Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

The setup of Solo: A Star Wars Story is a young Han and Qi'ra trying to escape a criminal gang on Corellia, and it runs up to the moment Han meets the smuggler Tobias Beckett on Mimban. Han and Qi'ra are orphans on the industrial world Corellia, working for the gang. They try to flee on a transport, but Qi'ra is caught at the checkpoint and Han escapes alone.

Han then joins the Imperial Navy, where he is given the surname Solo. Years later he is thrown out of flight academy and ends up as a foot soldier on the war torn world of Mimban, which is where he meets Beckett. Everything after that meeting is spoiler territory, so the setup stops there.

In the series, the film is a spin-off rather than a numbered episode. It sits fifth in chronological order, counting The Clone Wars (2008) film, after Revenge of the Sith and before Rogue One. It is eleventh in release order on the same count, after The Last Jedi and before The Rise of Skywalker. For placing it in a marathon, the Star Wars movies in order guide lays out both lists.

In full, Solo: A Star Wars Story follows Han Solo from Corellia to Mimban to a coaxium heist on Kessel, and it ends with Han winning the Millennium Falcon in a second card game.

Three years after leaving Corellia, Han has been expelled from flight academy and is serving as an infantryman on Mimban. Tobias Beckett has him thrown into a pit with a Wookiee named Chewbacca, and Han talks Chewbacca into working with him so that the two escape together. Han then joins Beckett's crew.

The crew tries to steal a shipment of coaxium on Vandor-1, but a group called the Cloud Riders, led by Enfys Nest, hijacks it. Beckett admits he owes the shipment to the crime boss Dryden Vos. To pay the debt, Han proposes stealing raw coaxium from the mines of Kessel. Qi'ra, now Dryden's lieutenant, joins the job, and Han tries to recruit Lando Calrissian, who owns the Millennium Falcon, after losing a card game to him. Lando joins the job as pilot.

On Kessel, the droid L3-37 starts a slave revolt and is destroyed, and Han flies the Falcon through the Kessel Run to escape an Imperial blockade. Beckett then double crosses Dryden, and Qi'ra kills Dryden. Han shoots Beckett, hands the coaxium to Enfys Nest's rebels, and turns down the place she offers him in her rebellion. He then wins the Falcon from Lando in a second card game.

Solo: A Star Wars Story premiered on May 10, 2018 in Hollywood, opened in the US on May 25, 2018 and grossed about $393 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

The premiere in Los Angeles (Hollywood) was spread across the Dolby Theater, the TCL Chinese Theater and the El Capitan Theater, with Hollywood Boulevard at Highland closed for the event. The film opened in the UK and Australia on May 24, 2018. It carries a PG-13 rating in the US, 12A in the UK and M in Australia.

On money, Box Office Mojo lists a budget of $275 million, a domestic gross of about $214 million and an international gross of about $179 million. The Numbers lists a higher budget of $330.4 million. For the franchise comparison, see the Star Wars box office overview.

The ending of Solo: A Star Wars Story leaves Han Solo free of his debt, with the Millennium Falcon back in his hands, while Qi'ra takes over Dryden Vos's role and contacts Darth Maul.

The facts first. After the double cross, Dryden Vos and Tobias Beckett are both dead. Han hands the coaxium to Enfys Nest's rebels, and she offers him a place in her rebellion, which he declines. He wins the Falcon from Lando Calrissian in a second card game and, hearing that a crime lord is gathering a crew, he heads to Tatooine to work for Jabba the Hutt.

Does Darth Maul appear in Solo? Yes, at the very end, when Qi'ra contacts him and he appears on a hologram. Solo has no post credit scene, and the Maul reveal comes before the credits, so there is nothing to wait for once the screen goes dark.

Why does Han refuse Enfys? In my opinion, the refusal fits a character who has just learned that trusting a mentor like Beckett can end in a gunshot, so he stays a freelancer. It could be argued that the offer also mirrors Chewbacca's loyalty, since Han already has one partner he chose himself.

Did Qi'ra actually love Han? The film shows her caught at the Corellia checkpoint, later serving as Dryden's lieutenant, joining the Kessel job and killing Dryden. Perhaps the most honest reading is that her feeling for Han is real and mixed with self preservation, though the film never states her motive outright, so I would not call it settled.

How does this ending compare with other films in the series? In my opinion, the sharpest contrast is with Rogue One, the other spin-off in the chronological run, which comes immediately after Solo at sixth. Rogue One is a self contained mission story, while Solo closes with its lead alive, out of debt and pointed at Tatooine, so the story hands off to later adventures instead of sealing itself.

Next to Revenge of the Sith, the main series film just before it in chronology, Solo is a much smaller crime story. Its stakes are a smuggler's debt to Dryden Vos, Beckett's betrayal and Enfys Nest's stolen coaxium, not the fate of a galaxy.

In release order, Solo arrives between The Last Jedi, tenth, and The Rise of Skywalker, twelfth. Both are main series films, so in my opinion Solo is the one entry in that stretch that ends on an open invitation to later stories instead of continuing a numbered saga.

The ending also sets up the years before the original trilogy. Solo sits fifth in chronological order, counting The Clone Wars (2008) film, and the original Star Wars sits seventh, with Rogue One between them. That is why the trip to Tatooine reads as a bridge rather than a finish.

Solo: A Star Wars Story was filmed mainly at Pinewood Studios in the UK, with location work in Fuerteventura, the Dolomites and Fawley Power Station near Southampton. Pinewood was the main base, with sets built there including the Millennium Falcon interiors.

• Pinewood Studios, UK: the main base for the production.
• Fuerteventura, Canary Islands: an alien desert planet, built out as a 360 degree set on a hillside on the west coast.
• Dolomites, northern Italy: another alien planet, with the crew based in Misurina.
• Fawley Power Station near Southampton, England: the industrial look of Corellia, Han's home world.

The spread of locations explains why the film feels varied for a heist story. A power station gives the grimy start on Corellia, while Fuerteventura and the Dolomites supply the more distant worlds.

Solo: A Star Wars Story had a mid-production change of directors, and its production left several other documented details.

• Lucasfilm announced on June 20, 2017 that directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had left about four months into production, citing different creative visions.
• Lucasfilm confirmed a May 24 release for the UK, Australia and other territories, a day before the US date.
• In the Dolomites, the crew reached locations at about 2,400 meters by helicopter, Sherpa and four by four.
• At Pinewood Studios, the Millennium Falcon interiors were mounted on gimbals, and the outer shell weighed 31 metric tons.