back to article Han Solo to get solo prequel flick in 2018, helmed by LEGO men

Disney's plans to shamelessly cash in on tell more and richer stories from the Star Wars universe will result in a solo Han Solo film in 2018. Starwars.com reports that the as-yet-un-named entertainment will be helmed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, the duo responsible for The LEGO Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs …

  1. Joe Gurman

    No matter how many times....

    ....the Soviet Encyclopedia is edited, Han shot first.

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: No matter how many times....

      Slightly incorrect. Han's dad would have had to shoot one off first, before Han could grow up, hold a gun, and then shoot first.

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: No matter how many times....

      This still irks me.

      I've even reviewed the original clips to make sure.

      Han shot Greedo... Period. There was no second shot.

      It can not be a question of who shot first, when...

      {Cheezy pun Alert}

      Han fired solo!

      1. chivo243 Silver badge

        Re: No matter how many times....

        Indeed... Han Shot First! Lucas changed that little detail in subsequent releases of Star Wars, the editions 90% of the watching public own. I have a despecialized edition re-edited by a fan... Sorry but Han was a scoundrel, pirate etc. Gotta love him!

        My son just watched it Sunday so it is fresh in my mind.

        1. fandom

          Re: No matter how many times....

          I was one day watching the edited version with my father and bother and I had to pause and show the scene a couple times so they could see that Greedo had fired a shot.

          I am not certain they ended up believing me, the scene is so badly distorted that it is hard to see.

    3. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: No matter how many times....

      That depends entirely on what cut of the movie you are watching.

      (But the whole idea Greedo would shoot first but miss at that range is ridiculous.)

      1. DropBear

        Re: No matter how many times....

        "That depends entirely on what cut of the movie you are watching."

        You mean there are other versions than the despecialized edition...? Surely not...!

  2. thomas k

    Will it star Harrison Ford?

    Youth-anized through the magic of CGI, a la Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Will it star Harrison Ford?

      CGI? He'll be back, with his boots, his clothes, und his Millennium Falcon.

  3. Doogs
    Alert

    Cashing in

    Another Christmas special can't be far off, then?

  4. James 51

    *sigh* in ten years my kids are going to ask what was special about Star Wars (original versions of the original trilogy) and I'm going to be hard pressed to explain it when it's buried amongst all this.

    1. DropBear
      Trollface

      Simples...

      You shall introduce them to the marvels of TaunTaun sleeping bags and they shall be enlightened forthwith.

  5. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Mushroom

    I think it might be time to suggest this again.

    So, anyone up for Jar-Jar Binks: The Musical?

    Anyone? Guys?

    GJC

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    That horse

    They are flogging it to death.

    I can't look.

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

      Re: That horse

      Tauntaun, shirley?

      1. Jediben
        Joke

        Re: That horse

        It's a Bantha. And don't call me Shirley!

  7. DMZeke

    Erm....

    I seem to remember the first mission of the original Dark Forces game being Kyle Katarn stealing the Death Star plans......

    "The first mission (which was also released independently as a demo of the game) involved infiltration of an Imperial base on the planet Danuta, in order to steal the Death Star plans. The Mission to Danuta resulted in Rebel possession of the plans that would later be given to Princess Leia and lead to the destruction of the battle-station."

    Any bets that this will change?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: Erm....

      Yep, given that Disney has basically de-canonised everything except the 6 films and the new Rebels series, there's now 30 years of brilliant stories and characters that have been chucked out an airlock to drift aimlessly under the "Legends" banner.

      No Thrawn, Mara Jade, Dash Rendar, Yuuzhan Vong, Darth Caedus...

      *sob*

      1. The Indomitable Gall

        Re: Erm....

        @The Man In Black

        Timothy Zahn is a hack, and his plots, names and races were cheesier than a fridge full of Camembert and crappier than the Greater London sewage works. Good riddance, I say.

    2. Extra spicey vindaloo

      Re: Erm....

      I'm not going to watch em, I only really liked IV and V. It was the books that held my attention. The whole Han / Leia marriage and Thier kids. The Han / Chewie pre story.

      I don't need to see these abortions of films.

  8. Don Dumb
    Boffin

    The really annoying thing is>>

    I'm playing again through the Knights of The Old Republic (KOTOR) game, as it has been rereleased on iOS. It reminds me just why the prequels were so bad and these spinoffs are going to be shit - they are too closely wedded to the characters and events in the Original series.

    Both KOTOR (and it's buggy sequel with the deeper plot) were set in the Star Wars universe but at a different time, so the never ending battle between Sith and Jedi was in still in full tilt as it had been for several millenia, the same planets and species were present but the characters and events were very different. This allowed the writer to be so much more free with his plots and the events didn't have to be pigeon-holed into simply setting up the proper trilogy. The characters were free to be themselves not just early versions of people in the trilogy and therefore the depth and humour they displayed was so much better. He didn't have to go around trying to explain everything with psuedo-science, he could just get on with telling story.

