It was the moment which sealed the deal for many potential fans of Solo: A Star Wars Story. The origin of the franchise’s coolest character was always destined to divide opinion, as the Han Solo that everyone fell in love with, in what we now have to call Star Wars: A New Hope, needed no further explanation than that which was given.
So, it was to the dismay of most when rumors started to circulate that the standalone movie would detail how the iconic hero earned the name Solo. If we didn’t need to know what a Kessel Run was though, or how he ended up tag teaming with the mighty Chewbacca, we certainly didn’t need a name change.
It’s ironic, then, that Solo: A Star Wars Story’s co-writer, Jon Kasdan, earmarked this section of the script as the one most likely to get the project greenlit when pitching to Disney.
Five years ago, when I came onto the thing — and Disney wasn’t on when I came on, then three weeks later, they owned the company — and they came up to Marin and Kathy [Kennedy] got the people who were already working on it to make a five-minute presentation to Bob Iger and Alan Horn and everyone. My presentation was, [Han] comes to an immigration spot and someone asks, ‘What’s your name?’ It’s not just that he doesn’t have a name, which tells you a lot about his history. He says ‘I have no people.’
Continuing on, he shared:
That to me is so forlorn and so isolating and rife, and the guy fills in his name. Bob Iger said ‘Alright, I’m in.’ That was it. That was the moment. He reacted to it the way I reacted to it, which was, it’s very moving. This was a guy who has nothing. Someone plants a name on him. He doesn’t even know the guy. It sticks for the rest of the saga.
The scene itself plays out reasonably well in actuality, but is undeniably an expositional aspect which kept some folks away from Solo: A Star Wars Story. Whether the disappointing box office returns will make the Mouse House cut back on the mansplaining or not still remains to be seen, but it’ll be interesting to watch which direction they head in from here.