Solo: A Star Wars Story makes the ‘Han shot first’ debate even messier

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (or, 1977 in Earth years), a Rodian bounty hunter named Greedo confronted the notorious smuggler Han Solo in a shadowy corner of the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine. There was a price on Han’s head, courtesy of the slug gangster Jabba the Hutt, and the gun-for-hire was finally in a position to get his. The plan didn’t work out. With a single, under-the-table blaster shot, Han smoked Greedo, who hit the table as snail-headed onlookers gawked from around the bar. The message was clear: Mess with Han and his gun will respond.

Twenty years later (still a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), George Lucas rewrote this galactic history. Worried that Han’s actions made him out to be “a cold-blooded killer,” Lucas tinkered with the scene above before the release of Star Wars: A New Hope — Special Edition. The new cut spliced in a brief insert of Greedo’s blaster firing across the table before Han’s kill shot, effectively letting the Millennium Falcon pilot off the hook for straight-up murdering his pursuer. Fans were livid.

Throughout the release of the Star Wars prequels and numerous box sets, “Han shot first” became the rallying cry of an audience warring with a creator who had every right to shape and reshape a living blockbuster document. A 2004 DVD reissue once again finessed the edit so that Han and Greedo appeared to shoot simultaneously, in a kind of booth-friendly Western duel. With every alteration, “Han shot first” morphed from dissection of creator intent into a lampooning meme, a scene easily spoofed by Family Guy, Robot Chicken and even Star Wars itself; “Han shot first” jabs appear in Star Wars Battlefront 2, the Star Wars Tales comic book, Angry Birds Star Wars and even The Force Awakens novelization.

This month’s Solo: A Star Wars Story takes “Han shot first” to its logical conclusion: an implosion of callbacks and characterization that leaves Han Solo’s reputation in question. Fans thought they had it figured out. But who is Han Solo? A guy who shot first. Or did. Or does. Or could. Or, perhaps, did once, in an exception to his rules.

[Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story.]

Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox

Han, according to George Lucas

Han Solo came into existence with a primal relationship to the universe. In just a few sentences of introduction, George Lucas’s 1976 shooting script for Star Wars bottles up 50 years of pulp fiction. Audiences knew this guy.

Luke is still giddy and downs a fresh drink as he follows Ben and Chewbacca to a booth where HAN SOLO is sitting. He is a tough James Dean style starpilot about thirty years old. A mercenary in a starship, simple, sentimental and cocksure of himself. A lovely young alien girl has her arms around him but the young space rogue sends her bouncing on her way as the group approaches.

Lucas’ first draft from 1974 took a slightly different approach:

Han is a huge, green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills.

A 1975 second draft course-corrects:

[Han is] a young Corellian pirate only a few years older than himself. He is a burly-bearded but ruggedly handsome boy dressed in a gaudy array of flamboyant apparel.

The final version of the Star Wars screenplay, a draft published to match the finished film, pares down Han’s characterization to “simple, sentimental and cocksure.” Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, having penned some of Han Solo’s finest moments in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, understands those words better than anyone, perhaps even George Lucas. In a new interview with the New York Times, Kasdan recalls what excited him about writing for Han in Empire:

I had seen A New Hope, of course. It had electrified me exactly like it did everybody else, but the thing that really got me was Harrison Ford. My heroes were Steve McQueen and The Magnificent Seven and the Seven Samurai. He embodied that spirit. You’ve been living your whole life as, gee, I wish I had the balls to do this. Han never thinks about it. Even if he’s wrong, it’s forward motion. He never stops and says, “Oh, what am I risking?” That attracted me in 1977 and attracted me now.

If the business demanded a Han Solo prequel, Kasdan had the cred to take on the herculean task of reverse-engineering a story and solving the Jack Sparrow Conundrum™, the dramatic quagmire of turning a beloved side character into a viable lead without sacrificing what made them cool.

Accepting the job saw Kasdan inhabiting the role of Han himself; only a simple, sentimental and cocksure rogue would think he could deliver a rousing version of Solo: A Star Wars Story. And like the hero, who in the prequel flies through turbulent, Lovecraftian hell of the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, only to deliver the Millennium Falcon dinged and torn to shreds, Kasdan pulls it off without much flair. Solo: A Star Wars Story makes it to the end credits intact. It’s undeniably Star Wars, and in the spirit of Han Solo. But there’s one massive scuff mark: the inevitable reconciliation of “Han shot first.”

Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm

Han, according to Solo: A Star Wars Story

In a 2014 Reddit AMA, some poor bastard asked Harrison Ford who shot first. Ford didn’t waver.

”I don’t know and I don’t care.”

These may be the wisest words anyone has ever said about Star Wars. In 1977, Han blasting a hole through Greedo was a quick way for George Lucas to establish his anti-hero’s occasionally cutthroat tactics. But the scene only became a defining moment through fan chatter. Lucas really introduces “Han Solo,” in a three-dimensional sense, just seconds before, when Han haggles with Obi-Wan and Luke over Empire-averting business, boasts about the Falcon, then sighs with relief when he wraps the deal (“Those guys must really be desperate. This could really save my neck.”).

That character, not the one who shot first, floats through the original trilogy. Han Solo’s aid in the destruction of the Death Star, his role in the Rebellion efforts through the Battle of Endor and his place in the Skywalker saga were not destiny. He was just another pirate, and until Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi showed up at the Mos Eisley cantina, only waded knee-deep into trouble if there was a credit bonus involved. He rode the fringes of the galaxy where he could easily be mistaken as a lowlife who’d throw anyone under the space bus for a portion or two.

