Details About The New Star Wars "Spin Off" Films

that's a good point. but the "hard-to-love rogue" character is a lot more in vogue now than it once was.

Hell, the bitter, cynical, in-it-for himself guy? isn't that Malcolm Reynolds?

It's how he's written and played that matters.

You have to be able to see the guy you like through all the bitterness and asshole-ary
(New word!)

old word
and it's spelled "assholery"

I know the constant Firefly references get tedious but if it means anything, it means Joss maybe had the pre ANH Wars universe kicking around in his head when he created it.

Han beats Chewie and earns his loyalty? Mal and Zoe.
There may not be a direct analogy to Lando in the Firefly story but the spirit of storytelling is much the same.

Even the age of Mal (as aligned with the actor's age) when he became a hero is consistent with Han's

Make this prequel Han something like 28-30, give him a reason to be a somewhat jaded asshole, populate the story with interesting supporting character beyond Chewie and presumably Lando, give him a "real" villain adversary or a problem to overcome...sprinkle the background with references to the larger universe in terms of Empire v. rebels and go.

A good writer could do it. Brad Bird directing? Gold.

Isn't there a pretty well accepted back story that Han was an Imperial pilot who helped spring Chewie out of slavery, thus explaining the life debt?

When did Mal ever beat Zoe at anything, especially hand to hand? Pretty sure it's often alluded to that she can break him in three. She's more Little John to his Robin Hood than anyone else on the crew IMO.

Finally, SOlo at 28-30 leaves you no more than a couple years to play with BBY. I think I'd rather see him at 18 entering the academy up to the time he and Chewie desert and take up smuggling maybe seven years later...their story arc could end just before they win the Falcon.

You know what made Heath Ledger's Joker so awesome? No fucking backstory. He just shows up, wreaks havoc, and fucks with people's head. I do not get this obsession with finding out the origin of every single character in fiction. We don't need it, it doesn't always work, and there's so much more potential to mine in the Star Wars universe, that I wish they'd focus on that, rather than worrying about what this or that character did before we first saw them.

Some responses:

1. A story that ends with young Solo being a disillusioned cynic does not sound like the makings of an uplifting space opera.

2. Just as we shouldn't assume the post-RotJ EU novels will be reflected in the sequels, we shouldn't assume any biographical details from the EU--e.g., Han being in the Academy or serving in the Imperial Navy--will hold in any "origin" tale.

3. Any origin tale is going to have the same problem the prequels did: we already know the character's future.

4. Yes, Solo's character could've been different when he was younger. But with a new actor and a different character, why make a SOLO film?

5. I don't think it's IMPOSSIBLE to make a good Solo-oriented prequel, but I think it's going to be so ham-stringed by the existing mythology that the effort would be better spent on some standalone story with a new character.

This needs to be quoted. And often.

Fuck prequels and backstories.

I think it sounds like a load of laughs.

You nailed it.

Back story elements are useful only in that they establish the arc of the character. Beyond that, they're just pointless trivia. A New Hope told us EVERYTHING we needed to know about Solo: it set him up as a cynical mercenary which allowed his character to become a hero in the final act.

Do I want to see Han Solo meet Chewie or acquire the Millennium Falcon? Not really. The significant facts about Solo are that he has a Wookie friend/co-pilot and owns a ship for smuggling. How those facts came to be are trivia, completely unimportant.

Yes, there is, and it's covered in AC Crispin's Solo trilogy. Nevertheless, I'd like to see it on screen (either her version, or something completely new, doesn't matter). I love the character, want more of him.

Mostly agree, but I want it to end with him walking in to the Cantina to tell Chewie that Jaba intends to collect immediately or sooner. Chewie can then tell him he might have some well funded human cargo, roll credits.

You know what they're important for?

yeah, and I'm gonna go out on a limb that the joker's origin with the chemical vat is pretty much ingrained into most adult movie goers, if only because of the Nicholson version.
We've seen the story told at least once every five years in comics for almost 70 years as well.

Besides, it's not like Clone Wars has suffered from everyone knowing what'll happen with those characters.

Frame it. Flashbacks, told in the first person (always good for picaresque storytelling), and make it relevant for something needed post-ROTJ, some object lost, person to find again, anything, from his past. If you get Ford to do old Han in the frame, you might even accept a younger actor as his previous self.

Very true, but apparently they're set on making prequels. I could think of better things to do with stand-alone Star Wars tales, but...

You can forget about seeing AC Crispin's story, they're not going to want to pay the necessary royalties.

I'm pretty sure that's peanuts for a movie budget. But still, they'll probably go with something new, and designed for cinema.

