SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (Spoilers)

[ChrisIII]

I remember a lot of people wanted Anthony Ingruber because of his physical resemblance to and voice resemblance to Ford. However, apart from a brief role in Age of Adelaine as a young version of Harrison's character and his voice acting roles, has he really done that much?

Funny thing is Solo did re-use at least one cast member from earlier films: That's still Ray Park as Maul, although the voice is Sam Witwer from the cartoons.


As for R2 I think a lot his functions, as well as that of other non-human droids in the series that still use practical effects, has been replaced by remote-control or the kind of puppetry they use for BB8. Even in the originals, I think a lot of Kenny's work was mostly moving the head around a bit. (Kenny also had a few other roles in the OT here and there, I'm pretty sure he was one of the Ewoks).

Kind of cool that Anthony still does 3PO, although since 1999 I felt there's been something a bit 'off' about the way he sounds as Threepio. Just the voice I guess, or that, honestly, the character hasn't really done that much since ROTJ when you think about it. The most screentime he got was "that" scene in AOTC...

[ABH]

I really enjoyed Solo -- it's easily my favorite of the Disney-era SW movies, so far.

[WebLurker]

The part that got me in the lead up to it was people complaining they didn't get Harrison Ford and use makeup and technology to make him look younger. Star Wars has precedent for recasting characters for their younger years or otherwise when you simply can't get the others.

In the case of Alden Ehrenreich, he was cast to play Han at a time when we know he looked like '70s Harrison Ford. All the other recasts were for depicting characters at very different stages in life (like the two Obi-Wans), or characters that had full-covering costumes (Vader, Chewie, etc.). Also not helping is that many of the recasts had extremely uncanny likenesses, like the younger versions of Obi-Wan and Mon Mothma, not to mention that Rogue One borrowed footage from the previous movies and used CGI to recreate a lot of old actors.

So, while it's true that recasts were a thing and I think Ehrenreich was a very good recast in terms of being believable as being the younger Han, it's still an adjustment, given that prior movies handled the visual likenesses a lot closer to the originals. (Heck, the Emperor was the one time that they recast with a guy who looked and sounded nothing like the original and they went back and replaced him in the special editions to have one actor play the role from beginning to end.)

[The Ozman]

In the case of Alden Ehrenreich, he was cast to play Han at a time when we know he looked like '70s Harrison Ford. All the other recasts were for depicting characters at very different stages in life (like the two Obi-Wans), or characters that had full-covering costumes (Vader, Chewie, etc.). Also not helping is that many of the recasts had extremely uncanny likenesses, like the younger versions of Obi-Wan and Mon Mothma, not to mention that Rogue One borrowed footage from the previous movies and used CGI to recreate a lot of old actors.

So, while it's true that recasts were a thing and I think Ehrenreich was a very good recast in terms of being believable as being the younger Han, it's still an adjustment, given that prior movies handled the visual likenesses a lot closer to the originals. (Heck, the Emperor was the one time that they recast with a guy who looked and sounded nothing like the original and they went back and replaced him in the special editions to have one actor play the role from beginning to end.)

I think that after the success Marvel has had in de-aging actors, it will probably become more commonplace for older actors to reprise roles they played when they were younger, instead of being re-cast with younger actors. De-aging Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel proved that it can be done for a whole movie without looking odd. As the tech progresses even further, this will probably become the new norm.

In that respect it's probably a shame that Solo was made when it was. I'd wager that if it went into production now, they would seriously consider de-aging Harrison Ford instead of casting a younger actor.

[ChrisIII]

I'm not sure Ford would go along with that-he's not really fond of Han as a role, and wanted him dead as early as ROTJ.

Unless they digitally put his face on another actor, like Rogue One did, but that still wasn't 100% realistic (although still alive during production, Carrie wasn't de-aged for Rogue One, but it was a stand-in actress with a CG'd face). Even what we've seen of ROS's Leia footage seems to be obviously from The Force Awakens with some small touch ups.

[The Ozman]

Maybe, maybe not. The point wasn't whether Ford would do it, the point was that it would be something they may have more seriously considered if the film was being made now. As bold as Rogue One was, the CGI face transplants were plainly obvious, whereas the de-aging in Captain Marvel was pretty much flawless as I recall. I know we're only talking about the span of three years, but at the time Solo was in early production I don't think the technique had proved itself in the same way we've seen more recently.

[ChrisIII]

I think with Samuel L Jackson part of the reason is that Sam hasn't aged that badly compared to Ford (Although Ford is older by about 6 years).


Also I don't think it worked quite as well with Michael Douglas/Hank in the Ant-Man movies and Endgame. Hayley did better because she was only playing older versions and pretty much all John Slatterly needed was some hair dye. Ditto with Clark Gregg in CM, just needed some more hair.