Solo: A Star Wars Story: 4 burning questions for the movie

After months of waiting and speculation, the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story has finally dropped. We have questions. Lots of them.

For those fans who panicked that Lucasfilm’s hesitance was a sign of Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s low quality, rest easy. It looks great! As trailers go, though, it’s pretty short. Lucasfilm, as ever, is playing its cards close to its chest (even more so since the trailer dropped mere months from its opening in May).

But even with only a minute and a half of footage, it’s given us a lot to think about. We have a lot of questions — number one, is there any item of clothing that Lando Calrissian can’t pull off? Donald Glover is serving some serious looks as Lando in the new trailer; not a cape or cravat is out of place.

Other questions are bigger, however. For instance, what sort of droid is Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s L3-37 (the droid we see return Lando’s salute) going to be? How does Han actually meet Chewie? What actually got Han kicked out of the Empire’s pilot training program?

We’ll all have to wait until May to find out for sure, but until then, here are the biggest questions that weigh on our minds after the trailer.

Is it a heist movie?

Guys, we’re pretty sure it’s a heist movie. The music, for one, seems to suggest that it’s going to be an all-out adventure romp across space, and there’s even mention of a team being put together by Woody Harrelson. Knowing what we know of Han and his proclivity for criminal activity, and his likely defection from the Empire at this point, we can safely assume the team isn’t a new entry to the Galactic Bowling League.

It’s not just the music and the team though that suggest it might be a heist movie. There’s a shot in the teaser trailer that aired during the Super Bowl that suggests Han is in prison at some point. And the new character posters released, particularly Qi’Ra’s, evoke a sort of ’60s heist movie aesthetic.

You could say Rogue One was also a heist movie, but this Star Wars story feels different tonally. Rogue One was the war drama of the Star Wars universe. Solo could well be its Italian Job.

Who is Qi’Ra?

Mother of Dragons Emilia Clarke is the only new character who features on the four posters released by Lucasfilm to coincide with the trailer drop. We know next to nothing about her character, Qi’Ra, other than she doesn’t seem to be working as part of the Empire, and she’s really into Han’s reckless driving.

We can assume Qi’Ra is a criminal recruited like Han, given her many guises in the short trailer, and she seems forthright and knowing. She even claims to be the only person who knows what Han truly is. Undercover spy? Bighearted nerd? What is it that she sees in him, and does the audience already know?

All in all, it’s exciting. But another pressing matter is whether Qi’Ra is a love interest for Han. As diehard fans of Leia and Han, we can’t even imagine him with another woman, and we all know Leia is the love of Han’s life.

Of course, there can be more than one love in a lifetime, but frankly, in a space opera like Star Wars, there is true love and nothing else. If Leia is Han’s true love, then who is Qi’Ra?

Is Alden Ehrenreich right for Han Solo?

It’s really hard to think about Han Solo and picture anyone else other than Harrison Ford. It’s an iconic role and those who worried about the movie when it was announced feared it might be too iconic for another actor to take over.

We know Alden Ehrenreich is a good actor — even a great one — but would he be right for Han?

However, all such worries were eased a little at Star Wars Celebration in 2016, when the movie’s then directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, talked about the character at length.

Lord said:

"[He’s] very sarcastic and at the end of the day he’s unreasonably optimistic. I think that’s why we fall for that guy and we got so excited about making this movie. This kind of dichotomy between this grouchy seemingly cynical guy with the biggest heart in the galaxy. And to me that’s a great thing to make a movie about."

These guys really got it. We had to believe the character was in safe hands, and though the movie was handed to Ron Howard (even safer hands) upon the pair’s departure, the casting of Ehrenreich was still done by people who understand Han’s character in and out. More importantly, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, who has shown that she is more than willing to take action if something is not right with her franchise, signed off on it in the first place.

We haven’t seen a huge amount of him in the trailer, but what we did see is immensely promising. Ehrenreich seems to have struck that delicate balance between Han’s bravado and his vulnerability. Han Solo’s coolness isn’t effortless; he works really hard at it.

If Han Solo were a chocolate, he’d be one of those with a hard candy shell and soft center. Leia, Luke, Chewie and now apparently Qi’Ra get to see it and so do we, fleetingly, in the aforementioned moment Qi’Ra says she’s the only person who knows who he truly is.

That smirk, complete with the flash of genuine worry it’s hiding, is the most Han thing ever committed to film.

Han lives!

How did the Millennium Falcon get so dirty?

It’s a question that’s been plaguing the Internet ever since the teaser trailer dropped and we saw the Millennium Falcon’s interior anew. How did Han manage to turn the Falcon’s pristine gleaming decor into the brown-stained piece of junk we’ve come to know and love? There’s surely not that big of a gap between Solo and A New Hope. What did you do?

Sorry, Han. We know you say she’s got it where it counts, but the fact she doesn’t look like much is objectively your fault.

Related Story: Solo: Check out the Good Morning America trailer

We didn’t realise ‘special modifications’ meant wall-to-wall coffee stains.