On Sunday night, Disney dropped a new trailer for the forthcoming Han Solo biopic, . Set years before we meet the galaxy’s most irrepressible smuggler in , it will be the second non-trilogy (or non-nonology, if we’re being accurate) movie set in the universe, following the smash hit from 2016. Free of the restraining bolt that is the main franchise and the main plot thread it drags along, these (sort of) standalone movies give Disney the chance to tell slightly different stories in the Star Wars universe. mixed elements of espionage thrillers and gritty war movies; looks set to mix up westerns and the good old heist caper.
The new trailer gives us a better look at how Han Solo is played by Alden Ehrenreich, who managed to hold his own in the Coen Brother’s red scare The journey from bright-eyed pilot to scruffy looking nerf-herder looks like it happens on a number of different worlds, and I’m pretty sure it involves a robbery on the kind of weird-looking train that only makes practical sense in the Star Wars universe.
At one point we see Solo get his iconic blaster, courtesy of Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), and it seems that Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) has a robot sidekick/partner in crime, called L3-37 (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge). There’s also more footage of a new and shiny Millennium Falcon, flying around with its nose cargo section in place. To my brain, it looks wrong, the same way hearing the original version of a song you only know from a later cover or remix sounds wrong, fitting like a six-sided peg forced into a seven-sided hole.
, which is released on May 25th, has had a slightly tortured path to the screen. The duo behind the excellent , Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were set to direct originally. But disagreements with the studio saw them fired in June of last year, replaced by Ron Howard. It’s hard to think of a safer pair of hands in Hollywood; let’s hope he still remembers how to surprise and delight us.
*Yeah, I know. and both got theatrical releases. If being a completist is that important to you, I suggest watching both of them back to back to see if it cures you.
