Fans first witnessed Han Solo using his iconic blaster in 1977 with Star Wars: A New Hope, which he carried with him through three sequels, while Solo: A Star Wars Story depicted the moment in which he first earned the familiar weapon. Concept artist Matthew Savage recently took to social media to show off the work he put into bringing the weapon to life, which didn’t initially appear in its recognizable form, as it earned a few modifications to become the handheld weapon the smuggler sported throughout the series. You can check out a breakdown of those concepts in the post below.
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“Here’s an animated breakdown of Han’s Blaster Rifle that we designed for Solo: a Star Wars story,” Savage captioned the post. “This whole idea and scheme came from prop master Jamie Wilkinson who suggested we look at the actual Mauser pistol, which came with a wooded holster that became a stock.”
In Solo, the smuggler joins Tobias Beckett’s crew to help pull off a train heist, resulting in Beckett equipping the new recruit with a sidearm. Instead of being the familiar weapon immediately, we see that it was originally in a rifle configuration, though it was trimmed down to be more suitable for the task at hand.
Sadly, audiences likely won’t see the blaster in action again anytime soon, as there have been no updates about continuing the adventures of the standalone film in the years since it landed in theaters.
The film currently sits at 69% positive critical reviews on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, though it would only go on to earn $392.9 million worldwide, making it the lowest-grossing live-action entry in the franchise’s history. Likely a combination of that financial performance and critical reaction thwarted any plans of continuing the series on the big screen, but with the success Lucasfilm has earned on Disney+ with The Mandalorian, we can’t rule out Solo earning a TV series spinoff.
Stay tuned for details on Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s possible future.
Would you like to see more of Han Solo’s early days? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
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Image Courtesy of Lucasfilm
