'Solo: A Star Wars Story' official synopsis released...and it's a bad sign

There are just over four months left to go before the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story. And unusually for this stage in a movie's promotional cycle, we still don't even have a publicity shot of the movie's star Alden Ehrenreich as young Han Solo, much less a trailer.

But we do at least have an official synopsis for the movie, which was unveiled by Lucasfilm Tuesday on StarWars.com. And again, for anyone wanting to learn anything new about the movie, this is worryingly slim pickings.

In other words: we've got a bad feeling about this.

Here's the synopsis in its entirety:

Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in Solo: A Star Wars Story, an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy.

Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga’s most unlikely heroes.

We've known that the Solo origin story would feature Chewbacca and Lando (played by Donald Glover) since before we knew it was called Solo. Given what we learned way back in 1980's Empire Strikes Back, that Han won the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a game of Sabacc, it could do nothing but.

The only really new information here is the "series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld." But again, given what we know of Solo the smuggler, and all the adventures he's had in non-canon literature, this is pretty much the dictionary definition of playing it safe.

The synopsis was released as Disney unveiled its official press kit for its 2018 slate of films. Solo is one of only two films to be featured without a photo from the movie, the other being Christopher Robin -- which doesn't come out until August. (The brochure also confirmed Solo's release date hasn't moved: it's still May 25.)

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The filming of Solo hit a major snag last year when the original directors, Lego Movie alums Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were fired by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

Insider accounts said that they were going for a far-too-comedic tone, wouldn't agree to reshoots, and clashed with legendary script writer Lawrence Kasdan. One rumor had it that Ehrenreich had felt so concerned about his performance under Lord and Miller that he'd alerted Lucasfilm and brought in an acting coach.

Hollywood legend Ron Howard, himself a Lucasfilm alum, was drafted to finish the job -- and spent so many weeks doing so that observers speculated he wasn't so much finishing Lord and Miller's version as starting the movie from scratch.

That led to fears among fans that Lucasfilm was playing it too safe -- and that Solo would perhaps emerge as the least exciting Star Wars movie yet, perhaps the series' first dud since the prequels.

Alden Ehrenreich already had a heavy lift in persuading us that his portrayal was a worthy younger version of the mighty Harrison Ford; if he fails to shine on screen, even the most polished edit won't do much good.

The official synopsis doesn't do much to encourage fans on that front. Hopefully a trailer will drop soon that proves there's life in the young smuggler yet.