Solo: A Star Wars Story - 10 Reasons To Be Excited
7. A True Star Wars Biopic
Lucasfilm
While it would've been easy for the Solo film to centre around just one event in Han Solo's storied life, the action of the film is said to take place over the course of six years, following Han through his formative moments as a smuggler and enemy to the Empire.
It's the kind of story Star Wars has never set out to tell, with each preceding plot in the franchise spanning the events of a few weeks at most. It's a welcome change though, and while it could be argued that the timeframe has been chosen to cram in as many references and callbacks as possible, it serves a purpose, certainly in its development of Han as a character.
It's a really exciting (if not overlooked) aspect of the latest Star Wars spin-off, and while questions remain over Alden Ehrenreich's ability to play the eponymous anti-hero, he definitely looks the part, both in style and in stature.
It may end up biting off more than it can chew, but when a story of this scale has yet to be told in the Star Wars canon, there's certainly no harm in trying.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
