Not So Low For Solo: How Can This 'Phantom Menace' Character Return For The 'Han Solo' Film?

It would be great to forget that the likes of Jar Jar Binks, trade negotiations, and Hayden Christensen's scowl had ever happened, but there is no denying that the #StarWars prequels films are something we will have to live with. Importantly setting up the events of Lucasfilm's original trilogy, the prequel films will also undoubtedly start to leak into #Disney's anthology films.

We already saw Gareth Edwards's #RogueOne tie into the very first scene of A New Hope and there is no doubt that the upcoming #HanSolo film will also chart familiar territory. While we have a cast that already includes #AldenEhrenreich as the titular Solo and Donald Glover as his BFF Lando Calrissian, is another big character from the early days about to join the galaxy's most infamous nerf herder?

Vos is the boss.

During Star Wars Celebration, Making Star Wars reported that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's untitled Han Solo was adding "Dryden Vos" to its roster. While it may seem like just another gobbledygook name plucked from the imagination of George Lucas, the surname Vos has some pretty substantial ties to that galaxy far, far away. Prominent character Quinlan Vos not only featured heavily in the comic books and the Clone Wars TV series, but he also appeared in 1999's maligned The Phantom Menace.

A pretty important character outside of the main series, it was rumored that Lucas had originally written a scene for Vos in Revenge of the Sith, but ultimately scrapped it — presumably to focus on Christensen's hair blowing in the breeze. While the idea never made it to film, Lucas made it known that he had wanted Vos to survive Emperor Palpatine's purge and had other plans for the dreadlocked tracker.

There were further plans that he would feature in the unproduced TV series Star Wars: Underworld, and as Wookieepedia writes:

Lucas had originally written a scene for Revenge of the Sith involving the Expanded Universe character Quinlan Vos, but the character received only a mention in the final film. Lucas himself later instructed the writers of the Star Wars: Republic comic book series to not kill off the character. This has led some fans to speculate that Vos may play a role in the series.

Vos it all about?

So, here is where the connection comes in. Quinlan Vos was slated to appear in the Underworld series, which focused on Coruscant's Level 1313. Interestingly Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando were all also supposed to appear on the show.

Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy told SlashFilm that she was reluctant to completely discard scripts for Underworld and that they could hopefully adapt some of the plots into the live-action films:

"So our attitude [is,] we don’t want to throw any of that stuff away. It’s gold. And it’s something we’re spending a lot of time looking at, pouring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further. We definitely want to."

Admittedly, the names of Dryden and Quinlan are clearly different, but we could see the same approach adopted by Obi-Wan/Ben Kenobi when he went into hiding. Changing your name is one way to keep yourself hidden from the various evil forces that are keen to eradicate the Jedi. While the films made it seem that only Obi-Wan and Yoda survived the purge, various continuing stories (and Samuel L. Jackson) proved that other Jedi slipped through the net.

With the Solo solo presumably looking at his days as a notorious smuggler, it is impossible to think that a trip into the underbelly of crime wouldn't at least involve a re-read of Underworld and a nod to Vos.

(Source: Making Star Wars, Wookieepedia, Slashfilm)