For anyone who’s worried that the actor playing a young Han Solo isn’t taking his role seriously, rest easy – Ehrenreich one of the most important people involved with the project who voiced his concerns about the project at a crucial moment in the movie’s development, which means that he’s absolutely committed to bringing his A-game to this role. Ehrenreich’s performance has been described to us as being an interesting new take on Han that stands out on its own while still honoring the essentials of the character, and that it’s a worthy interpretation of the iconic scoundrel.
And this is why Ehrenreich had concerns with the production as filming progressed. He started to worry that Lord & Miller’s screwball comedy angle was starting to interfere with what the character of Han Solo is really about – even if this was a younger, more reckless take on the character than the one we met in that Cantina on Tatooine. One source described it as being oddly comparable to Jim Carrey’s performance in Ace Ventura at times. Ehrenreich let his concerns be known to one of the producers, who then told Kennedy about it, which led to her decision to look over the existing footage (which is also a normal part of the production process, but this is where things get interesting).
The reason people close to the project have described it positively was that they saw several isolated scenes. However, when an assembly cut actually started to come together, that was where the issues presented themselves in earnest, and this is where Kennedy and Kasdan – as well as the other people reporting to them – started to get deeply concerned. The Weekly Planet Podcast mentioned that there were concerns with performances and action setpieces, but from the sound of things it seems to be more along the lines that Lucasfilm really wants to get an edit that’s more faithful to Kasdan’s script. (Have I mentioned that they really, really like Ehrenreich’s take on Han? Because they do!) There was something of a “zany” tone to more scenes than they would have liked – in part due to some of the improv – and I get the feeling that fans might take more of an issue with this than they would have if the film had been left unfixed.
At some point in production, some kind of hiatus took place, and this is where they reviewed the footage and told Lord & Miller that they’d need to overhaul the movie with reshoots when they worked on it later. If this sounds familiar, then you’d be right to think of Rogue One – but the difference was that Gareth Edwards was a team player, whereas Lord & Miller have given off the impression that they were pretty rebellious with this production, and they offered an ultimatum – either let us handle the reshoots our way, or we’re out. And thus, they were shown the door.
Let’s be clear here – when it comes down to Lord & Miller taking issue with the writer/producer and the creative team at Lucasfilm, it’s should not be surprising that Kennedy would choose to take the side of the people who are in Star Wars for the long haul. And it’s also in Kennedy’s best interest to make sure that they can do whatever it takes to fix a movie before it hits the silver screen, as is the job of any competent film executive overseeing a lot of major projects.
i'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm half kidding.
