Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Solo: A Star Wars Story
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A deleted scene from Solo: A Star Wars Story details more of Han's days in Imperial training. Lucasfilm has now released their second standalone Star Wars movie into the world, one that shows the origin of Harrison Ford's beloved smuggler. With Alden Ehrenreich in the lead, he takes on a younger version of Han Solo and makes it his own. This role came with a story that fills in the "gaps" to Han's earlier days in the galaxy far, far away.
Solo: A Star Wars Story clocks in at just over two hours, and shows fans several of Han's most storied moments. The famous Kessel run, how he gets his DL-44, and how he gets his name are all featured, but what Solo actually experienced as a youngster is barely focused on. He's shown on Corellia with Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) and how he becomes a member of the Imperial forces. However, the latter features a major deleted scene.
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Indie Wire spoke to Solo: A Star Wars Story writers Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan about the movie and were asked how much of their script wound up in the actual movie. Even with the director change, 90 percent of their script is seen on screen, but they did reveal one scene that isn't. They were asked if more of Han's days as an Imperial were originally included and responded yes, and Jonathan says he even made a cameo in it.
Yeah, so did we! In fact, we hope, and I believe that when you finally get a Blu-ray of this movie, you’ll see a terrific scene with Han in aerial training and then getting kicked out of aerial training. [laughs] And ultimately, with a cameo by me. The reason I decided to do a cameo in that particular scene is we were sure it wouldn’t get cut out, and of course it did. Ultimately, I think you would think, and all people would agree, that the trajectory of the movie is helped by not having it. But it is a moment that we too would have loved to see more of and really believe in.
Han's time as an Imperial is heavily glossed over. Despite the first act of the movie setting up his entry into the life of crime he eventually falls into, his time fighting for the Empire isn't much of a focus. The movie does show him enlisting but then takes a three year time jump that plops Han in the middle of battle. It is in this fight that he meets Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and his crew, and figures out how to abandon the Empire. Fans hoping to see more of this time of Han's life may be disappointed that this deleted sequence didn't make the film.
Considering Solo doesn't really ever question whether or not Han is as good of a pilot as he says he is (and the audience knows him to be), the inclusion of a training sequence may have been redundant. That could be why it ultimately was left on the cutting room floor, allowing for the movie to get Han into the world of smuggling a bit quicker. Luckily, fans should be able to check the scene out anyways when Solo is released on home video. There's surely several other deleted scenes, not to mention original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller's takes, so this should be just one of several extras that Solo: A Star Wars Story's Blu-Ray ends up packing.
MORE: The State of The Empire & Rebellion in Solo
Source: Indie Wire