Everything We Know From the Solo: A Star Wars Story Trailer

Our first look at the Han Solo movie has arrived. Here are all the secrets we found in the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story!

It took Lucasfilm long enough, but it’s finally here: the first full-length Solo: A Star Wars Story trailer has arrived with our first glimpse at young Han’s adventures before the Original Trilogy. We also reunite with Chewie and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) as well as meet Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) and Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). 

Unsurprisingly, the trailer hits many of the beats you’d expect. There’s the Millennium Falcon – although its look in this movie might surprise you – as well as Star Destroyers, TIE fighters, and one or two other vehicles zooming through an unidentified planet’s city streets. Best of all, we get to hear Alden Ehrenreich delivering a few lines as everyone’s favorite smuggler. If you ask me, he definitely looks and sounds the part. 

There’s plenty to explore in this trailer (as well as the short teaser that premiered during the Super Bowl), which means it’s time to dissect the little over two minutes of footage to see what Solo: A Star Wars Story might be all about. Included in this trailer are clues about the movie’s plot as well as things that might very well prove to be red herrings.

I found tons of stuff, but if I missed anything, please sound off in the comments section or hit me up on Twitter!

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Before we get started, here’s the trailer again for those who haven’t checked it out yet:

And we should probably go over the TV spot from the Super Bowl, too:

I’m going to start off with a little section from the shorter teaser, actually, because it might be one of the most important plot points in the movie…

While I have a feeling this is actually a big red herring – I’m guessing Han is actually infiltrating an Imperial base for one reason or another – there is precedent for Han joining the Imperial Academy. In fact, Han did try the Imperial pilot life very briefly in the old EU timeline.

It’s revealed in the novel The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin (part one of The Han Solo Trilogy) that, after spending some time with a band of thieves (we’ll get to this in a bit), Han joined the Imperial Academy as a star pilot. As he says in the full-length trailer, it’s his dream to become the best pilot in the galaxy. 

All that said, it’s not long before we see Han trying to out run a Star Destroyer and some TIE fighters. We probably won’t see Han as an Imperial in this movie. 

Okay, moving on to the trailer proper. The trailer opens with Han fussing with a control panel. I’ve looked up a couple of pictures of the Millennium Falcon’s control panel and this one seems to match. So I’m going to say the very first shot of the trailer is Han powering on the Falcon. Correct me if I’m wrong. 

“I’ve been running scams on the streets since I was 10,” says Han, as the trailer shows him zipping through the streets on some sort of landspeeder (not unlike the one Luke pilots in A New Hope). It’s been a well established origin story through the years, in both the old and current EUs, that Han was orphaned at a young age and was forced to become a thief to survive on his home planet of Corellia. 

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It’s unclear if the planet he’s seen speeding through with Qi’ra (we’ll get to her in a minute, as well) is in fact Corellia, but I’d bet on it. It’s been rumored for a while that we’d see Han’s home planet at some point and this seems as good a time as any. 

I’m not sure if the troopers giving chase to Han and Qi’ra are Imperial or perhaps Corellian guards? Or law enforcement from another planet? The armor is chrome, which seems to indicate that these dudes don’t belong to the Empire. That DOES look like a stormtrooper helmet, though. Let me know your theories in the comments. 

Han mentions having been thrown out from the flight academy for having a mind of his own. This again seems to tease that Han once flew for the Empire before being thrown out (or perhaps defecting). Still feels like a red herring to me, but maybe not. 

No idea what planet this is, but it seems like Han goes on quite the adventure here (as we’ll see later in the trailer). Han’s wearing a big fur coat that Chewie might have a problem with. This seems to be the same planet where we see that cool monorail in the TV spot?

Alright, here’s our first look at the inside of the pre-Original Trilogy Millennium Falcon. The familiar passage way stands out here for how clean and new the walls look. It seems that Han will first encounter the ship in a brand new state. There are a few shots later that also indicate as much. 

There’s a remarkable amount of gray in this trailer – almost as if the movie is going to be devoid of color – and it’s in this grayness (a thick fog?) that Han first admires the outside of his beloved freighter.

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Here again we see Han and Qi’ra together. This time they’re on a shore, undoubtedly walking towards that structure by the sea. It ALMOST looks like a B-wing, although that starfighter hadn’t yet been invented at this point (I’m assuming this movie takes place AT LEAST ten years before the Battle of Yavin). It does look like it has some sort of cannon on the side, though. I’m going to say it’s some sort of defense tower. 

