Look, I am going to see the Han Solo stand-alone movie and I
never actually go to the theatre to see a movie anymore. So, let’s get that
straight up front. But I am worried that the new Han Solo movie is going to
absolutely screw up everything that we like about Han Solo.
Han Solo is awesome in part because he is mysterious. Where
did he come from? How did he win the Millennium Falcon “fair and square” from
Lando? What makes him able to shoot first and not have any problems about it?
These are questions we have asked as a Star Wars watching people for more than
40 years.
He is a mysterious figure. He is one of the great mysterious
figures of all time, like Clint Eastwood in 90% of his westerns, and the entire
Steve McQueen filmography, and of course, Humphrey Bogart’s tour de force of
Rick Blaine in Casablanca. It’s a great plot device to get you more interested
in the character.
“We have a complete dossier on you: Richard Blaine,
American, age 37. Cannot return to his country. The reason is a little vague.”
You bet it is, Major.
“I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did
you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to
think you killed a man. It's the Romantic in me.”
“It’s a combination of all three,” he replies, and thus you
continue to wonder what makes the man tick.
Han Solo belongs in those same categories because we don’t
know anything about him. We wonder, and it makes him more mysterious and
therefore more awesome.
And very soon, in less than two hours, we will learn exactly
what makes Han Solo tick and where he came from and what about the Falcon.
We will know everything about him.
And it will RUIN Han Solo.
He will be toast.
It would be like having a complete backstory about every
character in The Great Escape. You know, the fantastic WWII prisoner of war
breakout movie from 1963. We know bits and pieces about every character, but
just enough to move the story along and create some drama. We don’t know
everything. We do know that Charles Bronson’s Danny had a tunnel collapse on
him so despite him being the best at digging tunnels he’s scared. That’s fine.
That’s a plot device that’s key to the actual damn escape, so it’s part of the
gig.
But we don’t know how James
Garner’s Hendley came to be so good at scrounging. Nobody else does, either.
It’s an aside. The guy the British know to be The Scrounger isn’t there, and
they hear there’s an American named Hendley who’s very good. The exchange goes like
this:
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| "It's on loan" |
“What about Tommy Bristol?”
“No,
but there's an American – Hendley”.
“Is he a scrounger, blackmailer?”
“MacDonald says he's the best.”
“Good.”
That’s it.
We don’t know about Jimmy Coburn and why the hell he’s an
Australian with no accent and why Sedgewick is the ace manufacturer. He just
is. The best mystery surrounding Sedgewick is his escape. He gets into town,
steals a bicycle that’s too small for him, and cycles away. We cut back to him
a few times in between the chaos and he’s just cycling along. Then he just
shows up in Paris.
As for The Cooler King, Steve McQueen has a conversation
with Ives while they’re in The Cooler where he mentions riding bikes, and Ives
says “bicycles?” and Hilts says “No, motorcycles.” So you know he can ride
before he tries to escape on one. The confusion by Ives and Hilts’ emphasis on
correcting him, by the way, is also an intentional screenwriter device to get
you to notice the interaction. Even though you may not have any use for knowing
that right then, when Steve McQueen starts hopping barbed-wire fences at 70
miles an hour, you go “Ohhhhhhhhh!!!!” It’s a device most used by mystery
writers, for if you mention a candlestick on page one, it damn well better be important
to the plot by the end of it all.
Anyway, imagine if they did a prequel to The Great Escape
and showed how Hilts became so good at riding motorcycles, and Hendley got so
good at scrounging, and Bltythe (Donald Pleasance) as a mild-mannered guy who
discovers he has a tremendous talent for forgery. (Oh man, I just gave
Hollywood an idea, didn’t I? Forget I said anything.)
That movie would ruin The Great Escape. Absolutely destroy
it. You’d have to pretend it doesn’t exist, like Slap Shot 2.
 |
| "I do not want to see Slap Shot 2!" |
I am also extremely worried about Han Solo because Star Wars
already did a bunch of movies explaining what happened before, and they ruined
all the mystery and awesomeness of the stuff they were trying to show.
Before the prequels, when Obi-Wan said, “I fought with your
father in The Clone Wars,” our imagination filled in the blank. This old man
fought battles? With Luke’s father? How did they survive? What happened?
