One could very easily argue that the Star Wars universe of properties right now is more popular than it’s been in decades. Mainly because the TV series that are on Disney+ have been lifting the franchise back from the depths of fan divisiveness (see: The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker) and into the ranks of eagerness to see what’s next (See: Ashoka, Mandalorian Season 3, etc.) But while these lessons are hard earned, that doesn’t mean they all learned the right lessons.
We say this not from the perspective of fans, but from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who did an interview about the state of Star Wars and talked about one of the franchises biggest failures: Solo. Which was the origin story of Han Solo (obviously) and featured Alden Ehrenreich as the “scruffy-looking Nerf-Herder” that many fans love. According to her, the biggest problem with the movie was that of having Alden try and “recreate” the feeling that Harrison Ford gave the character:
“There should be moments along the way when you learn things,” while adding, “Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.”
Except, that’s not exactly true. Because in that very film was Donald Glover playing a younger Lando Calrissian (formerly played by Billie Dee Williams) and he absolutely crushed it in the eyes of fans. So much so that Kennedy approved a spinoff for Lando starring Glover.
So…which is it? Can you NOT bring in a new actor to play a former character? Or can you? As in all things, it depends on who you cast.
The other thing to note is that Solo suffered from many other things, including many behind the scenes issues with the directors (who were replaced by Ron Howard), multiple revisions of the script, and rather…lame story ideas that didn’t pan out in the eyes of fans (see: how Han got his “last name”).
So again, did they REALLY learn their less?
Source: Vanity Fair
