Upon taking over Lucasfilm, one of Kathleen Kennedy's primary objectives was to bring in a diverse range of emerging creative minds, aiming to infuse the franchise with new life and fresh perspectives. For example, she hired Godzilla director Gareth Edwards to helm Rogue One, Looper director Rian Johnson to helm Episode Eight, and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known for their self-aware humor and their ability to inject fresh and unexpected elements into familiar genres, to helm a Han Solo origin story written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son. But not long into shooting, word of problems on the set began to emerge until four months into filming and with a good chunk of the movie already shot, Lucasfilm announced directors Lord and Miller had left the project over creative differences, which in Hollywood talk means they were fired. They’d be replaced by veteran director Ron Howard, who would go on to reshoot the bulk of the picture in what would become the first bomb of the Star Wars Disney era and the nail in the coffin for Disney’s “A Star Wars Story” movies. And even though Solo’s a reasonably fun, fine, harmless movie, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. It played it pretty safe. And safe is boring, which leads me to wonder what this movie would’ve looked like had Lord and Miller finished what they started. So let’s take a look back to see what went wrong on set and what could’ve been Solo: A Star Wars Story. The first challenge when starting a movie like this is who the hell do you get to replace Harrison Ford? Are you looking forward to watching a Han Solo movie as a fan? Not really. Even though other franchises have recast iconic roles to varying degrees of success, including this one, it’s always a challenge for an audience to accept a new actor taking over and I would argue that choosing the right actor could make or break the new series. And while I and most others thought Alden Ehrenreich did an admirable job, to be frank he’s no Harrison Ford. But to be fair to him, who is? Not helping matters was the fact that he was outclassed by his co-star Donald Glover who absolutely crushed it as Lando Calrissian. And complicating matters even further was the fact that Harrison Ford was still playing the role and his recent performance in The Force Awakens was still fresh in all our minds. Frankly, it’s hard to accept a new actor in a role when we keep seeing the original actor play him. And as much as I’d like to say that Alden wasn’t the problem with this movie, apparently in some respects he was. Lord and Miller are known for encouraging improvisation on set and allegedly this is something Alden struggled with. So much so that an acting coach was brought in in order to help him more convincingly channel Harrison Ford. Here’s the thing with improvisation though on a big movie like this that Lord and Miller clearly weren’t aware of, which I’ll chalk up to inexperience. Scorsese is also known for improvisation, as exemplified by the iconic scene in Goodfellas. I'm funny, how? Like I'm a clown? I amuse you? However, there’s 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 on-set improvisation with cameras rolling and production costs mounting. Something Lord and Miller should take note of next time as their overreliance on improv and experimentation stretched shoot days out as they did dozens and dozens of takes, ultimately drawing Kennedy’s ire for going into overtime far too often on such a big and expensive production. And while I understand that Lord and Miller probably wanted to elevate what was a fine to mediocre script, someone not happy that they were veering away from the words on the page was the writer of those words Lawrence Kasdan, who wielded considerable power behind the scenes. Unhappy with the dailies he and Kathleen Kennedy were seeing and feeling Lord and Miller weren’t properly capturing the tone of the script, Kennedy allowed Kasdan to show up on set as a sort of shadow director to ensure Lord and Miller stuck to the material, something the pair of young filmmakers bristled at. As the two continued to clash with Kasdan and Kennedy, their disagreements finally came to a head as about three quarters into the shoot, they were fired. The news was apparently such a relief to the overworked and disgruntled crew that they apparently broke out into applause at the meeting announcing the change. In the end, Howard reshot most of the film and then some, earning him the sole director credit, but also leaving audiences wondering what remained in the movie of Lord and Miller’s work. Surprisingly, the opening for the film originated from Lord and Miller, who envisioned a thrilling landspeeder chase through the bustling streets of Corellia in order to showcase Han’s exceptional piloting skills from an early age. And even though the pair of directors would later butt heads with Kasdan, he embraced the idea for this scene and loved it from the start. It was also Lord and Miller who came up with the idea to have Han convince Chewie to escape the prison by speaking Wookie in a broken accent This is one of those scenes that when I first saw it I instantly knew it was the work of Lord and Miller and, in my opinion, is one of the best moments in the film, which depressed me as it left me wondering what the rest of the film could’ve been like. The directing duo were also responsible for the memorable scene where Han and Qi'ra share a passionate kiss within the confines of Lando's cape closet aboard the Falcon as an echo to the kiss that was interrupted by C-3P0 with Leia in Empire. Speaking of droids, it was Miller who conceived of the idea for L3, drawing inspiration from the anti-droid bartender in A New Hope. We don't serve their kind here. What? Your droids. Together with Kasdan they collaborated on the development of the character, who I also felt was one of the standouts of the film as I quite enjoyed the droid’s outspoken character, unconventional relationship with Lando, how it instigated a slave revolt on Kessel and ultimately how it joined with the Falcon, giving new dimension to this line by Threepio in Empire: Sir, I don't know where your ship learned to communicate but it has the most peculiar dialect. The finale on Savareen is also mostly the work of Lord and Miller too. And there are plenty of other scenes that contain Lord and Miller footage, like Han’s time on the battlefield on Mimban, followed by him meeting Beckett and his crew, the train heist, etc. But these scenes and sequences were partially reshot by Howard, so it would be disingenuous to attribute them fully to Lord and Miller. The big sequence Lord and Miller didn’t shoot, however, was the Kessel Run. This was all Howard as was the idea to have a giant space monster as Howard felt the sequence needed greater danger and higher stakes than just navigating a space storm and gravity well. Nicknamed 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 frontal escape pod to lure the space monster away. The other major change to 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 shot all of his scenes. As extensive reshoots were ordered after Ron Howard came onboard, Williams wasn't available due to scheduling conflicts with another project, and the part was recast and reimagined, with Paul Bettany stepping in. According to Williams, his version of the character was extremely sophisticated, well travelled and very rich. He would’ve been a human-alien hybrid that resembled something like a purple mountain lion and would’ve found himself in a love triangle between Qi'ra and Han with the two men vying for her attention. While I think Lord and Miller’s firing was completely justified for constantly running over budget, it’s also important to acknowledge that Kennedy initially brought them on board because of their distinctive style, which she aimed to infuse into Star Wars. However, it seems that she may not have understood their process to achieve that style, which relies heavily on on-set improvisation, experimentation, and multiple takes, with the final film taking shape in the editing room. So to hire them for that and then be dissatisfied with the dailies because you don’t like or understand what you’re watching is kind of brain dead. It’s hard to say exactly what Lord and Miller’s movie would’ve been like and I doubt when they were fired they even knew themselves But I think it’s safe to assume it would’ve been similar to 21 Jump Street and the moments of theirs, even if they are few and far between, that remained in the film are a pretty good indicator for 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 film would’ve felt fun, fresh and unique versus the bland, forgettable film we got, which wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t anything special.
