The Big Star Wars 7 Rumor We Hope Isn’t True

By  · Published on February 18th, 2015

LucasFilm

There has been plenty of chatter this week around the ongoing production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, including a number of stories about Mark Hamill making cryptic teases about Luke Skywalker’s role in the upcoming film. But let’s face it: no one would be surprised if Luke is still struggling with the balance of The Force, as the events of the original trilogy were pretty traumatizing.

Today, however, there is a very interesting rumor and potentially major spoiler going around about another original trilogy character. It comes from the site Making Star Wars, which to date has been very reliable with their information. While we have not been able to confirm the information (because let’s face it, no one is giving up this kind of info in an official capacity), it is an interesting discussion point for those who like to know every little detail and have nothing sacred in their lives. You should know that this is a potentially major spoilers, so stop reading if you don’t want to know.

Let’s watch the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer while you think about it.

Alright, now this big spoiler rumor thing. According to this latest report, there are a lot of details on the death of Han Solo. As has been reported numerous times before, Harrison Ford did at one point ask George Lucas to kill off Solo within the original trilogy. Lucas did not relent, but it appears that J.J. Abrams might.

According to Making Star Wars, there’s a battle that will take place on the ramparts of an “Evil Castle,” in which Finn (John Boyega), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Chewbacca and the BB-8 ball droid are all fleeing from Kylo Renn (rumored to be played by Girls star Adam Driver). The battle allegedly involves many explosions and includes a fairly heroic end for one of the franchise’s most beloved characters. It undoubtedly makes Chewbacca very sad.

The rest of the details are available at Making Star Wars, should you decide that you need more. I don’t want to focus on those details.

My interest in this story is more in the higher level discussion about if and how we would like to see our heroes die. There’s an inevitability to the mainstays of the original trilogy having to pass on. Disney and LucasFilm have numerous movies planned, all of which will be well out of reach of the aging original cast at some point. Luke, Leia and Han can’t live forever. More specifically, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford probably don’t want to act forever. So at some point they will have to be put to pasture. I have no problem with that.

What does seem a little lame about this rumor, should it come to fruition, is that this is the kind of heroic death Star Wars has given us several times over already. In reading the details of Han’s fateful battle, flashbacks of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s final moments emerge. Lucas even rehashed this for the Episode I death of Qui-Jinn. And while the fates of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are intertwined (one could say that Obi-Wan was inspired by his former master’s bravery, which led to his own final battle), having Han go down in such a manner doesn’t feel natural, at least on paper. We have no reason to believe, no matter how it goes down, that Abrams and Co. wouldn’t figure out a way to make it work.

I have no problem seeing the heroes of our past die, I’d just much rather see it done in a way that feels fresh.

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Neil Miller is the persistently-bearded Publisher of Film School Rejects, Nonfics, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the Executive Producer of the One Perfect Shot TV show (currently streaming on HBO Max) and the co-host of Trial By Content on The Ringer Podcast Network. He can be found on Twitter here: @rejects (He/Him)