Corellia & Kessel: What We Know

Solo: A Star Wars Story is only 4 months away. We don’t know much about the movie, but we do know that the planets of Corellia and Kessel are likely to feature in the film. Fans have long wondered what these legendary planets might look like, and answers are soon upon us.

Corellia

Corellia is the home planet of many Star Wars legends such as Han Solo, Wedge Antillies, Dengar, and even Bo’Shek.  It was first mentioned in the 1976 novelization of “Star Wars”. Corellia is one of The Galaxy’s Core worlds, along with Coruscant. (Notice a pattern?) Corellia is home to various ace pilots and many notable starships (including the Falcon and Tantive IV). Beyond these sparse facts, Disney canon doesn’t tell us much about Corellia.

To learn more we would have to dig into the old expanded universe, or the “Legends” universe. We know that it had a capital called Cornet. We know that the population is primarily human. We know from the 2011 game “The Force Unleashed” that Corellia is home to a canine creature called a “Corellian slice hound” or “Razor Hound”.  Of course these “facts” are no longer facts, and the writers may or may not rely on outdated sources for inspiration.

Kessel

The planet Kessel is mentioned twice in the film “A New Hope”. In one of the film’s first lines of dialogue, C-3PO is worried that he and R2 will be sent to the “Spice Mines of Kessel”. Star Wars fans know that “Spice” is an illicit drug. According to the show “Star Wars: Rebels”, Wookiee slaves were used to harvest the spice- so perhaps a fateful meeting will occur on this planet?
We hear about Kessel a second time in “A New Hope” when Han Solo mentions the “Kessel Run”. Solo claims that his ship, The Falcon, was able to make this run in less than 12 parsecs, although fans aren’t quite sure what this actually means.

Originally the word “parsec” might have been a misnomer that Lucas used in the script to mean “time”. Although science-prone nerds were quick to point out that a “parsec” is a unit of distance. The expanded universe attempts to explain why a ship might be able to make a “run” through varying degrees of distance.

The “Legends” explanation is that Kessel is surrounded by an asteroid belt called “The Pit” and a black hole cluster called “The Maw”. Therefore smugglers must use navicomputers to calculate faster routes through the maze of asteroids and black holes. This is George Lucas’ explanation of the Kessel Run, anyway-  it is unknown whether the writers of “Solo: A Star Wars Story” will follow suit.

41 ½ Years Later

Corellia and Kessel were first introduced to fans in November of 1976. These planets have always been important to the expanded universe and now, 41 ½ years later, we will finally see these planets in a theatrical film. Even if “Solo” is a critical disappointment, Corellia and Kessel could be the consolation prize that fans need.