The Defining Moments of Han Solo

Han Solo is one of the greatest characters that has ever appeared in Star Wars. In fact he is the character that put Harrison Ford on the map and helped make him into the iconic actor that he is today. Now Han Solo is getting his own standalone film later on this year, further extending his marvelous story.

So today on The Defining Moments I’m excited to share the moments, so far, that have made Han Solo into the beloved character that he is to this day. Enjoy!

1. Meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker

When we first meet Han Solo in A New Hope we have no idea who he is. He’s a smuggler, a supposedly fantastic pilot, and he’s the man who’s going to take these two mysterious folks across the galaxy to the Alderaan system. Han, at this time of his life, didn’t care about anything except for money and can you blame him? He had a debt to Jabba the Hutt and he knew if he didn’t pay it off he would be in big trouble.

He had no clue that this mysterious old man and this young kid would end up changing his life.

2. Rescuing A Princess

Han can sometimes be a scoundrel. He didn’t have anything to do with you unless you were going to pay him some money. When Luke told him that if they rescued this certain captured princess he would get paid handsomely for his deed he was all in on the idea. When Han met Princess Leia for the first time he tried to be the boss of the situation but she, of course, didn’t play that. He was stunned and immediately became attracted to the feisty princess.

He tried to pretend that he didn’t care about her wellbeing and that all he wanted was money but the truth was that he was infatuated with the princess and didn’t want to see any harm come to her, leading him to one of the most heroic moments in his life.

Is ‘Star Wars’ Lacking Creativity?

With the release of the Solo trailer a few days ago I finally got an extensive look at LucasFilm’s latest Star Wars installment and while my feelings towards the trailer were overwhelmingly positive there was one nagging problem that I couldn’t ignore. The conundrum I just can’t get my head around is the problem of women representation in Star Wars. 

Look at this list of all of the major female characters in Star Wars.

Princess Leia

Padme Amidala

Rey

Jyn Erso

And now, Qi’Ra

All five of these women (Princess Leia doesn’t exactly count considering that she was the first major woman in Star Wars) have dark hair and are white. It’s kind of strange if you really look at it. And the last three women have been British! That’s like if every Marvel film had a female superhero that was a sexy, red head like Black Widow. That would be ridiculous.

Because we have grown to love these characters we have given Star Wars a pass at their lack of creativity but I think enough is enough. Rian Johnson helped shake up this list of women by introducing Amilyn Holdo, a purple haired Admiral of the Resistance, and Rose Tico, the first major Asian female character in Star Wars but now Solo is taking us right back to what has already come before.

I mean where are the blondes of Star Wars? Or the red heads? Mon Mothma doesn’t exactly count because she has never been a top three major character in a film. Why couldn’t Qi’Ra have been a black woman with white hair, like the Storm of Star Wars? Or maybe Qi’Ra could’ve been the first major Latina female character in this expanding franchise. Creativity is a boundless constant, it’s what has kept Star Wars alive for forty years straight, and yet these producers have been barely willing to step outside the box when it comes to the women of Star Wars.

And the thing about Jyn, after seeing some early concept art for her character due to the behind-the-scenes, she was at first going to have red hair! That would’ve shaken things up a bit and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now but because they made her yet another British brunette now the trend has become ridiculously tiring.

Now is this going to make me not like Qi’Ra? Of course not. I’m already a fan of hers and I’ve only barely seen her in the teasers but the minds behind LucasFilm have a stale imagination when it comes to the major women of Star Wars. If we’re going to have another ten or more years of Star Wars movies, and television shows, we need creativity, and quick!

I thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day. May the Force Be With You.