By Graeme McMillan



While Star Wars fans were shocked by what happened to Han Solo in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the man himself — or, rather, Harrison Ford, the actor behind the space smuggler — was glad to finally reach a destination he’d been thinking about for three decades.

“I think it’s a fitting use of the character,” Ford wrote in response to a fan question about Solo’s death in The Force Awakens during a Q&A session on Entertainment Weekly’s Tumblr.

“I’ve been arguing for Han Solo to die for about 30 years,” he continued, “not because I was tired of him or because he’s boring, but his sacrifice for the other characters would lend gravitas and emotional weight.”

This isn’t the first time that Ford has talked about his wish that Han Solo had died at the end of 1984’s Return of the Jedi; promoting the theater release of The Force Awakens last year, he said that he thought that “the best utility of the character would be for him to sacrifice himself to a high ideal and give [the movie] a little bottom.”

Transcripts of story planning sessions have revealed that screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan agreed with the idea, but was overruled by George Lucas.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be released on Digital HD download April 1, with the Blu-ray combo pack and DVD release following April 5.

Related: SXSW: ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Behind-the-Scenes Doc to Be Screened

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