Star Wars Reveals First Official Look at Han Solo’s Return in The Rise of Skywalker

Lucasfilm kept a lot of secrets about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker leading up to its release, especially when it came to the surprising cameo of Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo after being killed off in The Force Awakens. Ford’s return was particularly shocking because of the actor’s well known desire to put that chapter of his career behind him, famously campaigning for George Lucas to kill off Han in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. But now that the movie has been out in theaters for months and the surprise has worn off, Disney and Lucasfilm are starting to be more open about the cameo.

In a brand new trailer for the home video release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Disney unveiled the first official look at Han Solo’s return in the touching scene with Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. Check it out below.

Ford didn’t think he’d return to the franchise to play Solo again, but after speaking with filmmaker J.J. Abrams about the new movie he decided to make a surprising comeback.

“When JJ asked me to do it, I said, ‘Are you kidding? I’m dead!’ He said, ‘Sorta dead. You can do this.’ He hadn’t written anything at that time,” Ford told USA Today. “But he said, ‘This is going to be great.’ So I said okay. If JJ asked you do something, you’d probably do it too. He’s a very persuasive guy… It was a useful addition to the story and the continuing development of Adam Driver’s character. And the chance to do another scene with Adam was great.”

Abrams previously expounded on that discussion, revealing he had to convince Ford it was a fitting moment for Solo’s short return.

“We had a meeting and talked about what it would be,” Abrams explained in an interview with Vanity Fair. “Harrison, who is one of the great people ever, and incredibly thoughtful about everything that he does, all he ever wants is to understand the utility of the character. ‘What is my role?’ It was about sitting with him and explaining what our intention was. We talked about it for quite a while, I sent him the pages. He got it, and of course, as you can see, he was wonderful.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is set to release on Digital HD on March 17th, followed by the Blu-Ray and DVD release on March 31st.