Tag Archives: Han Solo

Young Solo Adventures would have been better suited to streaming and the small screen

3 Replies

I was sceptical when Alden Ehrenreich – who doesn’t look or sound anything like Harrison Ford – was cast as young Han. Where Ford is tall, rangy, chisel-jawed and rugged, Alden could be a member of a galactic boy band (except he’s solo).

After a troubled production and reports of an acting coach, it seemed as if the odds of Alden successfully navigating young Han were approximately 3,720 to 1.

But the wise-cracking smuggler never did set much store by the odds, ‘cos if you have enough swagger, you can pull anything off. So I can vaguely imagine Alden maturing into Original Trilogy Han. Better than I could reconcile Hayden Christensen with the man in the mask, even after I watched it lowered onto his charred face.

Solo is a fairly straightforward, pulpy adventure that introduces Han on his scuzzy home planet of Corellia, long before he met a Princess and fathered a Supreme Idiot. He’s serving a slimy crime boss, a bit like Rey did on Jakku, except Han and his girl Qi’Ra have more time for hair salon appointments.

After an escape bid sees Qi’Ra captured, Han signs up for the Empire – who use the Imperial March in recruiting drives. Kicked out the Academy, he meets pro thief Tobias Beckett (the least imaginative SW name) and co. They chuck Han to ‘The Beast’ – no not a Rancor…it’s Chewbacca!

Beckett is stealing hyperfuel for a crime syndicate, but at the first sight of pirates, Han drops his shipment, angering boss Dryden Vos. He wants his fuel or else, so it’s all aboard the Falcon for that infamous Kessel Run. Dryden orders Qi’Ra, now his top lieutenant, to supervise them.

Han could be such a dark character: he grew up in Corellia’s murky underworld as a child slave, he fought for the Empire on a planet resembling a WWI hellscape, he lost his childhood sweetheart. But all he wants is to be a cool pilot and make a quick buck.

Qi’Ra knows that under the cocky attitude, Han’s one of the good guys. (Was it just me or did a certain bad guy look happy to get ‘closer’ to Emilia Clarke’s Bond girl femme fatale? Isn’t he a cyborg/robotic below the waist?)

Anyway, Emilia does a great mix of resigned and ambitious, a survivor in too deep. She’s more interesting than her former flame, and the other female characters – so much for Thandie Newton’s ‘prominent’ role, while Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s hyped droid L3 doesn’t get the same chance to shine as Rogue One’s K-2SO.

Considering the weekend box office, mooted sequels are unlikely.  I wonder why they didn’t do “Adventures of Young Han Solo” on Disney’s new streaming channel. Then Alden would have been TV Han.

There’s going to be a lot of analysis about ‘what went wrong’. Perhaps Rogue One benefited from the novelty of being the first ‘standalone’, and from charged audiences wanting something to sustain them until Episode VIII. Plus Darth Vader going berserk in the rebel-rousing finale probably helped.

There just wasn’t the enthusiasm for a full movie about a non-Force user. Now Obi-Wan on the other han……

The SOLO trailer saunters on to our screens. I already love Qi’Ra

4 Replies

qira

I wasn’t going to post about the new Star Wars spin-off trailer, when and if it ever arrived. But after being ill and feeling so low, a trailer has been about the most demanding thing I’ve been able to watch and review in weeks.

Solo seems so nonchalant about the whole publicity machine, like it knows it’s a surefire hit anyway. The action scenes, the visuals and the extension of the Star Wars mythology will probably make it another Rogue One.

Of course the cast looks great too. Emilia Clarke, who has really grown on me lately, looks very regal.

Qi’Ra sounds like a Game Of Thrones name, but ‘Kira’ was actually Rey’s original name during The Force Awakens production, and it also crops up a lot in the old pre-Disney books and games. I always thought it was a nod to the director Akira Kurosawa, whose Hidden Fortress was a direct influence on a young George Lucas.

Donald Glover as Lando will walk away with Han’s movie (payback for Han taking the Falcon), while Alden Ehrenreich – who looks and sounds nothing like Harrison Ford – is probably going to be the most divisive element.

Although Alden is diminutive next to Ford’s 6’1, and his voice is nasal-sounding, they’ve still slapped the same hairdo on him that Ford had in the Originals, as if that’ll help. Fans have offered unconvincing in-canon explanations for the physical differences like, “Oh men can have growth spurts really late”, or ‘Voices deepen with age.”

I’ll just accept that they either couldn’t or wouldn’t find someone more like Ford (I think people at Lucasfilm really wanted Alden, and a Ford clone from Kamino would’ve had the door slammed in his face). Alden’s obviously a talented actor, even if he isn’t a movie star/leading man, and he has to make the role his own.

Younger kids and future generations will probably like Alden more than Harrison anyway. He’ll be their definitive Han.

The galaxy is changing.

About that Han Solo casting: who will Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke play?

4 Replies
clarke

Emilia Clarke/Instagram

Call it a “tremor in the force.” Ever since Disney announced plans to go ahead with a solo Han Solo project, reaction has been mixed. Harrison Ford’s advice for any would-be smugglers was simple: “Don’t do it.”

Yet every every young actor in Hollywood wanted the role that eventually went to Alden Ehrenreich. OK, Princess Leia would say he’s a bit short for a stormtrooper nerf herder, but here he is in Hail, Caesar! Impressive, most impressive…

After directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller landed the popular choice of Donald Glover for Lando, they added none other than Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke to the cast.

There is another…British brunette 

If you’ve never seen Emilia Clarke without her platinum wig, you might not have realized she’s actually a totally adorable brunette.  In fact, there’s been a crazy backlash over another dark-haired British actress following Daisy Ridley and Felicity Jones into the franchise.

Unsurprisingly we know little about her role yet, with the press release stating only that she will “round out a dynamic cast of characters Han and Chewie will encounter on their adventures.”

According to Variety she’s the female lead, meaning we can rule out pre-Original Trilogy Leia, who we know meets Han for the first time in A New Hope. Some say it could be Sana Starros from the Marvel comics, but if you check the character’s Wookieepedia page, it’s unlikely that’s the route they’d take with Clarke.

Lord and Miller apparently passed over Jessica Henwick (the tall, beautiful Sand Snake on GoT), Adria Arjona, Kiersey Clemons, Zoë Kravitz, Naomi Scott and Tessa Thompson.

I wonder what made Clarke attractive for the studio, other than the fact she has a starring role in arguably the most popular TV show around. I’ve been following the careers of the GoT crowd and there’s been a real push to make Clarke HAPPEN.

Her Broadway attempt (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) was roundly panned. Meanwhile, the Mother Of Dragons is a very tricky role that Clarke has never quite nailed, tending to fall back on blank stoicism and creepy smirks. Or in the case of the romantic weepie Me Before You, super super-expressiveness.

Perhaps it was her work in Terminator Genisys that dazzled the studio. I wouldn’t be surprised if her Solo character is some sort of cutesy bounty hunter/all-round bad ass with cool one-liners who shows the boys how it’s done.

Lord and Miller said Ehrenreich underwent an “audition pentathlon” to secure the role as Chewie’s best pal, and after the disastrous prequel-era casting, Star Wars execs are probably being very cautious.

Surely they couldn’t make a misstep with characters and hiring at this point?!

Let me know what you think of the way the Han Solo movie is shaping up. Are you a fan of Emilia’s acting? Which GoT star do you think will have the biggest career?