The titular country of “The Airlords of Han” was actually Han China – being used in the racist Yellow Peril sense, since the villains in Buck Rogers (both the novellas and the early comics) were the soldiers of a Chinese Empire that had managed to conquer America in a sneak attack.
I don’t deny that this is a possible inspiration for Han Solo’s first name. However, it seems to me more likely that the character of Han Pritcher from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series was more important in this regard.
Pritcher and his partner, Bail Channis (!), are detectives working for the empire of “the Mule,” a dictator who conquered the titular Foundation settlement. Their objective is to find the elusive “Second Foundation,” a group of telepaths seeking to overturn the Mule’s empire and restore the rightful government of the Foundation.
The two operatives eventually succeed in capturing a member of the Second Foundation; unfortunately for the Mule, this doesn’t work out quite as he’d expected.
Also, another inspiration for Han Solo’s name (both first and last) was probably Hansel from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. In this case, the surname “Solo” suggests that, unlike his gingerbread-gorging namesake, Han the space-pirate doesn’t have a sister.
Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. (I also remember Rinzler in The Making of Star Wars book mentioning that Lucas read Asimov as inspiration for SW). Of course that doesn’t mean that Lucas wasn’t aware of the Buck Rogers story though.
I’m not too sure about the Hansel and Gretel one though, seems like an odd fit, especially since the Asimov one fits so well.
George also used Buck Rogers footage in THX 1138, so you might be on to something. 😃
Right, I forgot about that.
I’d be kind if funny if Han was based on a Buck Rogers book considering how in the first draft they meet him in a spaceport called Gordon.
Bear in mind that the “Han Solo” of the 1974 rough draft was really more akin to Chewbacca: a tall, monstrous alien who nonetheless is a faithful friend and ally of the human heroes. Albeit instead of being a tall furry Bigfoot-like creature, alien-Han was a green and scaly swamp monster, in the vein of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I know, he was according to Rinzler “illustrated” (there was an image attached to the script) with a picture from a comic book of a “swamp creature”. The Dark Horse Comics adaptation of the rough draft made him look practically identical the the Swamp Thing, which debuted in 1972, and I’m sure they might have had access to the Lucasfilm Archives as well.
As a side-note;
Since you know a lot about this subject matterr, what books would you recommend to get a better understanding of Lucas’ inspiration for SW. I intend to have a look at some of the old Flash Gordon serials, if I can get a hold of them, but I’m not quite sure what books he read as inspiration.
(I see on wikipeedia that only a few of the Foundation books were written prior to SW, and that the same goes for the first two Dune novels. Would that be a good place to start?)