Another open letter to Disney/Lucasfilm: 11 ways to make the Han Solo prequel good (without me in it)

My  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ reaction when I learned I wasn't cast as Han Solo.

Dear Disney/Lucasfilm,

On January 31, I published what remains the most-viewed item on this young blog, and one of the best things I've ever written (if I do say so myself): "An Open Letter to Disney/Lucasfilm: 22.5 reasons why I should be the new Han Solo." Responding to the still-open casting call for your Han Solo prequel movie, which would recast the role made iconic by Harrison Ford, I made the case that I was the best choice. I would summarize my previous post here, but I could not possibly do it justice by summary; just read (or reread) it here:

Alas, despite my unimpeachable case, you declined to give me the role (though I appreciated the follow-up letter that stressed how close I came*). Instead, it emerged last week that the role went to a different generic, white, brown-haired young male named Alden Ehrenreich, who had the good fortune of meeting Steven Spielberg at his Bar Mitzvah (some guys have all the luck). Congratulations, you well-connected up-and-comer, you.

Seriously. I look at least as much like a young Han Solo as this guy. What gives?

I'm not bitter, though. Really, I'm not. I'll probably still see this movie when it comes out, even if I'll always think it would have been better with me in it. But let's be honest: You could still screw this movie up. After all, the world still hasn't forgiven George Lucas for the Star Wars prequels he gave us. And so, in the interest of preventing a similar fiasco, as a follow-up to my original post, and as both proof that I'm not bitter and as a possible audition for helping with the screenplay, I give you 11 (approximately half of the 22.5 reasons I gave for my being Han Solo) pieces of free advice on how to make sure the Han Solo prequel doesn't suck.

Or you could still cast me. It's not too late...

1) Make it funny, but not too funny. You seem to have gotten the right idea about Han Solo's character by enlisting Phil Lord and Chris Miller, two guys who are pretty good with comedy (and whose getting the job was announced on my 22nd birthday), as directors. Because as awesome as Han Solo is, let's not forget that he is also funny, even goofy. Just watch him try to fool Death Star personnel into thinking everything's normal (and then just shooting his way out of the situation when he proves unconvincing). Or when he unwittingly charges an entire room of Stormtroopers. Or when a box of tools falls on him in the Millennium Falcon. Or during his witty repartee with Leia. Or in countless other examples when Han embodies either verbal or physical comedy. The Han Solo prequel shouldn't be all comedy, but it should definitely be a bit lighthearted.

I mean, come on. Just look at this face.

2) Don't give us the Han Solo we know; give us someone who could plausibly become the Han Solo we know. This might be the most important thing the new movie has to get right. Getting a different, younger actor to play Han Solo doesn't mean that he should just do an impression; that would be either a very boring movie or a very disappointing one, since no one can be Harrison Ford except Harrison Ford (which is why we should just clone him). Instead, Ehrenreich should play--and the screenplay should allow him to play--a Han Solo we could believe as the Han Solo we will one day come to love, but is not that Han Solo quite yet.

3) Show underdeveloped versions of the traits he will one day embody with confidence. Give us a Han Solo who seems outwardly confident and cocky, like the one we know, but in a way that is totally unearned, and who maybe, on the inside, is actually guarded and somewhat unsure of himself and insecure in a world he doesn't quite fully understand yet. Give us a Han Solo who backs himself into corners because he's confident he can talk, shoot, or otherwise improvise his way out of them, but isn't always capable of that yet. Give us a Han Solo who is sarcastic and witty, but sometimes makes bad jokes that don't always land, and uses sarcasm in large part as a coping mechanism to make sense of a world he doesn't quite have a handle on yet. Give us a Han Solo who is uncouth, immature, and even somewhat slovenly and ill-mannered--a nerfherder?--but in a somewhat juvenile way that isn't yet part of his roguish charm. Give us a Han Solo who thinks he knows how to charm women, but often falls flat or just plain strikes out. At the same time, don't overdo it and make him so completely unlike the Han Solo we know that we can't believe he'll ever become that. Strike a balance.

Make Han not get the girl, like in this scene, but with less incest.

4) Don't make the leap from young Han Solo to the Han Solo we know too quickly. Again, perhaps the overriding temptation of this movie will be to make Han Solo too awesome too quickly. Resist that urge. As great a character as he is, he surely wasn't always that way. Like all of us, he is the product of all of the choices he has already made and all of the experiences he has already had. Show us some steps along the way of his becoming the Han Solo we know. Three possible examples: a situation that gets way out of hand because he declines to shoot first, which teaches him the important lesson of always shooting first; someone calls him "kid" in the same affectionate, older-brother way he later calls Luke "kid"; someone shows him--or he learns himself in a period of desperate necessity--about the Millennium Falcon's helpful trap-doors. At the same time, don't get him all the way to the Han Solo we know, or at least, don't get him all the way there too quickly.

5) Don't make Han Solo a "chosen one." This relates directly to points 2, 3, and 4. One temptation enticing Lord and Miller, as well as father-son screenwriting duo Lawrence and Jake Kasdan, will be to make Han Solo simply a "born badass," or maybe even a "chosen one" (this was a mistake of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, which turned Captain Kirk, a character who, in the original Star Trek series, earned his status entirely through his own merit, into a chosen one of sorts**). That would be antithetical to the entire spirit of Han Solo. Even if he overcame his initial skepticism about the Force, it was pure chance that he became involved in the Rebellion in the first place. It could have been any space smuggler that Obi-Wan met in the Mos Eisley Cantina and got Luke and Obi-Wan off of Tatooine in A New Hope (heck, it could have even been this guy). Han Solo's greatness was not preordained (even if his first lines were: "Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon"), which is one of the most appealing aspects of his character. Don't ruin it.

