I think that's a good way to look at it--but somewhat harder when trying to invent a character rather than describe one, if you see what I mean.  How do I know what's essential to my new character when I haven't gotten to play her yet?

You have to invert it slightly... the question becomes "I would like a story about this character to be about...."  It's still a subtly different question than "what is this character like?", but one I think is more conducive to writing strong aspects.

For old school Solo, I'd combine the first two aspects into: "Three things matter: me, Chewie and the Falcon!"

You capture his attitude, and his relationships in one fell swoop, AND free up another aspect slot for something else.

+Geoff Skellams Something else like "I shoot first."

I've thought of Aspects in this way for a long time. Whenever you read a book and the author calls out a recurring description of the character before they take action I look on that as a prime example of an invoke. For instance Conan's Pantherine Grace.

But Star Wars and also Raiders of the Lost Ark are full of examples of aspects used in this way.

For Solo it looks like you've captured most of his character, but another possible aspect for him might be. Shoots First.

I'm mostly coming to Fate from a more traditional game background.  I'm sure that a lot of my "insights" are blindingly obvious to those who are old hats at this, but my hope is that maybe some of them may be useful to those going through the same learning curve/paradigm shift that I'm going through :)

+1s from +Fred Hicks are pretty much the ultimate affirmation that I'm starting to get it :D

I don't know if I'd consider "Shoots First" to be a good aspect for Han.  It's more like a fundamental truth of the universe.  Like gravity.

It's still a great insight, and definitely worth talking about.

Han Shoots First is a truth of the universe. :) But there are quite a few other times where it shows up, lots of times it's as a compel, the trash compactor, rushing after the Stormtroopers, dinner with Vader.

Carrie, remember that you CAN change Aspects during play, so you're not required to stick with what you've initially chosen. Start with some Aspects that seem to define the character, and let them change organically, both as plot and play suggest. Anything but the High Concept Aspect (which odds are you can figure out fairly well when you're first defining the character) can be changed at any Minor Milestone, so literally one at the end of every session.

As an extension of what Robert's talking about, and something I sometimes tell my players, is that, ideally, you should be able to read the Aspects for the character and not have to be told much else about the character. As a quick snapshot, ideally after hearing all 5, you can say, "Okay, I think I get who you're playing." You might need to say "Tell me more about what Aspect [x] means...", but that's still the Aspects serving their purpose as core pillars which help an outsider to quickly grok the character.