Rain Johnson recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly and revealed Han Solo will return in Star Wars Episode 8 as a fucking ghost. Happy nerds? Han Solo is back and death is just a lie told to us by limey frauds like Christopher Hitchens to sell books.
Next year, the famous smuggler will return as a non ghost, this time played by Alden Ehrenreich in the upcoming, yet to be titled young Han Solo sequel-prequel-softboot-stand-alone-anthology film, directed by Ron Howard, ginger weirdo from Happy Days. Will the film suck? Is Harrison Ford a Roman Polanksi apologizer? We don’t have the answers to those questions, what we do have is a list of things we don’t want to see in the inevitable Han Solo prequel.
6. A Scene Showcasing How Chewy and Han Became Friends
This one is almost certainly going to be in the movie. I mean, can you think of a more perfect crowd pleaser than a scene that features Chewbacca and Han Solo meeting for the first time? “Hey, I’m young Han Solo, wanna be friends?” Chewie replies, “Grawggrrrgrrg,” and then Han’s gonna look right into the camera and go: “I’ve got a gooood feeling about this.”
The crowd will go nuts, meme it, put it on t-shirts, I get it. It’s just, to me, Han and Chewie’s friendship is so humorously weird, giving it any sort of context is gonna neuter the hell out of it. Space pirate and giant alien dog became best buddies at some point – we don’t need to know anything else.
5. Jedi
Like I’ve said countless times, conceptually a Han Solo movie writes itself. He’s so friggin cool. He’s a gunslinger “IN SPACE!” (muppets voice). He doesn’t need any stinkin' old farts in robes waving their stupid glow sticks at each other. Besides having him interact with Jedis in anyway before A New Hope makes his skepticism regarding the force unfounded. No Jedi!
4. No Darth Vader
Number 5 also applies to arguably the coolest former Jedi of all time. I don’t want to see Darth Vader in this movie for the reasons mentioned above with the extra caveat of Vader’s overexposure.
3. A Scene Giving Weight to Any of Han's Aesthetics
This wouldn’t have been a concern of mine if I hadn’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales this year. There’s a scene in the movie that lets the audience in on exactly how Captain Jack Sparrow got his hat and compass. Ah, so that’s how... WHO GIVES A FUCK. I don’t care how Han Solo got his gun or his vest or his cool ship, nor does any other non-moron.
2. No Boba Fett
I get the temptation to include everyone’s favorite Bounty Hunter, but you gotta understand, Boba Fett is like Wolverine and Geralt and the Xenomorph. He was so cool to audiences back in 1980 because they knew so little about him. He’s visually inspired and serves his purpose, but if you want to maintain his enigmatic allure, then keep his screen time as minimal as possible.
1. Lando and Chewbacca have to be the only returning characters
This one is important. I don’t want to see baby versions of “fill in character here.” Not Admiral Ackbar, not Grand Moff Tarkin, not a little baby diagona, none of it. I want to get the sense that Han lived a full rogue life before we see him in A New Hope, not a condensed version of everything we know and associate with the character in a two hour running time. This goes doubly so for major players like Luke and Leia.
So there ya have it, Opie. Don’t put any of that trash in your movie. You’ve been warned.
