Help me look forward to the Han Solo new movie - spoilers for TFA within

Guri

Sr Member
I was really looking forward to a young Han Solo movie, expecting something similar to Firefly and more of what we all loved about him in the old movies.

But something has really been bothering me, even though I understand there are implied reasons for it - It seems as though in TFA they wrote him as not really changing that much from what he was before A New Hope....

After Return of the Jedi I was left convinced that he was who he was because he didn't have any other reason to be a 'scoundrel' - but then he found a cause and friends, and love and became a hero.

I loved the novels portrayal of his future but with TFA - it's like all that he did and was in IV, V and VI was just a phase.

And I'm not sure why it bothers me so much because Luke's running away didn't bother me nearly as badly - maybe because he was mirroring Obi-wan?

So now I don't like him as much as I did. :(

I'm welcoming anyone to convince me otherwise here because I really, really want to look forward to the new Han Solo movie and not just think I'm watching some scoundrel whose going to break Leia's heart by abandoning her when she needs him most.
 
Well, we saw about a total of 4 years of his life on film or thereabouts. It's been 30 years since ROTJ. There are so many great story opportunities to explore, both younger as in this film that's coming or in the ensuing years which may be covered in other media. I'm sure there are a lot of adventures that could be told. If they had just put a bow on the character it would be less interesting.
 
I was really looking forward to a young Han Solo movie, expecting something similar to Firefly and more of what we all loved about him in the old movies.

But something has really been bothering me, even though I understand there are implied reasons for it - It seems as though in TFA they wrote him as not really changing that much from what he was before A New Hope....

After Return of the Jedi I was left convinced that he was who he was because he didn't have any other reason to be a 'scoundrel' - but then he found a cause and friends, and love and became a hero.

I loved the novels portrayal of his future but with TFA - it's like all that he did and was in IV, V and VI was just a phase.

And I'm not sure why it bothers me so much because Luke's running away didn't bother me nearly as badly - maybe because he was mirroring Obi-wan?

So now I don't like him as much as I did. :(

I'm welcoming anyone to convince me otherwise here because I really, really want to look forward to the new Han Solo movie and not just think I'm watching some scoundrel whose going to break Leia's heart by abandoning her when she needs him most.

There is fertile ground for a great Han & Chewie spinoff film in the pre-ANH years. But after watching TFA, I'm not optimistic Disney will harvest anything good out of it. I'm afraid it might be dreadful.

The Wook
 
Han was changed in TFA.
In the OT he was a reluctant hero - almost an anti-hero.
Willingly putting his life on the line was something OT Solo would never have done.
But in TFA he doesn't think twice about helping Rey.
He does the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing without waffling and complaining about it for the first time in his life.
Well, first time that we've seen, anyway.
As far as returning to smuggling, the civil war was over.
Soldiers return from the war and have to get jobs.
I'm sure smuggling entails a fair amount of adventure.
Han thrives on that kind of stuff. He's good at it.
 
I didn't like it either, but you do hear about families who have had a major tragedy happen and they lose a kid. It causes so much pain that they separate. I hope at least that Han was on the path we thought he'd be on, as a Rebel officer, and then when this happened he went back to what he was good at (like he said). That doesn't necessarily mean they weren't still in love, just that seeing each other probably brought all the pain back.
 
I think basically Ben going evil just...broke him. Whatever difficulties he and Leia may have had, they could probably work through it, but when Ben turned evil, Han just...broke.

He says in the film that he left because he knew every time Leia looked at him, she saw Ben. I think it's implied that Han is deeply, deeply regretful and views himself as a failure. He says he went back to "the only thing I was ever good at," namely smuggling.

Stop and think about that for a second.


If Han goes through this experience in the OT, where he goes from being a "I only care about ME (and Chewie)" kind of guy, to being the kind of guy who'll go out in certain-death situations to help his friends, if he changed into the kind of guy who could be a family man or even just want to try, then what would it do to him if his son turned evil, slaughtered his uncle's students, and destroyed the nascent Jedi order? I think it would shatter him and he'd view himself as basically having fooled himself for the last however many years that he could ever be anything other than just some smuggler.

So it's not like after Endor he says "Eh, that was fun, but whatever. I'm gonna go ship contraband again. Laterz!" I got the sense from Ford and Fisher's performances that Ben turning to evil utterly destroyed everything good in their lives and sent them retreating to the versions of themselves from when they were young and only had to look out for themselves and/or abstract concepts (as in Leia's case).
 
Stop and think about that for a second.


If Han goes through this experience in the OT, where he goes from being a "I only care about ME (and Chewie)" kind of guy, to being the kind of guy who'll go out in certain-death situations to help his friends, if he changed into the kind of guy who could be a family man or even just want to try, then what would it do to him if his son turned evil, slaughtered his uncle's students, and destroyed the nascent Jedi order? I think it would shatter him and he'd view himself as basically having fooled himself for the last however many years that he could ever be anything other than just some smuggler.

