Solo: A Star Wars Story: 3 possible explanations for the runtime
How on Earth will Solo: A Star Wars Story run for over two hours? We have no idea, but we have some theories about it, some of which may not be serious.
With Solo: A Star Wars Story appearing at Cannes this year comes a little hint of information (with a hat tip to @yeahclarke on Twitter, who was absolutely on the case). Apparently, the movie will run for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Granted, this isn’t a Marvel movie, so we don’t have to stick around for any mid-credit or post-credits scenes. Well, we probably don’t need to, that is. Things might get a little wild here to help Solo stand out.
However, that seems like an awfully long runtime for an origin movie that doesn’t seem to have the fanbase electrified. Let’s speculate as to what exactly could be behind this.
We’ll start with child Han Solo
Who’s to say that a baby Han Solo getting abandoned by his parents or put on his first ship won’t open this whole shebang? Sure, it would probably seem a little silly, but this movie apparently has multiple time periods and seems to establish that Qi’Ra and Han have a past of their own. It might be just a few minutes or it might take up the first 15 or so, but a baby Han isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Extra scenes were the only way to make the movie coherent
This theory doesn’t come directly from me; it’s a springboard off of @yeahclarke:
I thought the movie would be a bit shorter. It really feels they let Ron do whatever he wanted and thought was necessary.
— dragon's daughter (@yeahclarke) April 12, 2018
For a movie that had what seems like a fairly troubled production, some additional scenes may have been the only way to make the movie function. Granted, the length seems a little intimidating, but hey, The Last Jedi runs over two and a half hours and it’s at least internally coherent, even if you disagree with the choices made within that film.
The last 15 minutes is just George Lucas apologizing
Because hey, he sold Lucasfilm, and now we have a Han Solo movie instead of The Han Solo Trilogy being canon. Not that they’re the best books in the Legends universe, but they at least felt consistent and feature Harrison Ford’s face on the cover.
Next: 4 things we learned from the new Solo trailer
What do you think has Solo running for more than two hours?