Fresh off news of Donald Glover’s casting as Lando Calrissian in the (yes, still) untitled Han Solo Star Wars anthology film, a writer with The Hollywood Reporter has teased a potential major plot detail on Twitter.
According to THR’s Borys Kit, the upcoming Star Wars film will explore how Han won the Falcon from Lando during a card game. (Try to overlook the fact that Kit misspells "Calrissian," as his job likely gives him close contact with the writers and producers of the film.)
A couple of sources tell me the #HanSolo spin-off will tell how Lando Calrissien lost the Millennium Falcon to Han.
— Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) October 21, 2016
As Slashfilm points out, Kit’s tweet refers to a high-stakes game of sabacc, which was only obliquely mentioned in The Empire Strikes Back, where dialogue between Han and Lando makes it clear the smuggler won the Falcon from his smooth-talking friend. Sabacc is a card game with four suits, with an added element of random luck. According to Wookieepedia, a sabacc table features a special suspension field, which locks in a random point value for each of the cards in play. “That particularity made sabacc a complex and unpredictable game, as a potential winning hand could turn into a losing one if not used at the right moment,” says the site’s “sabacc” entry.
Digging around on Wookieepedia offers some intriguing hints about how this episode might unfold in the upcoming Han Solo spinoff film. Several of the pre-Disney era Star Wars novels and comics reference a recurring sabacc tournament held at Cloud City. In a tournament a couple years before the events of A New Hope, Han and Lando emerge as two of five finalists from a field of over a hundred competitors. Lando’s one card away from an Idiot’s Array -- the sabacc equivalent of poker’s super-rare straight flush -- but Han takes the win with a hand of Pure Sabacc. He wins 20,000 credits and his choice of any of Lando’s ships. Of course, we know by now that Han only has eyes for “the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.” Could the Han Solo movie have a kind of Casino Royale-meets-Mos Eisley feel, by making the Cloud City Sabacc Tournament a central part of the story? It's an intriguing prospect.
Star Wars News Net observes, “it’s sounding more and more like the movie is going to feature a plethora of elements from the trilogy of Han Solo books by the late Ann C. Crispin... The real question is now whether or not Han cheated to get his hands on the ship.” So if you’re looking for something to tide you over until the adventures of young Han and Lando hit the big screen, might be worth seeking out Crispin’s trilogy.
The currently untitled Han Solo movie is provisionally slated for a May 26, 2018 release date.
Are you excited to see Han and Lando do a little high-stakes gambling? What else would you like to see in the film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