So it's not like after Endor he says "Eh, that was fun, but whatever. I'm gonna go ship contraband again. Laterz!" I got the sense from Ford and Fisher's performances that Ben turning to evil utterly destroyed everything good in their lives and sent them retreating to the versions of themselves from when they were young and only had to look out for themselves and/or abstract concepts (as in Leia's case).

I like this - I wish I could have seen it - maybe I need to write a fan fiction to cope with this...

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You like what you like and you don't like what you don't like; you shouldn't let anyone convince you otherwise.

This isn't necessarily true - I'm open to the idea that I missed things or didn't think of all angles my views are always evolving and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am open to new information and perspectives. I have core values and principles that I hold to which are much more difficult to shift, but I know other people's experiences are valuable to help me see the bigger picture.
 
Well you mentioned Firefly, so think about Mal compared to Han. Both fought for a cause they saw as noble, the conflict ended (different outcomes of course) and they both moved on to things that paid the bills. I don't think TFA Han is a betrayal of the character at all, and it doesn't nullify the good he did during the conflict with the Empire and what we can assume he did during the early reformation of the Republic.
 
I like this - I wish I could have seen it - maybe I need to write a fan fiction to cope with this...

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This isn't necessarily true - I'm open to the idea that I missed things or didn't think of all angles my views are always evolving and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am open to new information and perspectives. I have core values and principles that I hold to which are much more difficult to shift, but I know other people's experiences are valuable to help me see the bigger picture.

I think all of the stuff I wrote is strongly implied in the film, if not explicitly stated. I expect we'll find out more in subsequent films about what happened with Kylo Ren/Ben, and how/why he turned evil, which will probably touch on how/why Han and Leia's marriage fell apart.


I keep coming back to something with regards to this film that I think folks tend to lose sight of.

This is the first Star Wars film in over 30 years since we didn't have any idea where a Star Wars story was headed. I mean, yeah, we didn't know exactly what would happen with the Prequels in terms of how things would fall apart, but we knew that the Republic would fall, the Empire would rise in its place, the Jedi would die, Anakin would become Vader, Luke and Leia would be born, and Obi-Wan and Yoda would go into seclusion.

With TFA...we have no idea what will come next or how it will happen.


I think folks tend to lose sight of that, because it's a state of affairs that hasn't existed for over 30 years. We're so used to knowing what happened and what was going to happen, where things were headed, how we'd get there, all of it, that I think uncharted territory forces people to approach Star Wars in a very different way from how they have for the last three decades.

Guri, I don't say any of this to knock you, by the way. It's just something that I observe in most of the threads surrounding TFA at some point.
 
I don't feel knocked... and I see all the implied drama that happened with Solo abandoning Leia because Kylo's fall broke them, but I can't wrap my head around the idea that after Leia has already lost her adopted parents and the planet she grew up on she THEN loses her son to the dark side and her brother takes off, but then Han thinks it's better for her to also have her presumed husband (did they marry?) abandon her to be a smuggler again while she faces the new rising threat without any family by her side.

That type of loneliness and pain and abandonment is not easily excused by 'every time you look at me you'd see him'. No way. Not unless she was turning on him - someone said it takes two - and driving him away with her bitterness and anger... but we get no indication that she would turn on him like that except maybe the way she behaved after Alderaan was blown up.

This is why I say I'd like to see the story told in the same way we got to see (albeit in not quite a satisfying way) Padme's loss of Anakin to the dark side... MUCH less than what Leia has gone through. Padme didn't cope with it at all, she just gave up on life and left Leia and Luke - wow... just realized it, both were thankfully adopted by parents, but who knows what Leia knew about her real parents growing up or why she wasn't with them...

All of this just goes to show how incredibly strong Leia is and I hope they give her that credit in the next movie with more lines to explain how she manages it and maybe some good strong female bonding time with Rey, even if it is minor, like when she comforted Luke after he lost Obi-wan. She just lost a planet she had grown up on and the 'Only Hope' for the Rebellion, and she takes time to comfort the farm boy who lost a teacher he just met.


In light of all of the above I don't see Han as leaving for Leia - he left for himself. He couldn't handle it and he blamed it on Leia's grief... again, unless she actually told him she's better off with out him... but did she?

I would like a Firefly Han, I just have to get over my dislike of what he did to Leia. I want her to have at least one person in her life she can count on. Han wasn't it. I guess she can only count on herself - and she has to be the person everyone else can count on. Very lonely.
 
I also think you should consider that perhaps part of why Ben went bad and Han left was because Leia couldn't walk away from her role in the Republic/Resistance. Maybe she couldn't walk away from fighting the good fight to have her happily ever after.
 
A few thoughts.

1. Re: Han leaving for his own sake, but blaming it on Leia's grief. I see that less as "blaming it on her grief" and more like "blaming himself and feeling like a failure." This seems to be a theme for the OT heroes, actually. With their great failures, each basically blamed themselves and disappeared in one way or another. Luke to a hidden planet. Han to his smuggling. Leia to her politics and perpetual struggle.

