One Of Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Writers Was Apprehensive About Featuring The Kessel Run

The Kessel Run might always be a part of Han's origin story, but one of the writers in Solo: A Star Wars Story's father-son writing duo wasn't too eager to tackle the legendary Han Solo Kessel Run story.

Sitting down to speak with The Los Angeles Times to discuss the creative process behind writing the script for Lucasfilm's latest Star Wars spinoff, Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan opened up about the initial disagreements they had when it came to tackling the Kessel Run.

"I was drawn to take the job because it suggested to me [that] I get to see how he's formed, I get to see how he met Chewie — because this is really a love story between them — and very quickly I thought, 'We've heard a lot about the Kessel Run. I want to see it,'" Lawrence told the publication.

However, Lawrence's son and Solo co-writer, Jonathan, wasn't as eager to tackle the Kessel Run. The other half of the film's writing team was worried about how the production team could bring to the big screen one of the most iconic hearsays in the Star Wars franchise while meeting fans expectations.

"When he said that, I said 'Really, do we have to?' Because it's such a complicated bit of logic, and solving it was really challenging," Jon explained. "We spent a lot of time arguing about how it could work [and how] the language of what [Han] says in that one scene shot years ago that you know George [Lucas] was just sitting there thinking, 'This sounds cool: "I did it in 12 parsecs"' — could be flushed out into a fully fledged coherent sequence that was satisfying and fun. I'm thrilled with how it came out, but it was one of the daunting elements of this always."

Of course, Jon had every right to be concerned about the execution of the Kessel Run. The whole story is one of the biggest hearsays in the Star Wars franchise, and fans would have huge expectations of the way the Kessel Run was interpreted on the big screen. Still, Lawrence managed to convince Jon to allow the Kessel Run to be added into the film – what Solo origin movie would be complete without it? The Kessel Run is one of the highlights of the film, though the sequence earned mixed reactions.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is currently screening in cinemas.

Read: Disney's Stocks Drop After Solo: A Star Wars Story's Poor Box Office Performance