Lucasfilm has released a new Solo: A Star Wars Story featurette. As far as featurettes go, it’s pretty standard stuff. You’ve got director Ron Howard and the cast talking about the film, how it shows Han Solo before he became the Han Solo we know and love, and including some new footage.
What’s impressive about this footage is how much of it is new. We get to see Han as a soldier; we get to see his early interactions with Chewbacca, and the more I see of this movie, the more I feel like I’m on its wavelength. While I would have preferred for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to remain as directors, it looks like Ron Howard has managed to run with the ball and craft a fairly entertaining movie. I thought I would still be Star Wars’d out after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but because Solo looks so different from Rian Johnson's sequel, the upcoming Star Wars spinoff may be enough to stand on its own rather than beating the brand to death. Obviously, we’re all going to see it; it’s just that I’m become more excited to see it rather than seeing it out of obligation.
Check out the Solo featurette below. The film opens May 25th and stars Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Joonas Suotamo, and Paul Bettany.
Here’s the official synopsis for Solo: A Star Wars Story:
Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo befriends his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and meets the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes.