When Han Solo joined the Imperial Navy in Solo: A Star Wars Story he planned to be a pilot. However, the next time we see him in the movie he's an infantry grunt getting blown through the air on some godforsaken planet. He mentions briefly later in the film why he got dumped from the Imperial Academy, but a newly released deleted scene reveals exactly what happened. Check it out.
The scene shows that Han Solo did, in fact, get a chance to fly with the Imperial Navy, but things don't go well. The first thing we see is a damaged TIE Fighter that Han is trying to bring in for a landing. The next thing we see is Han with a bandaged eye standing before an Imperial Tribunal. He's on trial for disobeying orders. Apparently, he broke formation to try and rescue another ship, which he was apparently successful in doing, though it resulted in things not going well for him. His heroics are not rewarded, however, and he's sent into the infantry. Han at first thinks he'll still be able to fly there, but not so much.
It's a fun little scene, provided by Zcure1 on YouTube, that fills in a piece of the story that is nice to see. It's not strictly necessary as dialogue later in the next scene gives us all the information we need about Han's time in the navy, that he was dumped for, in his words, having a mind of his own, but it's still nice to see the actual events. It also has a fun moment where Han cuts a conversation short that he doesn't want to have any more, similar to the way he does the same thing in Star Wars: A New Hope by blasting the communications terminal.
The scene itself isn't too surprising, as we had already heard previously that such a scene existed. What's interesting, however, is that it appears this scene was actually longer than what we see here. It had previously been reported that two Star Wars extended universe characters, Tag and Bink, were going to appear in Solo: A Star Wars Story and while we never saw them in the final cut, it turns out they were originally part of this scene. However, Jonathan Kasdan, who co-wrote Solo and actually played one of the roles, said the characters were seen as they escorted Solo out of this tribunal, which is a moment we never see here, as the scene cuts directly from the sentence to Han flying through the air.
At this point, a few of the deleted scenes from Solo: A Star Wars Story have been released ahead of the official Digital and Blu-ray release, but there are several more that have promised. You can pick up Solo on Digital tomorrow and Blu-ray September 25.
