With Star Wars: The Last Jedi now available to own on DVD and Blu-Ray and with little more than a month until its release in theaters, Lucasfilm is finally starting to ramp up the marketing campaign for Solo: A Star Wars Story. Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany, and Emilia Clarke, the second of Lucasfilms non-episodic Star Wars movies will reintroduce audiences to one of Star Wars' most iconic characters while chronicling Han Solo's misadventures before fans first met him in Star Wars: A New Hope. Ron Howard directs what has been reported as the best Star Wars script written by legendary Star Wars scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon Kasdan.
So, we get the ever threatening Star Destroyers, roaring Tie Fighters, a new type of Imperial Stormtrooper (Snow Deathtroopers maybe), Glover's superfly Lando Calrissian, Ehrenreich's young Han and a 190-year-old Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). Thankfully the trailer exudes a science fiction western atmosphere reminiscent of Joss Whedon's Firefly, which in itself was inspired by the character of Han Solo. We also get to see hints of the dynamics between Han and Lando, but more importantly between Han and Chewie, of which the relationship between the two seems to be on cue from what new footage this trailer shows us.
As well as a more kick arse Chewbacca (see time mark 1:54), Ehrenreich's portrayal of Han, while not an impersonation of Harrisons Ford's portrayal does seem more in tune with everyone's favorite smuggler than what we saw in the first trailer. Although most of the supporting characters have yet to be fleshed out, the new droid L3-37 (performance captured by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) feels somewhat too reminiscent of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's K2-SO (Alan Tudyk).
With Star Wars: The Last Jedi having divided fans can Solo: A Star Wars Story, despite its well-publicized production woes, stand alongside Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as the better of Lucasfilms additions to the franchise since their acquisition by Disney back in 2012?