According to Latino Review, Harrison Ford is returning as Han Solo in the upcoming Star Wars movies. The details are fuzzy beyond that core casting news, so it’s unclear to what extent the film (or films) will utilize him.
Ford will turn 71 this year, but he’s obviously not retiring from the business any time soon; he’s appearing in as many as three movies that will see release in 2013, including 42, Paranoia and Ender’s Game. Maybe the last one gave him a renewed love for space-set sci-fi that made agreeing to play Solo again possible. It’s clear that the guy doesn’t take jobs he doesn’t have to, and the last time I interviewed him, he laughed at the suggestion that taking roles (including the re-up of Indiana Jones) had anything to do with a sense of nostalgia or longing for the past. The point? If he’s really in for the new Star Wars films, he’s in it for his own reasons and on his own terms.
Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan has already claimed that Episode VIII and Episode IX will start from a clean slate, but it’s definitely possible that Episode VII could include the history of Solo as detailed in the novelizations in the 1990s where Solo marries Princess Leia, and the couple has three children that set in motion massive changes to the universe. At this point, everything on that end is speculation, but as for Ford returning, it’s difficult to see how it could be seen as a bad idea. Put it this way: we live in a world where in a few years, we could see Luke Skywalker and Han Solo together again.