#A Star Wars Story Was A Valuable Learning Experience

Almost five years removed from “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” both the directors and the franchise itself have moved on while hardly missing a beat. While “Solo” largely crashed and burned at the box office (those extensive reshoots did no favors to the already bloated budget), the franchise continues to remain popular and successful — and there are even plans for a “Solo” spin-off series focused on Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, meanwhile, have merely involved themselves with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” the excellent new AppleTV+ series “The Afterparty,” “The Mitchells vs the Machines,” “America: The Motion Picture,” and much more.

But maybe a little reminiscing about the past would be good for the soul, too. Josh Horowitz, host of the “Happy/Sad/Confused” podcast, managed to talk all about it with both Lord and Miller in a clip posted to Twitter. First, Lord addressed what they found appealing in the character of Han Solo:

“We’ve always wanted to make projects that are, like Han, a maverick. And so that’s what we were always trying to do, that’s what we were hoping to do with those movies. What’s funny about ‘Star Wars’ is it’s an independent film made outside the Hollywood system. And Han is the spirit of that kind of independence and that’s why we were always inspired to work on that with everybody.”

I think this is the most @philiplord & @chrizmillr have spoken about SOLO outside their therapists’ office. The good news is they got a lot of great stuff out of their STAR WARS experience. pic.twitter.com/0XYL1qZBuY

— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) February 3, 2022

Do I detect the slightest amount of shade thrown at the current state of the franchise, by pointedly juxtaposing the grassroots origins of the original “Star Wars” with their far different experience on “Solo?” I might be reading into it, admittedly, especially given Lord’s next comment.

“And the good news is, they can’t take away what you learned. We learned so much. We got to work with the greatest people, we made so many friends. We put what, in animation, we call ‘pencil miles’ under our belts and it made us better filmmakers in the long run. So, in a funny way, there were some negative emotions associated with that, but the way I feel about it now, like I feel about all these projects, which is you’re just trying to become better and learn and collaborate with people and that doesn’t go away.”

I’ll always feel a little bitter about their removal from “Solo,” but at least they don’t seem to be!