Eh, I dunno. Why did he go from a mercenary sumbitch to doing something selfless? ANH's story didn't sell that. There's more there. Of course, that doesn't mean I think it should be Disney paying Abrams to come up with the answer, because I think Disney will insist that answer be "kid friendly" and Abrams will throw more holes in the plot than fabric.

There's something that ALWAYS bothered me about Solo and Jabba. Jabba's pissed that Solo dumped a load of something he was smuggling due to Imperial boarding. If it were regular drugs than it's a setback, happens every once in a while. Jabba took it like Han cooked and ate his prized dog in front of him. So what did Han dump?

Yes, but it isn't clear that Ledger's Joker has anything but the facial scars. IIRC, he wears makeup when he wants his skin to be white, not when he wants to look normal. Just the opposite of the Nicholson Joker (and the comic book character).

It'd be a percentage of the budget, and if they cast well-known stars, then those stars are going to demand $10+ million to be in the film. You figure that in the Episode 7 film, they're going to have to pay Ford $20 million (his going rate), plus $10 million for Hamill and Fischer, that's $40 million right there.

For a Han Solo film, if they cast an Oscar winner in the role of Solo, that's $20 million (minimum), then there's the effects budget (probably $100 million), director, writer(s), etc. Some of them might be willing to work for scale ($500/day), but probably not too many, so you're quickly talking serious money, even before you get to paying the estate. Follywood likes nothing better than screwing people out of money, even when there's a big box office involved, so if they can cut someone out, they will, no matter if the amount is something normal people would consider "small change" or not.

Oh, I wholeheartedly disagree. Han's reappearance at the climax is so gratifying precisely because we believe it.

Han's cynical self gets dragged along by Luke's idealism through the second half of the film. Before the attack on the Death Star, when Han is prepared to take his reward and leave, Luke's rebuke over his selfishness connects. Han has grown to like and respect Luke--even invites Luke to join him and Chewie--so Luke's condemnation stings. It's clear there's some inner conflict in Han at this point.

Han shows up to save the day, perhaps not so much out of commitment to the rebellion, but mainly to save Luke, the person whose idealism broke through his cynicism.

(Incidentally, I think Lucas cribbed Han Solo's arc from Harry Luck's in The Magnificent Seven. Harry goes with the other gunfighters to defend the Mexican village because he's [wrongly] convinced the village has a fortune in gold. When the others head for the climactic gunfight with the villain, Harry declines to participate. But, when the others are in desperate straits at the climax, Harry rides in to help turn the tide and save his friend Chris, getting himself mortally wounded in the process.)

Paladin's argument against a Solo orgin story is similar to the one that was brought up in the ROTS Red Letter Media review about Vader: Is this a story that needed to be told?

I understood why the Vader story would hold appeal--apart of Anakin's history, there's Obi Wan who was supposedly one of his best friends (per episode 4, not from anything shown in the prequel). Hell, the prequels could've focused on Obi-Wan's development, which the more I think about it, may have been the more interesting story, and had Anakin's fall from grace as a secondary story.

But a story about Han's early days? Ehhhh, not so much. The concept of such just seems like a money grab. But that said, as with any movie, I'm willing to give it a fair shot. And George Lucas has little if any involvement with writing or directing, so it's bound to be better than anything in the PT anyway.

Good for you, but I believe you are in the distinct minority with this opinion.

While I don't disagree with your assessment, I think you're missing out on a couple of elements that are equally as important. The first, and some would argue the most important, is the sexual tension between Han and Leia. I'm fairly certain prior to meeting Leia, Han's a "love 'em and leave 'em" kind of guy, who hadn't met a pair of legs he couldn't unzip in a few seconds until Leia came into his life. She clearly saw through his bullshit and had no interest in him, which he found attractive. (BTW, I think that Leia is probably the first strong, fully fleshed out female in movie SF, not the more modern ones people have been trying to award the title to. She may have been a princess, and may have needed rescuing, but she was clearly holding her own until Luke & the gang showed up.)

The second is Chewie acted as Han's external conscience in much of the film. You could argue that since Chewie'd been there at the beginning, he knew how important it was for them to tackle the mission, and then later on go back and save Luke. (IIRC, Han and Chewie exchange a few heated words as they're loading up the Falcon to go pay Jabba, after Leia tries to get Han to stay.)

In both cases, the story could work, but given them hamfisted constraints Lucas put on the characters, and the shitty scripts he wrote, the PT could only suck. Had Anakin not started out as a whiny bitch, but as a morally upright guy who turns to the dark side under circumstances which anyone could understand, the PT films would have been enjoyable, though dark. Having Vader and Luke be father and son, and Leia as Luke's twin complicates things, because it keeps you from really framing the story in a larger context than anything other than a family squabble.