    Lucas could have set many Star Wars films in the universe, divorced from the era the original films were set and could then have made many, many films each with their own storylines, characters locations and technology, much in the same way that Bond films have become. This would have allowed for better (or worse) films and wouldn't have tained the original series. The desire to set everything with the same characters in the same era just constricts far too much and gradually erodes the respect of teh original films.

    Hell, the trailer to The Old Republic was far better than the prequels ever were.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The really annoying thing is>>

      Agree completely.

      The trailers for the SWTOR game are some of the best Star Wars material out there - they show it is perfectly possible to lose the original cast and still feel perfectly StarWarsy.

      Still, it doesn't really matter. Kids will love the films whatever and don't need a load of middle-aged curmudgeons trying to tell them it was all better in the seventies.

    2. The Indomitable Gall

      Re: The really annoying thing is>>

      The biggest problem with most of the stuff tagged onto the Star Wars universe is... light sabers and Jedi. Everyone loved Dark Forces, but lamented that there were no light sabers in it. And everyone wanted to say "use the force, Luke" and there was no force either; so they wrote Jedi Knight. But rather than flip to a "golden age" à la Old Republic, they set it just after the films, which meant suddenly injecting all those crazy force powers that then end up being reflected back in the prequel trilogy.

      The books and comics not only immediately started introducing Jedis so they could have more light-sabers, but they also all played up this pre-Empire superpowerful Justice-League-of-the-University Jedi Council nonsense, and suddenly the Jedi went from being a few relics of an ancient way of life, mocked and derided by many (see Vader's argument in New Hope and Jabba's dismissive "he's using an old Jedi mind trick" in Return of the Jedi) to being a bunch of walking one-man armies armed with more pyrotechnics than the all the Earth's national holidays put together who were wiped out within the living memory of half the characters in the films.

      Kenobi and Vader only made sense as the end of a long slow decline in the traditional ways.

      The orequels would have made more sense if Kenobi was just a soldier and was laughed at for carrying a light-saber into battle, and if there were a handful of others like him using the force subtley like in the original films, and Annakin Skywalker was one of them, perhaps even a young soldier that he had trained hiimself.

  9. Graham Marsden
    Alert

    "[...] his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

    Apparently (according to a friend of mine who is a total Star Wars geek and who has told me about this in excruciatingly tedious detail) Kessel is surrounded by a cluster of black holes and most ships have to take the "long way round" to avoid them, but the Falcon is such a nippy ship that it could dodge between them and shorten the route (or something like that, my brain may have switched off somewhere along the line...)

    Or, of course, this could simply be RetCon because George Lucas didn't know that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time...

    1. The Indomitable Gall

      Re: "[...] his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

      That was in a book, not part of the official backstory. The original line was too things -- a mistake and a lie. A mistake in that the script guys didn't know it was a unit of distance, a lie in that the script notes that it was just Solo trying to bluff Kenobi.

      If they have the Falcon doing the Kessel run in record time in this film, THAT would be retconning, as it would rewrite the original script.

      1. Jediben

        Re: "[...] his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

        I can sense a great disturbance in the Force... A Disney executive has just decided that the Kessel Run will be a race... A teenage Han Solo will be piloting the Falcon... for a Hutt crime lord... against a variety of aliens in similar vessels...

        I am seeing... an annoying sidekick who constantly frustrates Chewbacca....

        My god...

        "MEEESA HERE MISTA SOLO, OKIDAY?!"

    2. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: "[...] his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

      "Kessel is surrounded by a cluster of black holes and most ships have to take the "long way round"..."

      Naaah, it's just that the Kessel run is actually an elaborate "travelling salesman" trial where you need to hit all checkpoints in arbitrary order and the remark was meant to compliment the prowess of the ship's navigation software and its manoeuvrability rather than raw speed...

      PS - Disney, this idea is hereby declared public domain and free to use... ;)

  10. hatti

    Parsecs are old money

    Remember this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away so 12 parsecs may be the equivalent of 16 years, 8 feet and 3 inches.

    1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Parsecs are old money

      What's that in linguine?

      1. hatti

        Re: Parsecs are old money

        = 6 pounds and 2 fluid ounces of linguine

  11. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    hm,

    In contrast to the generally dreadful prequels – any scene without Natalie Portman was a waste – I can imagine stories with less epic backdrops, such as a younger Han smuggling, working quite well. Lots of scope for risky double-dealing, problems with hardware, love affairs working quite well. Doesn't mean the films will be any good, but they might be.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: hm,

      I assume they'll be working parallel universes into the Star Wars story then, because if young Han shoots second all the time...

  12. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    so does this mean

    we finally get to see what a young nerf-herder looks like before he gets all scruffy looking?

  13. sisk

    Here's hoping the flick addresses Solo's two big missing pieces, namely how he managed to emerge from the Mos Eisely Cantina after shooting second

    Han shot first. Seriously, how could anyone possibly miss that close?

    and his methods for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.

    Dealt with in one of the novels. I forget the exact details, but it involved a black hole. Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot. The expanded universe no longer exists.

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