What Could Have Been: Lord and Miller’s Solo

Upon taking over Lucasfilm, one of Kathleen Kennedy's main goals was to bring in a wide range of emerging creative minds, with the goal of breathing new life and perspectives into the franchise. For example, he hired Godzilla director Gareth Edwards to direct Rogue One, Looper director Rian Johnson to direct Episode Eight, and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known for their self-conscious humor and ability to inject fresh and unexpected elements in familiar genres. , to direct a Han Solo origin story written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son. But not long after filming, rumors of problems on set began to surface until four months after filming and with a good portion of the film already shot, Lucasfilm announced that directors Lord and Miller had left the project due to creative differences. , which in Hollywood means they were fired.

They would be replaced by veteran director Ron Howard, who would reshoot most of the film in

what

would become the first bombshell of the Star Wars Disney era and the nail in the coffin of Disney's "A Star Wars" films. Story". . And while Solo is a reasonably fun, excellent, and harmless movie, it didn't exactly set the world on fire. It was pretty safe. And sure is boring, which leads me to wonder

what

this movie would

have

been

like if Lord and Miller had finished what they started. So let's take a look back to see what went wrong on set and what Solo: A Star Wars Story

could

have

been

.

The first challenge when starting a movie like this is who the hell are you going to replace Harrison Ford? Are you looking forward to seeing a Han Solo movie as a fan? Not precisely. Although other franchises have recast iconic roles with varying degrees of success, including this one, it's always a challenge for audiences to accept a new actor taking over, and I'd argue that casting the right actor

could

make or break the new series. And while I and most others think Alden Ehrenreich did an admirable job, to be honest, he's no Harrison Ford. But to be fair to him, who is he?

It didn't help that he was outdone by co-star Donald Glover, who completely crushed him as Lando Calrissian. And further complicating matters was the fact that Harrison Ford was still playing the role and his recent performance in The Force Awakens was still fresh in all of our minds. Frankly, it's hard to accept a new actor in a role when we keep seeing the original actor playing it. And as much as I'd like to say that Alden wasn't the problem with this movie, apparently in some ways he was. Lord and Miller are known for encouraging improvisation on set and this is supposedly something Alden struggled with.

So much so that they hired an acting coach to help him more convincingly channel Harrison Ford. However, here's the problem with improvisation in a big movie like this that Lord and Miller clearly didn't know, which I'll attribute to inexperience. Scorsese is also known for improvisation, as exemplified by the iconic Goodfellas scene. I'm funny, how? Like he's a clown? Do I amuse you? However, there is a notable distinction in Scorsese's approach compared to Lord and Millers. While both directors embrace improvisation, Scorsese prefers to develop and refine those moments during rehearsals, opting not to rely on improvisation on set with cameras rolling and production costs rising.

Something Lord and Miller should take note of next time, as their over-reliance on improvisation and experimentation stretched out shooting days as they did dozens and dozens of takes, ultimately drawing Kennedy's ire for working overtime. too often in such a large and expensive production. And while I understand that Lord and Miller probably wanted to elevate what was a good script to mediocre, someone who wasn't happy that they were deviating from the words on the page was the author of those words, Lawrence Kasdan, who wielded a power considerable behind the scenes. . Unhappy with the dailies he and Kathleen Kennedy were seeing and feeling that Lord and Miller were not adequately capturing the tone of the script, Kennedy allowed Kasdan to appear on set as a sort of shadow director to ensure that Lord and Miller stuck to it. to the material. something that infuriated the couple of young filmmakers.

As the two continued to butt heads with Kasdan and Kennedy, their disagreements finally came to a head when, about three-quarters of the way through filming, they were fired. The news was apparently such a relief to the disgruntled and overworked team that they apparently burst into applause at the meeting announcing the change. In the end, Howard reshot most of the film and then some, earning him sole director credit, but he also left audiences wondering what was left of Lord and Miller's work in the film. Surprisingly, the beginning of the film came from Lord and Miller, who imagined a thrilling landspeeder chase through the bustling streets of Corellia to showcase Han's exceptional piloting skills from a young age.

And although the directing pair would later confront Kasdan, he accepted the idea of ​​this scene and loved it from the beginning. It was also Lord and Miller who came up with the idea of ​​Han convincing Chewie to escape from prison by speaking Wookiee with a broken accent. This is one of those scenes that when I first saw it I knew instantly was the work of Lord and Miller and in my opinion it is one of the best moments in the film, which depressed me and left me wondering how there could have been was the rest of the movie.

The directing duo was also responsible for the memorable scene in which Han and Qi'ra share a passionate kiss within the confines of Lando's cloak closet aboard the Falcon as an echo of the kiss that was interrupted by C-3P0 with Leia. in Empire. Speaking of droids, it was Miller who conceived the idea for L3, taking inspiration from the anti-droid bartender in A New Hope. We don't serve his kind here. That? Your droids. Together with Kasdan they collaborated on the development of the character, who I also felt was one of the highlights of the film, as I quite enjoyed the droid's outspoken nature, his unconventional relationship with Lando, how he instigated a slave revolt on Kessel and , ultimately how he joined the Falcon, giving a new dimension to this line from Threepio in Empire: Sir, I don't know where your ship learned to communicate but you have the most peculiar dialect.

Savareen's ending is also primarily the work of Lord and Miller. And there are many other scenes that contain images of Lord and Miller, such as Han's time on the battlefield in Mimban, followed by his encounter with Beckett and his team, the train heist, etc. But these scenes and sequences were partially filmed by Howard, so it would be false to fully attribute them to Lord and Miller. However, the big sequence that Lord and Miller didn't film was Kessel Run. This was all Howard's, as was the idea of ​​having a giant space monster, as Howard felt the sequence needed greater danger and higher stakes than simply navigating a space storm and a gravity well.

Dubbed Space-o-pus by the VFX team, the inclusion of the monster also allowed for a moment where the Falcon could transform into the ship we know and love by releasing its forward escape pod to ward off the space monster. The other major change in the film was the inclusion of Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos, who was originally played by Michael K. Williams via motion capture and had already filmed all of his scenes. As extensive reshoots were ordered after Ron Howard joined, Williams was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with another project, and the role was recast and reinvented, with Paul Bettany stepping in.

According to Williams, his version of the character was extremely sophisticated. , well traveled and very rich. He would have been a human-alien hybrid that resembled a purple cougar and would have found himself in a love triangle between Qi'ra and Han with the two men competing for his attention. While I think the firing of Lord and Miller was completely justified for constantly going over budget, it's also important to recognize that Kennedy initially brought them on board because of their distinctive style, which he intended to infuse into Star Wars. However, it seems she didn't understand the process of achieving that look, which relies heavily on improvisation, experimentation and multiple takes on set, while the final film takes shape in the editing room.

So hiring them for that and then being dissatisfied with the dailies because you don't like it or don't understand what you're seeing is kind of brain dead. It's hard to say exactly what Lord and Miller's film would have been like, and I doubt that when they were fired they knew themselves. But I think it's safe to assume it would have been similar to 21 Jump Street and its moments, even if they are few and far between, the ones left in the film are a good indicator of the tone they were going for. Now, whether that tone is appropriate for a Star Wars movie is another debate entirely, but at least the movie would have felt fun, fresh, and unique compared to the bland, forgettable movie we got, which wasn't bad, It just wasn't. something special.