Star Wars: A young Han Solo was going to cameo in Revenge of the Sith

'He was being raised by Chewbacca...'

Han Solo (LucasFilm)

Come 2018, Harrison Ford won’t be the only actor to have portrayed Han Solo in a galaxy far, far away. Disney currently has a Star Wars spin-off filmed planned for that year, with these eight actors reportedly in line to play the loveable rogue. But, did you know a young version of Solo was at one stage going to feature in the prequels?

As detailed by DenOfGeek, George Lucas once intended to have a 10-year-old Solo in Revenge of the Sith. Apparently, we would have seen him wandering around Chewbacca’s home planet Kashyyk while the Wookiees fought the clone troopers, Chewie acting almost like a father figure to him.

That’s not the only slightly strange thing about the cameo; it would have marked the only time Solo would ever meet Yoda, Solo telling the Jedi Master “I found part of a transmitter droid near the east bay… I think it’s still sending and receiving signals,” to which he would have replied “Good. Good. Track this we can back to the source. Find General Grievous, we might…”

A few reasons it is absolutely fantastic that this got cut from the movie. Firstly, Chewie and Solo are best friends, with absolutely no father/son bond at all. It would have felt even more forced than Padmé and Anakin’s relationship.

Harrison Ford will return as an older Han Solo in The Force Awakens (Disney)

Secondly, if Solo knew about Yoda, he would have known about the strength of The Force and probably respected its power like the Wookiees die. That means his comments on board the Millennium Falcon (“It’s all a load of simple tricks and nonsense”) would have made a lot less sense.

The idea of a young Solo went relatively far down the creative process, with concept artist Ian McCraig creating some drawings.

The concept art for a young Han Solo (LucasFilm)

According to the officially released Art of Revenge of the Sith, he said: “It’s not in the script anymore, but we were told that Han Solo was on Kashyyyk and that he was being raised by Chewbacca.

"He’s such a persnickety guy later on – he always has to have the best of everything – so I thought it’d be great if when he was a kid, he was an absolute slob.”

The spin-off film's version of Han Solo will likely be in his twenties, the film being set 10 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), i.e. ten years before A New Hope. Let's hope they don’t mess him up!