Audiences will soon forget whether Star Wars is set in a galaxy far, far away or in Uncanny Valley.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recently spoke to Vanity Fair about the upcoming Star Wars Disney+ shows. However, she did drop some nuggets of information concerning the franchise’s film slate and made an interesting remark about recasting beloved characters.
Apparently, Lucasfilm will reportedly avoid recasting major Star Wars characters in future projects. The reason for this announcement? 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s failure at the box office. Lucasfilm has decided that the reason the film bombed was that no one liked Alden Ehrenreich replacing Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Here’s Kennedy’s exact quote on the matter:
“There should be moments along the way when you learn things. Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.”
It’s clear that this “rule” has been in effect for a few years now. One needs to look no further than The Mandalorian (and its behind-the-scenes videos) to see the lengths Lucasfilm took to recreate a CGI version of Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker from The Return of the Jedi (1983). The character later returned in The Book of Boba Fett where fans noted an improvement in his CGI appearance.
Okay, so I can understand Lucasfilm being hesitant to recast certain characters from the Star Wars franchise, but I think they’re overthinking this. Donald Glover received rave reviews for his take as a young Lando Calrissian in Solo and, despite initial resistance from fans, Rosario Dawson as the live-action version of Ahsoka Tano has also been met with mostly positive feedback.
If Lucasfilm is dead set on staying in the Original Trilogy era they are going to have to come up with a better solution than having half the cast be CGI/digital recreations. Remember when The Mandalorian was going to be about the Mandalorians? Good times, right!
Do you think Luke, Leia, Han Solo, etc. shouldn’t be recast? Are you a fan of digitally de-aging Mark Hamill until he can no longer play Luke Skywalker? What are your thoughts on recasting characters in general? Tell us in the comments below!