6) Don't force Han into the plot of chronologically future-set Star Wars movies where he doesn't belong. A similar temptation to making Han Solo a chosen one would be to tie him into the plot of the Original Trilogy somehow, well before he's supposed to be part of it, or to throw someone/something else from the Original Trilogy into his life where it doesn't belong. I can't find a citation for it, but a perfect example of this would be George Lucas' almost inserting a scene into The Phantom Menace in which someone warns a young Greedo to be careful about fighting, because someday someone might fight back (or something like that). That would have been completely unnecessary self-referential cannibalization. Han Solo should not randomly encounter, say, Darth Vader, or a young Luke Skywalker, in this movie (nor should he cameo in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as is rumored). The only allowable exception for this would be letting him meet an Original Trilogy character with whom he has an established history; in this instance, meeting Greedo would actually be fine, since Han already seems to know him well during their first (and last) on-screen meeting in A New Hope.

Shooting first has its benefits.

7) Don't use up the Original Trilogy capital too aggressively. The Star Wars Original Trilogy set up several famous aspects of Han Solo's character: Getting the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian, making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, befriending Chewbacca, etc. It's probably inevitable that this prequel will show the origin of at least some of these things, maybe all of them. And that's OK. But make them a natural part of the story. And don't make them happen all at once (as in the still-entertaining opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which basically every essential aspect of the character of Indiana Jones--whip, hat, fear of snakes, "it belongs in a museum," scar--comes into place in about 8 minutes when he's an adolescent), or too early. The Force Awakens did this well; the first "character" from the Original Trilogy we see on screen is the Millennium Falcon, which doesn't appear until near the end of the first act. Han himself follows shortly thereafter. And Luke Skywalker, the hero of the Original Trilogy, doesn't even have a line of dialogue in the movie. Those would be great examples to follow.

"Fine, I'll be in the movie. But I don't want to say anything."

8) Explore new parts of the Star Wars universe at least as much as ones we already know, if not more. A great way to follow points 6 and 7 would be to flesh out aspects of the Star Wars universe that don't directly relate to the Skywalkers, the Empire, or the Rebel Alliance. The seedy criminal underbelly of smugglers and Hutts could be fascinating; seeing a young man learn not only how to survive but to thrive in such an environment, even more so. Let's see the Star Wars galaxy for the filthy, used-future, licentious place it really is, outside of the gleaming corridors of Imperial starships or the computer-studded hallways of Rebel bases.

9) Don't just make him the product of a single mentor figure. This was another mistake of the still-entertaining sequence that begins Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In addition to establishing the entire character of Indiana Jones too quickly, that scene made "Indiana Jones" largely the product of a single mentor figure, who was basically Indiana Jones before Indiana Jones, and who Indiana Jones essentially became. That's boring. The young Han Solo should draw his character from many sources, not just one proto-Solo.

Someone like this should not appear in the Han Solo prequel.

10) Hire me as a co-writer for the screenplay. If you still remain somehow unconvinced of my acting abilities after reading this, then surely it and the post you have just read have convinced you at the very least that I know how to write, and that I understand this character and universe (for more evidence of my understanding of the latter, see here). Therefore, I would be happy to help write or to consult on this movie's screenplay. I'd even gladly help out without a writer's credit, under the radar, without the knowledge of the Writer's Guild of America, or any of the conditions it stipulates for participation. Basically, you could chain me to a desk, give me regular injections of caffeine, and force me to write the screenplay without sleep, and I wouldn't care. You're not going to get a better deal, let me tell you.  

11) Boot Alden Ehrenreich and cast me instead. I know I stated in the title of this post that casting me in this movie wasn't going to be one of my suggestions for making it better. And I know I began this post by saying that I wasn't bitter. But seriously, guys. I belong in this movie, and you know it. And when it's inevitably proven that Alden Ehrenreich just isn't up for the task, I'll be happy to step in. There is precedent for this: Harvey Keitel was originally cast as Col. Willard in Apocalypse Now, but director Francis Ford Coppola decided he just wasn't right for the role, and replaced him with Martin Sheen***. Stuart Townsend was initially cast as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, but director Peter Jackson decided he was too young and unconvincing in the role and replaced him with Viggo Mortensen (which was particularly fortunate; I doubt Townsend would have instinctively deflected with his sword a real knife accidentally thrown at him during filming, or kicked a real piece of metal, broken his toe, and screamed in character--both on-set accidents that made it into Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, respectively). And Eric Stolz was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, only to be replaced by Michael J. Fox when director Robert Zemeckis rejected Stolz's overly-dramatic take on the role. All I'm saying is it's happened before, and that I'm available if you decide you need me after all.

Left and top right: What almost was.

So there you have it, Disney/Lucasfilm: 11 (OK, 9) ways to make sure the Han Solo prequel doesn't suck. If done right, it could be a good, entertaining origin story. I must say though that it will never be as good as it would be with me in it, either in the lead role, or as a co-writer. But it's not too late to involve me in either role. Have your people call my people.

Sincerely,

Jack Butler

PS

I am, again, as serious about this as you want me to be.

*This letter may or may not exist.
**Think about it: Dead father with great legacy, tutored by mentor figures, the universe leading him to Spock Prime, Spock Prime making sure that he and young Spock become friends...it's all very Star Wars-y, which reinforces my argument that Abrams basically made Star Trek into Star Wars.
***Incidentally, a native of Dayton, Ohio, where my father and grandfather grew up; Martin and his brothers went to the same high school as my grandfather.