2) We establish that Han Solo is a nice guy who helps others for no compensation to himself.
That completely destroys the whole "Han Solo changed for the better/redeemed himself" line.
What we really need is an origin story where he jetisons smuggled orphans from the cargo hold prior to an inspection to make the about-face even more impressive.
Keep in mind he
only took the job (after turning it down once) because of his trouble with the bounty hunters courtesy Jaba. He had to leave the planet quickly either way. It could be with a cheap job, or no job. If the bounty hunters hadn't shown up he would have simply stuck around until he found a more lucrative job, or his hideout was discovered, ignoring the old guy and his boy tagalong.
He was a rogue, a scoundrel, and that's the way he liked it.
He was trapped when he was taken into the death star. He had to work with his clients to even have a slim chance of escape, and he only continued because there was a slim chance he could make enough money off the princess rescue to repay his debt to Jaba - and he did make that much money.
Suddenly free of his debts, he finally had some choices in his life that weren't constrained by his prior mistakes in life. And he
chose to join with the people who had actually befriended this terrible person. In part, no doubt, because he had some feelings for the princess.
Yes, the story was really a coming-of-age for a gifted child, but it was also a story of redemption, and echoed the story of Anakin/Vader in his about-face.
Han Solo's origin story would only be interesting if he started out a good person trying to do well, and then became trapped, whether by his own hand, others, or circumstance, in a pit of unending turmoil that eventually spit out the bad guy he was at the beginning of IV.
Given that the studio could use the origin story to fundamentally change what happened in later stories by altering his character, I'd prefer they didn't touch it, because Lucas has obviously softened over the years, and Disney is not going to be any better. They can't have an origin story with an unhappy ending, and the Real Han Solo's origin was not and could not have been happy.
He shot first, despite what the edit says.
