Warning: this article contains Death Star-sized spoilers for Han Solo: A Star Wars Story.
From meeting Chewie to gambling with Lando, to pulling off the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, much of Solo: A Star Wars Story involves joyously playing out the anecdotes we'd briefly heard during the original Star Wars trilogy. But that's not to say it isn't full of surprises.
Like every prequel that's gone before, Solo feeds us new information about the universe of the Skywalkers and the Sith, from intriguing little scraps to big, meaty, Wookiee-feeding chunks.
Here's what we learned on our Solo mission…
1. Han and Luke are more alike than we realised
While one grew up as a farm boy on a remote desert world and the other as a "scrumrat" on a rusting industrial planet, the two lead male heroes of A New Hope are actually far more similar than anyone watching the original trilogy might have thought.
For a start, they are both orphans. Han mentions a father, but the implication is he's long-since gone — and he didn't even tell Han his surname before popping his space-clogs. Then there's the fact that they both come from a world everyone seems to want to leave — most importantly them.
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They have the same taste in hover-cars (the M-68 landspeeder Han drives at the beginning of the film is very much like Luke's X-34). And finally, both harboured the ambition to become a pilot. Han might be less romantic about it but, as Belinda Carlisle once warbled, he and Luke dreamed the same dream.
2. Han worked for the Empire
Shocking, we know, but as Solo proves, before he became a roguish renegade, our Han was a good-guy-crushing grunt in the Imperial Army (though serving as a 'Mudtrooper', rather than a full-on stormtrooper).
Not only that, but the Empire gave him his second name, after he revealed at the Corellian port that he didn't have a family. Lucky that Imperial goon settled on the cool-sounding 'Solo', rather than 'No-mates'.
3. The 'Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)' exists within the Star Wars universe
Just like the Cantina music and the awful, awful 'Jedi Rocks' (from the best-forgotten Special Edition of Return of the Jedi), John Williams' eternally earwormy, sounds-a-bit-like-'A Spoonful of Sugar'-from-Mary Poppins Darth Vader theme has now been revealed as diegetic (ie the characters know the tune, it's not just played over the top of the action).
You can briefly hear it when you see the Imperial Army recruitment holograms on Corellia. It's such stirring stuff, it must explain why so many regular people signed up, despite the service being overrun with all those Jango Fett clones.
4. Chewie eats people
Arguably the most disturbing revelation in Solo is the fact that, when he has to, Chewbacca will chow down on a human being. Or three. After being dropped into a mud-clogged pit to be fed to "The Beast", Han has a bruising meet-cute (or should that be 'meet-brute'?) with everyone's favourite Wookiee.
And while Chewie doesn't try to take a bite out of him, there are evidently human remains down there. Think about that: Chewie is only a few non-vegetarian meals away from killing you and everyone you love.
5. The Star Wars Holiday Special is finally proven as non-canon
If you've never seen the infamous and ludicrous 1978 TV Holiday Special (since disowned by George Lucas, and understandably so), then it's probably for the best. It focuses on Chewbacca's family on his homeworld of Kashyyyk, waiting for Chewie and Han to join them to celebrate 'Life Day'.
However, as we learn in Solo, all Chewie's folk were taken away from their homeworld by the Empire and made slaves around the Galaxy. Ergo, the Holiday Special could never have happened. Phew.
6. Han took Bossk's job
It's just a passing mention from Thandie Newton's not-in-it-for-long-enough Val, but we learn that she would have rather hired huge, lizard-man bounty hunter Bossk than this cocky kid from Corellia. Bossk, if you recall, was one of the six bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back to hunt down… Han Solo.
7. The Millennium Falcon has always been missing an escape pod
If you thought those two prongs at the front of cinema's greatest ever spaceship (no argument) were a deliberate design choice, well now you can think again. Because when we first encounter the shiny, pre-trashed YT-1300 light freighter, that iconic front section is weirdly filled in, giving the Falcon a sleeker, cleaner look.
Turns out, of course, that it's just where the escape pod is kept — as we learn when Han jettisons it to lure away a colossal space-octopus monster thing.
8. The Falcon also contains the consciousness of a revolutionary droid
Odd one, this — and its full implications are rather unclear at this point. When droid liberationist and Falcon co-pilot L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) is trashed, her entire digital consciousness is uploaded into the ship's system. Meaning (we think) that the Millennium Falcon actually contains the 'soul' of a female robot, known for railing against her "organic overlords".
This doesn't bear any obvious relevance to the Star Wars films we've seen already, of course, but might perhaps come into play in Episode IX, or (more likely) potential Solo sequels.
9. Aurra Sing is dead
A fan-favourite character not properly seen in the movies (she appears briefly during the podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace), Aurra Sing is an infamous bounty hunter who appeared as a regular character in animated TV spin-off series The Clone Wars, in which she was revealed as being young Boba Fett's mentor.
But sadly, as we learn in Solo, Sing is no more, having been killed by Han's untrustworthy partner in crime, Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). Although, as Beckett points out: "The fall killed her. I just pushed her."
10. Darth Maul lives!
Okay, so if you watched The Clone Wars and Rebels, this won't come as a huge surprise. But for anyone else it's massive. Former Sith Apprentice Darth Maul — last cinematically seen tumbling down a huge Nabooian shaft in two halves, having been bisected by Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber — is alive and well, and running criminal gang The Crimson Dawn.
You don't quite see it during his hologram cameo here, but Maul is now a droid below the waist. Perhaps we'll get to see him properly stomping around on his robotic legs in a future Solo instalment.
11. Han DID shoot first (probably)
One of the greatest Star Wars controversies came about when the 1997 Special Edition of A New Hope CG-tweaked a scene to reveal that bounty hunter Greedo tried to shoot Han just before he blasted the ill-fated Rodian under the Catina table. Fans couldn't accept it: what made Han cool was the fact that he was ruthless enough to shoot first, not even in self-defence. Or so we thought.
And so we can think again, as it appears writers Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan have righted that narrative wrong with the shocking moment towards the close of Solo where Han fatally shoots Beckett in the chest, just as his former compadre is monologuing about why Han wouldn't ever do that kind of thing. Well he would. So he must have done with Greedo, too. QED.
12. Han helped create the Rebellion
After giving the precious coaxium — or 'hyperfuel' — to Marauder leader Enfys Nest, Han is told he's provided "the blood that gives life to something new" — namely a mobilising resistance to the Empire's chokehold on the galaxy. Not that he takes up an offer to join them. No, there's plenty more scoundrelling for him to get up to before he needs to worry about that particular adventure.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is out now in the UK and will be released on May 25 in the US. Book tickets here.
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