Ron Howard’s teasing the Han Solo movie and… is that Chewbacca’s wife?! And Lando in the Falcon’s cockpit?

With the Han Solo movie now well under way with Ron Howard at the helm after Disney got rid of previous directors Lord and Miller (here), the new director is using social media as a way to engage with the fans… and drop some pretty cool god-bits and clues.

First up, we know the movie will focus on the young smuggler’s earlier career and in there how he came to meet his two closest friends, Lando Calrissian, played by Donald Glover and Chewbacca, played by Joonas Suotamo. And it seems that there’s going to be some very awesome stuff from the history of the two characters’ included.

Remember the behind-thepscenes clip at D23 a few days ago (here)? Well there was a Wookie in there with curlers in their hair at 13 seconds:

No-one really paid much attention to it until Howard released this new post below:

#Chewie checking the shot. #UntitledHanSoloMovie pic.twitter.com/Ia3ZT5Bv5h

— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) July 17, 2017

Do you see it? If you look really closely at the monitor, you’ll see this:

And that, to us and the folks at StarWars.net, like two Wookies kissing and, given that we’re also seeing Suotamo as Chewie watching the take on the monitor, we’re guessing he may well have been one the Wookies.

So… who could the other one be?

Well, it could be Chewie’s wife.

Wait, what?!

Yeah, Chewbacca is married in the Star Wars Universe (well in the canon pre-Disney). We first met Mallatobuck, aka Malla, in The Star Wars: Holiday Special waaaaaay back in 1978.

Chewie, according to Star Wars mythology, met her when he was around 100 years old: “Chewie was eventually forced into an honor duel with another suitor for Malla’s hand in marriage, where he bested his opponent despite the opponent’s attempt to cheat during the fight. Malla, described by Han Solo as intelligent and with hair resembling silk, was originally created for the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special that aired on television, but that project was never considered official canon by Lucasfilm. Since then, though, she’s been mentioned in canonical novels like Alexandra Bracken’s A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy and Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath: Empire’s End.”

He also has a son called Lumpy but we’ll talk about him another time.

So could this mean we’ll see Malla in the movie? Could the seemingly emotional scene above be Chewie saying goodbye to his family as he leaves with Han, the man he owes a life debt to?

We don’t know for sure but after a dark few days around this movie, we’re suddenly really, really excited to find out!

What about Lando?

Well, we know he’s definitely in the movie but haven’t really seen anything of him until now.

Howard has also shared a few new images and in them we can clearly see Lando piloting the Millennium Falcon which makes sense as we all know that Han won the ship of his friend… and if Lando has it in this movie then we may also see the legendary game of Sabaac where Han bests his friend.

Hyperspace is real. My first experience. Wow. pic.twitter.com/POilRi5ePX

— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) July 19, 2017

lining up a shot today from my director’s monitor

A post shared by RealRonHoward (@realronhoward) on Jul 18, 2017 at 2:44pm PDT

So that’s Lando in the cockpit of the universe’s greatest spaceship (yeah Firefly and Trek fans, we said it) but while he’s clearly wearing a cool yellow jacket, Howard has also teased glimpses of his other outfits… including, yes you guessed it, a cape!

Check them out here… and we’re guessing that if he has that many outfits then he has a pretty big bit of screen time too:

can you guess whose closet this is? #UntitledHanSoloMovie pic.twitter.com/1gB17Rt1vN

— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) July 11, 2017

#UntitledHanSoloMovie Care to guess whose closet this is?

A post shared by RealRonHoward (@realronhoward) on Jul 11, 2017 at 11:31am PDT

The Han Solo movie is due May 25, 2018.