Han - Solo Movie ** Spoilers ** — Page 104

It’s early in the film, and it’s done similarly to the Godfather II scene where young Vito is given the name Corleone at Ellis Island.

I actually have the exact opposite opinion to yours about Solo being his last name, but it’s possible that my hatred of it is due to its execution in the film and not the idea itself. I’m not sure.

^Geeky and awesome. I forgot about the language thing.

It’s just executed terribly in the movie. Long pause…then punchline.

Should have just left it up to the imagination…and that’s why prequels are extremely hard to get right. 😛

Yeah, that might have worked better.

Or maybe.

“What’s your name, son?”
“Han.”
“Han… what? Who are your people?”
“I don’t have people… I’m solo.”
“-Solo. Approved.”

The Imperial Officer does not care. He here’s ‘I’m blank’, and that’s all he registers. Gotta keep that line moving. So all you have to do is change ‘alone’ to ‘solo’, and Han, in a way, accidentally names himself.

I appreciate your positive view on it, Haarspalter! I like how that little moment made you feel like it gave that Imperial officer a bit more depth than your average officer.

Another thing this made me think of is if Han had a last name before this moment. Han mentions that his father used to build YT freighters, so he wasn’t always an orphan. And Han makes it sound like he ran away from home, if I remember correctly. With that in mind, you would think Han would know what the officer meant when he asked him, “Han… what? Who are your people?” Was Han just being a little melodramatic in that moment, or had he also abandoned his family name when he left home?

I guess my point is that Han must have had a last name he was born with, and he knew about it, but for whatever reason chose not to recognize it. So when the officer suggested ‘Solo’, Han chose to go with that rather than correct him. Han voluntarily abandoning his family name makes more sense to me than there being a lot of single-named orphans running around, otherwise there could potentially be a lot of ‘Solos’ in the galaxy! And it seems like that was the first time the Imperial officer encountered a recruit with no family name, which to me means that other misfits and orphans who come to join the Empire usually, if not always, have a first and last name.

I know I am looking into this too much but I do think it is interesting! It’s fun to look at things in the Star Wars galaxy from an in-universe perspective.

He should have just said “Han Solo.” 😛

NeverarGreat said:

What bothers me about the name, upon reflection, is that the now-cannon explanation basically establishes that Solo in the Star Wars universe actually means “alone” instead of being merely a series of sounds/letters which in English has an extra meaning.

I mean, realistically these characters wouldn’t be speaking English, but instead some alien dialect which is portrayed as English for the purposes of movie. Now for this to work, Han’s last name must translate to ‘lone wolf’ or something in that alien dialect and sound like an English word which has a similar meaning.

How very confusing.

Hopefully if Solo 2 ever gets made they can get to the bottom of this.

Seriously though, there’s no ‘realistically,’ as realistically the GFFA does not exist in our galaxy, so it’s not necessarily necessary to assume that the language they’re speaking isn’t in fact, exactly the same as English. Not to mention, if we go down a ‘realistically’ rabbit hole, wouldn’t realistically a lot of the names be different? What are the chances that “Ben” and “Luke” are sounds that happen to be first names in both English and this imaginary dialect? Why couldn’t the names be ‘translated’ just like the other words?

They should have deleted it and just included his name during the Imperial trainee scene. Which I guess goes for a lot of these weird annoying moments… they shelved half the movie but didn’t have any idea what actually worked.

Edit: was his father also just called Han?

Han Han.

Mocata said:

They should have deleted it and just included his name during the Imperial trainee scene. Which I guess goes for a lot of these weird annoying moments… they shelved half the movie but didn’t have any idea what actually worked.

I don’t think they really shelved all that much (just reshot).

Edit: was his father also just called Han?

I think the implication is that Han does have a last name, but didn’t want to keep it because daddy issues.

DominicCobb said:

Mocata said:

They should have deleted it and just included his name during the Imperial trainee scene. Which I guess goes for a lot of these weird annoying moments… they shelved half the movie but didn’t have any idea what actually worked.

I don’t think they really shelved all that much (just reshot).

Yeah, my understanding is that Lord and Miller were let go for straying too far from the Kasdans’ script and improvising too much, and Howard was brought in to bring the movie back on track (aka follow the script).

I’d prefer another movie, but I wouldn’t mind finding out what happens with Qi’ra, Maul, and Enfys Nest with a short series on Disney+.