Inc. released Death Star Trash Compactor 1 & 2, two separate multi-figure sets that, when put together, form a single diorama that recreates the iconic sequence in Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope that pits Han Solo, Chewbacca the Wookiee, Luke Skywalker, and the recently rescued Princess Leia Organa against the double threat of a hungry dianoga and the converging walls of the Death Star's trash compactor.  Originally introduced as a Walmart exclusive in Hasbro's December 200...

In the original 1977 version of Star Wars , Han shoots first; Greedo seems to have an itchy trigger finger and has just told our favorite Corellian smuggler that he’s been looking forward to killing him for a long time. Han doesn’t want to end up as a smoking corpse on the Mos Eisley cantina floor, so he shoots the Rodian bounty hunter from under the table. Not exactly sportsmanlike, I admit, but for Han, it was a matter of survival. In the 1997 Special Edition re-release of  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope,  George Lucas tweaked this scene because, as much as fans love the original scene,  he  felt uncomfortable with how cold-blooded Solo seems. So, per Lucas's request, Special Edition editor T.M. Christopher fiddled with the shot so that Greedo fires a fraction of a second before Han does. The “they shoot at the same time” bit has been fiddled with for timing issues at least twice. Once for the 2004 DVD release, then in 2011 for the Blu-ray edition. As ...

Short version: No. More elaborate version: Even though I’m not an Elvis Presley fan, I respect his achievements as a singer and take my hat off to his popularity. Presley contributed greatly to the pop music world, and from what little I’ve seen, he was a passable actor in lightweight “musical” movies such as  Viva Las Vegas  and  Blue Hawaii. That having been said, Elvis was a singer. He was  not  a professional actor, nor could he have given George Lucas a credible performance as  any  of the  Star Wars  characters, much less as one of the three main leads. And even if he had been able to act decently, he was too old, too addicted to drugs, and way out of shape to have played the iconic smuggler-turned-Rebel. In a nutshell,  Star Wars  would have been a disaster if Presley had been cast as Han Solo.