Ah, we finally meet Tobias Beckett, the guy who’s supposed to be a sort of mentor to Han. In the movie, Beckett’s putting together a crew, which probably means Han joins a band of thieves on some sort of heist.

For a long time, fans have speculated that Beckett is actually modeled after another character from The Paradise Snare: Garris Shrike, the captain of the decommissioned troopship Trader’s Luck. From a certain point of view, Shrike’s the guy who raised Han after he was orphaned. In fact, Shrike raised a bunch of orphans to become his own band of thieves. Han eventually escaped Trader’s Luck to join the Imperial Academy, although Shrike plotted to kill the young pilot later.

It doesn’t look like Beckett will follow much of Shrike’s storyline in this movie. Unless Han and Beckett already have a history together at this point, it seems like this is the first time the two characters are meeting. 

Beckett and Han stand atop of a cliff with these strange spires sticking out of it. There are words carved into these spires, but I can’t make out what they say. I can’t read Aurebesh or whatever written language this is anyway. Perhaps their message has an important meaning in the movie, though?

We need to talk about Qi’ra, who has the second best outfit in this trailer. This costume is just FIRE. It also tells us several things about Clarke’s character. First of all, she is dressed like ROYALTY, which makes alarms go off in my head. What if her character is based on Bria Tharen, who is (say it with me) also from The Paradise Snare? She was Han’s first love and a member of a wealthy family on Corellia. 

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The two don’t actually meet on Corellia but on the planet Ylesia, where Han is hiding out from Shrike and Bria is suffering from an addiction involving pleasure…I’m not going to go into too much detail on that. Just read the book. 


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Not that Qi’ra will have much to do with Bria – I doubt she’ll be a slave to the Exultation, anyway. Han and Qi’ra may very well be childhood friends, especially since the voiceover in the first shot of them together on the landspeeder explains that Han has been thieving since he was ten. Perhaps Qi’ra’s been with Han since childhood?

But again, Qi’ra’s outfit in this shot screams wealth, so we’ll see. It could also just be part of their latest scam? By the way, she’s exiting the Falcon here, followed by Lando’s droid. I’ve got some stuff to say about that droid in a minute. 

You should also know that the name “Qi’ra” is almost certainly taken from “Kira,” which was Rey’s name in the earliest stages of planning the Sequel Trilogy. Rey had other names as well, but I’m getting away from myself…

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Our first look at young Lando! I miss this character so much and don’t know why Disney won’t throw Billy Dee Williams a bone in the Sequel Trilogy, but at least we’ve got Glover’s younger version – and wow he looks like a smooth operator in this first glimpse! You can’t really tell from this trailer, but Lando’s wearing a yellow tunic with a blue trim. He’s also got a blue tie around his neck and blue trousers with a red belt. The cloak will also make an appearance – it’s also blue in color. I LOVE this outfit.

It kind of looks like Lando is enjoying some down time at a scummy dive somewhere or other. Is this perhaps part of the scene where Lando will lose the Falcon to Han in a game of sabacc? 

Before we move on, I HAVE to call attention to how cool Glover looks in this fur coat from the earlier TV spot. I can’t even deal with how suave Lando still looks after all these years. I love this character so much.

Here we see Thandie Newton’s (Westworld) unnamed character for the first time. I’m going to call it now: she plays Sana Starros, a character who was first introduced as Han’s “wife” in the recent Marvel comics. I won’t get into all that, but all you need to know is that Han rolled with Sana in the early days until he decided to steal her cut from their last job together. Sana is reasonably pissed. 

If Newton is indeed playing Sana, that will be a nice bit of cohesion between the movies and the EU. Perhaps we’ll even see these two get “married” in this movie?

I’ve no idea who this four-armed alien dude is, but it looks like he’s mounting the Falcon’s quad cannon for the very first time. If you have any idea who this guy might be, hit me up in the comments!

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Alright, this shot is one of the most improtant of the trailer. It shows Han almost certainly walking in on the game of sabacc that will eventually win him the Falcon. You can see Lando in the distance. Han’s about to ask these thieves to deal him in.