The problem with Han's origin story is that its difficult to maintain dramatic tension, since you know that whatever confronts Han, it isn't going to kill him, so its hard make the audience fear for his safety. It can be done, but not by Lucas, and I don't think that Abrams can do it, either. You have to have an excellent scriptwriter, director, and actors to hope to have a chance of pulling it off. No slap at Abrams when I say that I don't think he's that good, because there's not too many directors who could pull it off.

To illustrate the kind of issue facing someone doing Solo's origin film faces, think back to Spielberg's version of War of the Worlds. In the scene with Cruise and Tim Robbin's character in the basement of the house, where Cruise and Robbin's go off-screen, and there's sounds of someone being killed. Despite Spielberg trying to conceal who it is that's walking back on screen, you know before you ever seen Cruise's face that its going to be him, even if you've never read the original novel. Why? Because its a big budget, Hollywood action movie, Cruise is the bigger star than Robbins, so they can't kill Cruise, its just not that kind of film, and you can't forget that because Cruise as Cruise, over-shadows Cruise as his character.

So, in order to get the film about Solo to work, you have to make the events in it as unexpected as possible, without contracting what we've already seen before, and without being more amazing than his later adventures. One way to do that, and I doubt if we'll see it, is to have the card game where Han wins the Falcon be one that both he and Lando want to lose. The Falcon could be a "hot" ship (i.e. stolen or otherwise deserving significant attention from the authorities, thus making it difficult to get around in), Lando wants to dump it (because he can't find a buyer and needs to get away quickly), Han doesn't want it because he knows that its a marked ship. The two of them proceed to cheat in order that they can lose, and not have to take the ship. Have it so that Lando has palmed an Ace card (will assume the game's played something like poker), in order to keep from winning the hand, when Han (as dealer) slips in an extra card to Lando, which happens to be the same Ace as Lando's hiding up his sleeve. Thus making Lando's claim of Han cheating, and Han's statement that he won the Falcon fairly, both be true, while making it surprising that neither of them want the ship. (Perhaps have the ship trade hands between them in several different card games, so you've no idea which on is the game that awards the Falcon to Han for the final time.)

Prequels do have that built in weakness - Going in you know the fate of every character from the original film. A definite dramatic obstacle, there is zero drama in putting a surviving character in jeopardy.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But surprisingly. that's not how drama works. If it was, scenes that endanger characters would lose all tension on second viewing. They don't. (See: fallacy of suspension)

Palladin's argument is interesting. I'm kind of keen on a prequel Dr. Who. To recap, it took some 6 years of the original series to find out about the Doctor's people. And another couple years to find out their name and even longer to learn about their planet. One could argue that there is an interesting story that covers the hundreds of years from deciding to run away to being discovered by two schoolteachers in mid-20th century London.

The problem is, in "An Unearthly Child" and even subsequent stories, The Doctor is a bit of a dick. Who wants a show with an unlikeable title character?

In rebuttal: EVERYONE. Seinfeld. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. How I Met Your Mother. Dallas. We love incorrigible characters.

Wait, what were we talking about again?

I can't think of a worse idea. One of the good things about The Doctor is the mystery. Once you have all the answers he becomes a bit boring. This is one of the reasons that during the Sylvester McCoy era script editor Andrew Cartmel tried to add in more sinister mysteries about his origin rather than explain everything away.

Not only that, but prequels can contain secondary characters we don't know. How will the actions of the known survivor impact these variables?

Because Jabba thinks that Han got scared and dumped the spice when when he should have just held onto it.

And Jabba expects Han to pay for it. As a smuggler of course Han really doesn't have the amount of money needed to cover what he dumped. Most of his money probably goes into maintaining the Falcon.

I don't think Jabba had a real problem with Han until Han didn't bother to show up for a couple of years with the money. Then Jabba sent Fett after him because lets face it Fett would have found Solo a lot sooner when Han was hanging around on Tantooine in the Cantina. Greedo was just a greedy asshole. Probably sent to break Solo's legs or something.

If Han had paid Jabba right after Star Wars most of Return of the Jedi wouldn't have happened.

All Han had to say was, "Look I'll be back in a couple weeks. Got to go pay this bill I have so Jabba doesn't send bounty hunters after me."

Take the Star Wars prequels, going in you know that Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, R2-D2, C-3PO, Palpatine, Boba Fett, Jabba .... will survive, and as much as I enjoyed the final battle in ROTS I knew the outcome ahead of time, a definite reduction of tension.

And many movies don't work nearly as well upon a second viewing because you know the outcome.