Star Wars: Forces of Destiny Features a Key Solo Character

Screen Rant

Star Wars: Forces of Destiny Features Key Solo Character

By Matt Morrison

Published May 26, 2018

Star Wars: Forces of Destiny's latest video, "Triplecross," features a key character from Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story in a major role.

WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

A new episode of the animated Star Wars web-series Forces of Destiny features a key character from Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story in a central role. This marks the first time this character has been used in any animated medium based in the Star Wars universe.

Set across multiple eras of the Star Wars timeline, Forces of Destiny tells short stories centering upon various prominent female characters from earlier films and animated series. Created as a tie-in to a series of novels aimed at young readers, as well as its own unique toy line, Forces of Destiny is the first two-dimensional animated series to be produced by Lucasfilm since 2003's Clone Wars. It is also the first animated series of its kind to be produced in-house by Lucasfilm Animation, which was formed in the wake of Clone Wars' creation.

The new episode, which can be viewed below, was released to the official Disney YouTube channel to coincide with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Titled "Triplecross", the episode centers around a stand off between Crimson Dawn lieutenant Qi'ra, pirate Hondo Ohnaka, and the droid bounty-hunter IG-88.

This proves an interesting mix of characters for more than one reason. Hondo was a beloved supporting character in the original Clone Wars series as well as Star Wars Rebels, who showed up more than a few times trying to weasel an advantage in one crisis after another. IG-88 first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back as one of the many bounty hunters who answered Darth Vader's call for assistance in tracking down Han Solo and The Millennium Falcon. Qi'ra was introduced into the Star Wars universe in Solo: A Star Wars Story and, apart from a major role in Most Wanted (a young adult novel based around her and Han Solo's early lives as child thieves on the planet Corellia), she hasn't appeared in any other Star Wars media as of yet.

The conclusion of Solo: A Star Wars Story suggests that Qi'ra's role in the Star Wars saga may not be over yet, even if speculation of a Solo sequel proves fruitless. The movie and this episode firmly establish her ties to Crimson Dawn - a criminal syndicate established by Darth Maul, who had been depicted as working with various criminal gangs in the past in the Clone Wars animated series. Given that Maul's final fate has been spelled out in Star Wars Rebels, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for Qi'ra and if she will ever win free of her new master's control.