Here we see Han and Chewie together for the first time. It sounds like they’re going to roll with Beckett’s crew.

There’s an even better shot of Han and Chewie together in the TV spot that also confirms the brown-ish jacket Han’s wearing in that poster that leaked a few weeks ago.

Ah, here’s that droid again. I love that Lando and his droid (presumably) have a little choreographed salute they do before powering on the Falcon. So I have a feeling this is Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s CGI character, but that’s speculation. 

Star Wars brainiac Ryan Britt, my pal over at Inverse, has a theory that this droid may be an homage to Lando’s own trilogy of Legends novels. Taking place around the same time as The Han Solo Trilogy and The Han Solo Adventures series, The Lando Calrissian Adventures by L. Neil Smith show a younger Lando trying to figure out how to pilot the Falcon. It’s established that he doesn’t start out being a great pilot (he manages to damage the Falcon’s antenna in Return of the Jedi, so I guess he’s not that much better after the book series), so he needs a droid to help him fly the Falcon.

That droid’s name is named Vuffi Raa. That’s about where the similarities end, as Vuffi is described as having a spider-like appearance that allows the droid to be a more efficient pilot than a human. The droid in the movie, on the other hand, looks mostly like your traditional protocol droid.

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I’m really surprised by how many nods this movie seems to be making to the old Expanded Universe. So far, this movie looks like 10% The Paradise Snare.

What’s a Star Wars movie without a cantina? Here’s a fancy one akin to the one featured in The Last Jedi. Qi’ra is once again in fancy dress and enjoying a drink with another heavily armored patron. 

This movie was said to have heavy Western elements, and this shot is the first indication of that. It’s high noon for Han Solo and that small army of armored dudes. You can see Han preparing to pull out his legendary DL-44 heavy blaster in order to waste these guys.

I have no idea who these guys are, but they look so badass. I absolutely love the design of their armor. Unfortunately, they look like your throwaway band of bad guys used to illustrate Han’s skills with a blaster. I don’t think they’ll appear for very long.

I’m also not sure who this character is, but he’s wasting people with his blaster. I don’t think that’s Han and that doesn’t look like a DL-44 in his/her hand. Perhaps a surprise character? Hit me up in the comments with your theories/answers.

We see Han piloting a starship we’ve never seen before. I have no idea what model ship that is, but it kind of looks Imperial in shape? It reminds me of a Lambda-class T-4a Imperial shuttle anyway.

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Alright, we need to talk about Han and Qi’ra’s relationship again. We hear her tell the smuggler that she might be the only person who knows what Han really is. Okay, so this could be nothing more than Qi’ra telling Han that he’s a hero at heart or something. The kind of scene that later leads to Han doing something selfless and showing a side of himself we’ll later see again at the end of A New Hope

OR it could be a HUGE revelation akin to something pretty controversial about Han’s backstory in the Legends timeline. You see, little orphan Han is actually ROYALTY. That’s right, it’s established in the novel The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton that Han is a descendant from a line of monarchs, including Berethron e Solo, the king that introduced democracy to Corellia and ended the monarchy on the planet. 

Han never really does anything with this heritage except use it to prove himself worthy of marrying Leia, Princess of Alderaan. But next time you call Han a scruffy-looking nerf herder, just remember that you’re speaking to royalty.

Anyway, I’m probably thinking WAY to into this. It’s probably Qi’ra inspiring Han not to be such a shithead…

Alright, the final sequence in this trailer shows us just how different the Falcon is going to look in this movie. Not only does it have blue stripes instead of red, but it also doesn’t feature the freighter’s iconic mandibles. If you look closely, the front of the ship is in a solid state.

It’s been established over the years that the Falcon has been so heavily modified over the years that it’s become a unique ship by the time it’s introduced in A New Hope. This must mean that Han modified the front of the Falcon himself, shaping it into its iconic mandible design. I have to say I like the mandibles better. 

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Most of the cast is united for this escape from the Empire through a pretty crazy storm or nebula or something that’s home to a monster with giant tentacles! Han delivers a funny line here, saying, “We’re fine,” which sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek to me. Doesn’t it sound like that’s Lucasfilm telling fans that, while the movie might’ve seemed in trouble there for a second, everything is now fine with Solo?

Whatever the case, we’ll find out on May 25 when Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters.