George Lucas, former Lucasfilm chief and the founding father of Star Wars, has all but retired from the filmmaking process. But that didn’t stop him from paying a visit to Solo: A Star Wars Story mid-way through production.
It was here when Lucas made one small, but not insignificant change to Han Solo’s journey (spoilers: it involves the scene in which Han and Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra are flirting in the hull of the Millennium Falcon), though Lucas’ contribution to Solo doesn’t end there.
As Alden Ehrenreich tells ComicBook.com, the former Lucasfilm boss was also on-hand to doll out some advice to the young up-and-comer before he picked up that famous blaster.
George Lucas came by set. Then about a week or two ago, I got to go to Skywalker Ranch and I sat down with him for, like, an hour and talked to him about a lot of stuff like Han and Star Wars and everything.
The Star Wars newcomer then spoke a little more about how George Lucas was able to put things into perspective, all the while highlighting the importance of those stories, like the Original Trilogy, that are capable of whisking viewers off on a journey to some far-flung galaxy.
He talked a lot about the museum that he’s creating now, which is of narrative art and he was talking about Star Wars and different stories that help free up the imagination of children, to imagine circumstances. He was like, ‘You can’t do something if you can’t imagine it.’ And it was really interesting to hear him talk about the value of stories that transport us to another world or make us imagine a bigger and brighter and better life four ourselves.
At only $313 million worldwide, it’s fair to say that Solo: A Star Wars Story has struggled to light up the box office in the way Lucasfilm would have hoped. Its relatively soft performance has been chalked up to its close proximity to The Last Jedi, which opened only five months ago. Either that, or viewers were put off by the director drama. Regardless, it’s the franchise’s first real flop and as such, it’ll be interesting to watch how the studio moves forward from here.