We wondered what kind of father Luke’s dad was. “He’s got
too much of his father in him,” said aunt Beru. “Darth Vader killed your
father,” said Obi-Wan. We wondered. We speculated. The mystery and the history
made us want to know more about the story. When the big reveal happened, we
realized what Obi-Wan meant. The mystery of how that happened made us want to
know more.
And then the prequels happened, and we found out, and we
immediately regretted it (well, I sure did).
Obi-Wan as a young man fights like Renton in Trainspotting. Luke’s dad
is a stupid brat as kid, and an idiot as a young man.
We know about the Clone Wars and how clunky they are. The
mystery, the off-hand remark of “I fought with your father in The Clone Wars”
immediately reminds me of how bad the prequels are.
But that’s not all that worries me about the new Han Solo
movie.
There’s also what happened when we saw part of the backstory
of another iconic Harrison Ford character, and the terribleness that ensued.
 |
| "Junior, why are we in Fairfax?" |
I’m talking about Indiana Jones.
The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
is everything the backstory of a mysterious and awesome character should be. It
doesn’t ruin him, in fact, it makes him more mysterious and awesome. It
explains a lot about him without coming straight out and banging you over the
head with it.
The young Henry Jones is a Boy Scout in Colorado/Utah in the
early 20th century. Boom, we have an explanation for his MacGyver-like
tendencies and ability to survive in caves and desert areas. That’s where he
grew up! And a Boy Scout nonetheless!
The sequence does not make a big deal out of the two major
reveals to the Jones character. They come across as almost afterthoughts to the
plot, and that makes them better. Jones falls through the top of a circus car
and lands in a snake pit. Boom, revealed. Then he picks up a whip for
presumably the first time, cracks it, and it cuts his chin, leaving a scar.
Since Harrison Ford actually does have a scar right there, this was a little
joke to make River Phoenix seem more like Indiana Jones.
 |
| It's just part of the scene. |
The hat, given to him by the evil guy’s Jones-like assistant,
is the only emphasized reveal. A little aside with Professor Henry
Jones showing him obsessed with the grail is a plot point developed later in
the film. But we don’t know everything. We know just enough to want more. The
opening sequence was the most discussed and talked-about part of the movie when
it came out, and I know this because I was there reading and talking about it.
And that created the biggest problem with the Indiana Jones
backstory, the ill-conceived and badly-executed (at least when it comes to
storytelling and the like) “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV show of the
early 90’s.
You only might remember this abysmal piece of garbage (when
it comes to Indiana Jones’ story only, and I mention this twice because a
friend of mine worked on the then-extremely advanced computer special effects)
if you saw it when it came out. They have since tried to re-imagine it as
something interesting, but every time they have tried, it has failed, and thank
you fellow viewer for keeping this horrible trash where it belongs.
The Last Crusade sequence presented young Henry Jones as an
adventurous Boy Scout in America, who became the great Indiana Jones when he
grew up.
Young Indiana Jones presented young Indiana Jones as a
globetrotting savant, interacting with world leaders and historical figures
everywhere he went.
 |
| This is NOT how Indiana Jones grew up |
You see the difference? Young Indiana Jones had the kid
going on safari with Teddy Roosevelt and in Paris with Ernest Hemingway,
falling for Mata Hari and helping the Red %&$#! Baron learn how to fly.
That is not who Indiana Jones is. Indiana Jones- at least
the way I see it presented- is an American kid who studied archaeology to try
and please his father and discovered that his adventure bug finally helped him
instead of hurting him. And his Boy Scout training came in very, very handy.
Indiana Jones doesn’t pal around with celebrities as an
adult because he finds them ridiculous, but as a kid he’s dining with Winston
Churchill and painting with Pablo Picasso? Get the hell out of here.
There is a connection between the Young Indiana Jones and
the Star Wars prequels- George Lucas developed them both. Yep, he wrote Jones’
entire history and that was the basis for the show. And he of course wrote and
directed prequel number one.
Of course, Lucas did create both Solo and Jones and gave
them their original mysteriousness and awesomeness, so we must give him plenty
of credit for that.
And that gives me some hope for Solo. Because Lucas isn’t
heavily involved with it. So maybe, people like me who want to preserve the
history and mystery and awesomeness of Solo made sure of it.
Laugh it up, fuzzball.
Maybe he’s not as toast as I think he is. We’ll find out
soon enough.
photos courtesy their respective, correct owners
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