2. Re: "It takes two." Leia may have always been kind of absent as a wife and mother, devoting herself completely to her work. That and her devotion to higher principles (e.g., the Jedi must rise, so Vader's grandson has to be in the inaugural class at the academy...Leading to "I DON'T WANT YOUR LIFE!!!" teenage rebellion with disastrous consequences...). Maybe they disagreed over Ben's upbringing. Who knows. But I bet we find out a lot more.

3. It's also possible that Han left physically, but Leia left emotionally. And we don't necessarily know the sequence. After Ben's fall, maybe Leia hurled herself into her work and while physically present, couldn't or wouldn't connect with Han (think Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People). Which, in turn, prompted Han to leave, figuring it was Leia blaming him or something, and believing that, too.
 
I would like a Firefly Han, I just have to get over my dislike of what he did to Leia. I want her to have at least one person in her life she can count on. Han wasn't it. I guess she can only count on herself - and she has to be the person everyone else can count on. Very lonely.

Forgive me, Guri, but it's been a while seen I've watched Firefly and Serenity. Did Mal end up with a woman? I don't recall that. Either way, can you please elaborate on what you mean when you say you'd like a Firefly Han?

Thanks.

The Wook
 
See, I had the complete opposite reaction. I was TERRIFIED that they would make him the same shell of himself he had become by the end of ROTJ. "General" Solo never stuck with me, he's great at getting in and out of trouble but he's no leader. And what he and Leia had could never last. They're both firebrands in their own right and damn good at what they do. I always hated the EU idea of them being together forever, it was in total contradiction to their characters. They're independent people.

They made it pretty clear that he and Leia drifted apart mutually I thought, so no one person to blame, or, if you prefer, they were BOTH to blame. Leia even says that it was her who lost both him and Ben. It's Han that gives her the out in that conversation saying it was also him. She strikes me as the type that would have completely shut out her emotions and stuck to her work shutting everyone else out. After a while of that it allows an already independent person to be independent again and drift off I suppose.

If they had Han as some leader of the resistance with responsibility I would have shed a tear. That's not him. He had to be out on his own again, and to do that he couldn't be with Leia.
 
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Another thing to think of to go along with the idea of Leia being busy with the Republic and later the Resistance is what Han might have been doing all this time. It's possible that he continued on in his role as a General in the New Republic but maybe he was never really happy with that role, I could see Han not liking being a general, all of the rules and regulations, and as a general he wouldn't have an active role in the fighting, just sit at a desk and taking care of paper work. Then he was probably out of a job once the Republic disbanded its fleet, whether Han left voluntarily or was asked to retire is completely up for debate. Then Ben goes on his rampage and Han is left with his guilt and little to do to distract him while Leia has her work to distract her and it's quite possible that after the incident she threw herself even more into her work so that she has little time to think about Ben. But at the same time, it would mean that she probably also had little time for Han and he was left trying to cope with things mostly on his own and so, as a result, he decides to go back into the smuggling business; it's something that he was good at and it keeps him busy so that he doesn't have/can't dwell on what went wrong with Ben.
 
Forgive me, Guri, but it's been a while seen I've watched Firefly and Serenity. Did Mal end up with a woman? I don't recall that. Either way, can you please elaborate on what you mean when you say you'd like a Firefly Han?

Thanks.

The Wook

The reason Mal was admirable was that he had a moral code and would fight for a cause when he saw one and he didn't abandon people, the only reason he took up the life of a smuggler was because his side lost. He never ended up with Inara, but they made it clear that they loved each other (I'm fuzzy on who was more afraid to admit it, though.) and might have been going that direction. In my mind, if it was ever agreed to be mutual I don't see him taking off just because she looked at him with sad eyes.

The reason I used to see Han as a Mal was like I said, he was a smuggler looking for a cause. He found one - EU made it so that he stuck with it after he found it.

The reason why Han is no longer a Mal in my mind is that he found something to fight for, and they won, but as soon as things got bad again he took off. I don't think Mal would have left someone else, let alone the woman he loved, to fight the bad guys while he went off smuggling... just because he was good at it.

If what everyone is saying is that he wouldn't have been happy as a general with authority and responsibility, that's fine, just not the Han I thought he was.


See, I had the complete opposite reaction. ...If they had Han as some leader of the resistance with responsibility I would have shed a tear. That's not him. He had to be out on his own again, and to do that he couldn't be with Leia

Yup, complete opposite!

They made it pretty clear that he and Leia drifted apart mutually I thought, so no one person to blame, or, if you prefer, they were BOTH to blame. Leia even says that it was her who lost both him and Ben. It's Han that gives her the out in that conversation saying it was also him. She strikes me as the type that would have completely shut out her emotions and stuck to her work shutting everyone else out. After a while of that it allows an already independent person to be independent again and drift off I suppose.

I didn't get that she lost, as in she pushed them both away, more in, they both left her... but I only saw it once, maybe I missed it.
 
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