George Lucas Helped Ron Howard Craft a Scene in SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
Here's a really cool piece of information regarding Solo: A Star Wars Story for hardcore Star Wars fans! During an interview with EW, there's a story of how Star Wars creator George Lucas visited the set of the film while Ron Howard was directing it and he ended up helping craft a scene in the film that was shot. The director explained:
“He came by to visit the first day that I picked up shooting. George and his wife, Melody, came by to pay a little set visit. It made me feel great.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy went into more detail of what happened saying:
"He had intended to just kind of stop by and say hi, and he stayed five hours. There’s even one little moment in a scene that — I can’t tell you what, sorry — but in the scene on the Millennium Falcon where George said, 'Why doesn’t Han just do this.'
"It actually is a funny little bit that will probably get a laugh. And Ron happened to be by the monitor and not inside the Falcon and he goes, ‘Oh that’s a great idea,’ and ran in and said, ‘George wants us to do this.’ So that was pretty cool. I think George felt pretty great about that. He could revisit these characters, and I think he felt so comfortable, obviously with Ron being there, that it was just fun for him."
As you may know, George Lucas and Ron Howard have a long relationship with each other. Lucas directed Howard in the 1973 film American Graffiti, and Howard went on to direct Lucas' fantasy film, Willow. It's pretty cool to hear that the two had a chance to work together again, even if it was just for a few hours. Howard went on to share a little piece of advice that Lucas gave him:
"He told me just trust my instincts, you know? I know he kind of fundamentally feels like, first and foremost, [these films are] sort of for 12-year-old boys, and yet even he knows that it’s grown so far beyond that, and the fans have grown with the series in a great, important way. So he didn’t offer a lot of advice except, 'You’ll get this.'"
It will be fun to find out what scene George Lucas helped craft. I guess we'll find out after Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters on May 25th.