But as far as canon is considered, Han’s a sap. He killed Greedo to protect himself and Chewie. Friendship saw him fly back to pick off Darth Vader’s TIE fighter. Love kept him fighting the Empire alongside Leia. His redemption was an accident. When circumstance splinters his family, he reverts to the rough-edged smuggler persona of his youth — but he’ll still take in a stray if she’s on his ship for the right reason. A better description for Han might be “cocksure, yet simple and sentimental.” Unlike a rowdy outlaw from Deadwood, he needs a good reason to shoot first.

Han’s complicated life doesn’t let Lucas off the hook for sanding down the Greedo moment into a dull edge and provoking Star Wars devotees, but those core values give Kasdan breathing room to flesh out Solo’s backstory on paper. (Whether the character exists without Harrison Ford in the role is another question entirely, and likely depends on when and how you saw Star Wars.)

Solo: A Star Wars Story draws a calibrated line between the past and what we know to be true. As romantic as he is headstrong, it’s no surprise that a teen Han (played wisely without Harrison Fordisms by Alden Ehrenreich) found the love of his life, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), in the throes of Corellia. First love is hard — especially when a old water worm dame is demanding results from your thievery. After being separated at the gate, and spending years waiting to rescue her from the shipyard planet, they meet again, Han was hung up on her like a high-school boyfriend who couldn’t let go.

Early on, Han grapples with his “solo” status (by the way, yes, that naming scene really happened), but as soon as he joins the Empire’s army, Solo never once establishes him as a loner who’d walk into a bar and shoot an unsuspecting Rodian to make a point, or even a mangy soul fit for a life of crime — despite the audience’s preconceived notions. Instead, Han will always rise to the occasion for those in need of a foolhardy gunslinger on a life-or-death mission. He’s a risk-obsessed daredevil who’d be at home with the Jackass boys. We’ve never seen him truly alone, and shouldn’t; he always has someone to help.

Kasdan’s young Han Solo is almost the character George Lucas carved out in his original trilogy movies, who in retrospect, he established deeper with the Special Edition edits. Han’s future courtship with Leia, a kind of resistant, wall-building flirtation that crumbles in the iconic “I love you”/“I know” moment in Empire, seems born from Han knowing that years before he was too romantic for his own good, pining for Qi’ra as she pushed a dagger deeper and deeper into his back. His willingness to trade a sail barge of cash for the approval of Enfys Nest and her marauders might feel out of place if it weren’t for every other Star Wars movie establishing that Han’s moral compass always reverts to true north.

Then there’s the final beat, Han and Chewie sailing off in the Millennium Falcon, after Han successfully sniffed out Lando’s cheating ways and won the ship. There’s no Han looking out for Han — Chewie will always be there, a life debt forged in a muddy, Mimbian prison. Or was it established on the spice mines of Kessel? Solo doesn’t bother saying “life debt” outright because it’s already a given in Han’s personal philosophy. The surly shell that shows its face and pulls a gun in the Mos Eisley cantina? An act.

There’s just one problem with Solo: Kasdan can’t shake the last 20 years of “Han shot first” talk. When handed the keys to the Falcon, like so many EU writers and clever gamemakers of the past, he feels compelled to right the Lucas wrongs — for the fans. In Solo, Han’s flash-in-the-pan mentor Beckett (Woody Harrelson) betrays him by alerting the crime boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) that Enfys Nest is making off with the hyperfuel. Han escapes his confrontation with Dryden, and confronts Beckett on one of Savareen’s sandy cliffs. Before the aging smuggler can deliver a spiel on how the world really works, Han shoots first. “I would have killed you,” Beckett mutters as his bleeding body flops over. There’s the no-bullshit hero we know and love! That one was for Aurra Sing!

The scene is a double betrayal: Beckett discards Han as part of his “family,” and Kasdan denies going all in on the prequel logic that would allow Han to be his true, original trilogy self. Instead, the movie must revert to serve both canon and the collective imagination that allowed “Han shot first” to burn for so long, even when Han never shot first again (and, no, firing one off at Darth Vader does not count as a dastardly move).

The problem with Solo’s “shot first” moment is that nothing in the movie is gritty or dangerous or entering an underbelly of the Star Wars universe where a “Han shot first” version of Han could grow. Solo is only “movie dangerous” — the bumper bowling of seedy crime settings, where rounds of Sabacc are played for all-or-nothing stakes but everyone goes home sober. Kasdan knows Han needs room for charm and quirk. The Han who stumbles around the Death Star in a Stormtrooper outfit, clumsily trying to talk his way through Empire protocol, needs to be near-pratfalling his way through the hyperfuel heist on Kessel. He needs to sympathize with Lando’s decision to import a dying L3-37 into the Falcon computer. He can’t start barbarous, or even be left roughed up by the ride.

He needs to be all things, and would have been, if not for an ill-timed “Han shot first” callback, in which he doesn’t think twice about murdering a morally grey criminal who gave him a chance, the guy looked out for himself the way Han supposedly might in the years to come, a blip on the Star Wars character roster who fades away as a passing afterthought as Han and Chewie zoom into hyperspace in the final frames of the film. Really, the scene only makes sense as fan service. Unless you believe “shot first” Han is the real Han, in which case, it might be a perfect moment.

In that final act of Solo, Qi’ra caresses Han’s face like a knife slicing through a rind: “You’re actually a good guy.” For anyone hung up on “Han shot first,” this moment feels like the violation. But we know what’s coming, and we know what came before. Han is a good person, a rogue who makes more sense in 2018 than he did in 1977, and whether his legacy in Star Wars will be considered as such depends on whoever he shoots next.