• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Star Wars: Solo - Grading and Discussion Thread

What would you rate it?

  • A+

    Votes: 7 4.5%
  • A

    Votes: 25 16.1%
  • A-

    Votes: 28 18.1%
  • B+

    Votes: 38 24.5%
  • B

    Votes: 24 15.5%
  • C

    Votes: 18 11.6%
  • D

    Votes: 12 7.7%
  • F

    Votes: 3 1.9%

  • Total voters
    155
I don't think there's any direct mention of Han smuggling spice for Jabba in the movies, it's just been a long held assumption at this point.

The way Lucas originally described how Han & Chewie operate, it's mostly entrepreneurial. They're mostly smuggling relatively small high value items that aren't illegal so much as they have very high Imperial tariffs. Basically, black market goods and it could be anything from luxury goods to engine parts to basic food rations for worlds under embargo. It all depends on what goods he can acquire cheap in one place that are in high demand elsewhere and get them in around local and Imperial customs checks.
Incidentally, this is why he's always either stinking rich one minute and perilously in debt the next. What he doesn't spend on the Falcon goes straight into his next shipment, which could end up being a total loss of the buyer refuses to pay, has been arrested when he gets there or tries to kill him.
What seemed to happen with Jabba is that the Hutt hired Han to move his goods (maybe spice, maybe not) from A-to-B, then return with the buyer's payment. When he was boarded along the way and had to ditch the goods, meaning he couldn't make the delivery (which doubtlessly annoyed Jabba's buyer) and thus couldn't bring Jabba his payment (which annoyed Jabba) and was out whatever his own fee was going to be, plus expenses (which probably really annoyed Han & Chewie.) Which just illustrates what seems like easy money can end up costing him more than he could afford and with no cash to invest in new stock, no clear way to make good, hence resorting to taking charters.

Would he have shipped spice? Probably, if the money is good. He may draw the line at death sticks, but even then maybe not. Given his background he probably figures beings are entitled to put whatever they want into their own bodies. A slave cargo is probably the only kind he'd flatly refuse to touch on strictly moral grounds. Also, Chewie rip him in half at the mere suggestion.
 
Last edited:
We are a bunch of petty nerds. At least we have that in common.

Well, we ARE nerds. :p

Look, I don't want to have a war with you, Ricky. I'm sorry if it came off that way. I'm really here to just discuss nerdy things. I get a little passionate about things when people attack things I love. It can come off a little harshly sometimes.
 
Well, we ARE nerds. :p

Look, I don't want to have a war with you, Ricky. I'm sorry if it came off that way. I'm really here to just discuss nerdy things. I get a little passionate about things when people attack things I love. It can come off a little harshly sometimes.

Hey no problems man I'm the same way. If we didn't love Star Wars we wouldn't be so passionate about it.
There's heroes on both sides.
 
The way Lucas originally described how Han & Chewie operate, it's mostly entrepreneurial. They're mostly smuggling relatively small high value items that aren't illegal so much as they have very high Imperial tariffs. Basically, black market goods and it could be anything from luxury goods to engine parts to basic food rations for worlds under embargo. It all depends on what goods he can acquire cheap in one place that are in high demand elsewhere and get them in around local and Imperial customs checks.

That sounds more like Malcolm Reynolds. Is there a difference?
 
Regarding the Kessel run, it looks like Solo, with some good piloting and a good nav computer, managed to plot a better course through. Ok, that's fine, but that doesn't make the ship fast. It sounds like any ship with a good computer can do what the Falcon did. It wasn't speed. It was efficiency.

I seem to recall it being a longstanding EU thing that part of the reason for the Falcon's speed was it's hacked-together hyperdrive supercomputer was able to calculate better routes than the standard hyperspace lanes.

Ah, here, from Wookiepedia (the Legends Falcon entry): "Han Solo's famous comment that the vessel "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs" comes off a little incongruous—a parsec is a measure of distance, not time. (In the original novelization, Solo uses the phrase "standard timeparts" instead of "parsecs.") In the 4-DVD Special Edition of the original trilogy, George Lucas explains that the remark meant that the Falcon's computer was so advanced that it was able to plot a shorter route through hyperspace than any other ship, and thus travel faster."

Lando also said something like when he was explaining he couldn't wipe L3 because her navigational knowledge was the secret to his success.
 
At last I have seen it. I can sum it up in two sentences. Thanks Mr. Howard. You have done Ford, Dailey, and Crispin proud. I gave it an A+ because it is exactly what I think a Han Solo origin movie should be.

I think that L. Neil Smith should get a shout-out here as well.

Aside from the Sharu, I could've sworn there was mention of the Oseon and the Starcaves from the other two Smith books as well.
 
That sounds more like Malcolm Reynolds. Is there a difference?
Well given that 'Firefly' was explicitly stated to have been conceived as "what if Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon had a TV show?!", probably not all that much.
Yes. Lucas clearly ripped of Whedon.
And while poor Joss was only 12 years old no less. The nerve! ;)

ETA: for reference, this is what Lucas had to say about his thoughts on Solo's background. It's from a document LF sent to their licencees and was dictated by the man himself around August '77. The stuff about smuggling spice is in the 5th paragraph.
z74Ml8T.png
This should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: these were just initial thoughts he had immediately after finishing the movie and certain notions may have changed in his mind over the next 40 years. So don't take any deviation from the above as a departure from Lucas's artistic vision or anything.
 
Last edited:
I believe spice was a slang for narcotics in the Star Wars universe . . . unless Lucasfilm and Disney decide to change it.


With Marvel we have one consistent timeline with each movie taking place one after the next.

:guffaw:
 
They probably didn't have him smuggle drugs in Solo to make it a bit more family friendly.
See, that's the thing. That's why I'm not holding my breath for it to ever be established, at least on screen, that Han had anything to do with drugs, whether running them, using them, or anything.

Wasn't that the main reason he got nerfed in the Greedo encounter in the first place?
 
See, that's the thing. That's why I'm not holding my breath for it to ever be established, at least on screen, that Han had anything to do with drugs, whether running them, using them, or anything.

Wasn't that the main reason he got nerfed in the Greedo encounter in the first place?

Well, Solo showed an encounter between Han and a certain former bartender from Cheers that kinda reversed any idea that he is now family friendly.
 
I believe spice was a slang for narcotics in the Star Wars universe . . . unless Lucasfilm and Disney decide to change it.




:guffaw:

It certainly is! Interesting that I don't think it's been mentioned once in the 4 Disney offerings. The mines of Kessel are spice mines. C-3P0 drops that nugget in A New Hope.

Having seen Solo twice... still not sure to go about rating this film for me personally. It's possible I may feel absolutely neutral about it but reading other posts here helps with perspective.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top