Sometimes a character’s origin doesn’t need to be explained.
More often than not it’s what we don’t know about something that makes it more interesting or mysterious.
This is how I feel about Han Solo.
Harrison Ford is such a great actor that he’s made several of the characters he’s played over the year’s totally his own. So when Disney announced they were doing a film about Han Solo’s origin the first thing I thought was, “NO!!” The second was, “Who the hell is gonna play him? We know what Harrison Ford looked like when he was younger...”
Nevertheless I reluctantly watched the film (with an open mind I might add) and as entertaining as I found it as a "sci-fi movie", I was expectedly underwhelmed as far as it being a Star Wars movie is concerned.
Yes there are some good scenes. Chewie's good, Woody Harrelson is very good (he’s good in everything to be fair) and visually it's really impressive, but Han Solo Alden Ehrenreich is NOT!
Another actor called Anthony Ingruber actually played a young Harrison Ford in a film called The Age of Adaline (2015) and nailed it (see video below). I’m not saying he should’ve played Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) but surely they could’ve cast someone who was more convincing as the loveable smuggler we all know and love?
Don't get me wrong, I get that Disney forked out a hefty sum to buy Lucasfilm and everything attached to it (namely Star Wars), but when will Hollywood realise that some of the fundamental things that make these classic movies "classics" are the characters and the actors who played them?!
The attempted handing over of a franchise to a younger audience never works! Without Harrison Ford there is no Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard or Han Solo. It doesn't matter how good the film is or how talented the actor is, you simply can't recast certain characters!
In my opinion this film would've been much better had it been a completely original idea and not tied to Star Wars in any way (with a few changes of course). As is becoming increasingly common though, it's way more lucrative to piggyback off an already established property than to come up with a brand new idea.
What do you think?
Should they have left it alone or do you love Star Wars so much you'll accept anything?
Let me know below.👇
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