Here was the chance for creators to step back in time and give fans a firmer grasp of Han Solo’s formative years as a young man, his first meeting with Chewbacca and the way the duo came to be fixtures in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. When Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan first started drafting their script for Solo: A Star Wars Story, they had already collaborated on the character’s demise in The Force Awakens. Concept artist Iain McCaig even sketched out the grubby young urchin, but he wouldn’t be called upon to revisit the character for another decade. “In these drafts, Solo is revealed to have been raised by Chewbacca and, in one of the final battles of the Clone Wars, Solo would help Jedi general Yoda locate Separatist General Grievous,” author Phil Szostak wrote in The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story. On film, the characters continued to flourish, but their look remained true to form until 2003, when early drafts of Lucas’s script for Revenge of the Sith included an appearance by a young Han on the Wookiee world of Kashyyyk. In the end, Chewie had a seemingly gentle nature that belied an intense ferocity that could drive him to pull a man’s arms out of his sockets in a fight, and Han became the rugged foil to Luke Skywalker’s youthful idealism, a tired and worn-down galactic traveler who wasn’t looking for adventure, but couldn’t hide a kind heart. “When we started out, George was looking for crafty, lemur eyes, little rubber teeth-a frightening visage.” Then the features were softened, an homage to Lucas’s Alaskan Malamute, Indiana, who famously sat in the front seat of his station wagon looking ever like the faithful copilot. “George sort of liked this Chewbacca, but he thought it could be a little weirder,” McQuarrie has said (although the design resurfaced years later as inspiration for Star Wars Rebels’ Zeb). McQuarrie’s early takes on Chewbacca were celebrations of the Wookiee’s status as a fearsome warrior, a pointy-eared sidekick with flat features and a prominent maw, wearing a flak jacket, boots, and with a weapon at the ready. George Lucas, however, had other plans.Īs the character’s place shifted from the central hero to the rugged, cynical, no-frills pilot side-kick, he called for a look to match: a well-worn vest, a plain shirt, trousers, and a pair of tall boots. He even had the cape in one version, although other sketches show a barbarian-like pirate with muscular bare abs and sandals. In the earliest sketches and paintings, Han’s flashy style was a closer match to what would become Lando Calrissian’s signature flair.
He had a lasersword and some sort of Flash Gordon headpiece that went over his forehead,” McQuarrie said in Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie. “In my early sketches I had Solo looking very dapper.
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In preparation for Solo: A Star Wars Story, creators returned to some of Han’s earliest iterations and figured out how to reverse engineer all new concepts that would tell the story of Han’s youth on Corellia while still making sense of the scoundrel he would become.Īs is so often the case in Star Wars, tracing a design back to its roots leads to the concept art of Ralph McQuarrie. Their found family expanded to include a princess and a farm boy looking for adventure.Īnd while the character of Han met his end in The Force Awakens, storytellers weren’t finished with him yet. They stopped fighting just for their own lives and joined the Rebel cause.
Since we first met them inside the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope, they’ve continued to grow and change. Together, they morphed into one of the most beloved and charismatic pairings in Star Wars, with the kind of partnership that lasts for years because its based on loyalty, trust, and friendship.
His companion, the mighty Chewbacca, now a walking carpet covered with voluminous and usually impeccably-styled fur, began life as a less-cuddly, pointy-eared creature with a toothy, gaping maw.Ĭoncept by James Clyne and Vincent Jenkins Step back in time to explore the history and philosophy behind the concepts that define the galaxy far, far away in Designing Star Wars.īefore Han Solo became a simple smuggler, whose rugged uniform and ever-present blaster spoke to the bare necessities of a life on the run from decorum, he was envisioned as a refined space pirate with a glowing lightsaber.
The look of Star Wars is unlike anything else in popular culture. Who's scruffy lookin'? takes a deeper look at the many visions of a scoundrel and his loyal copilot.
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