The change of directors for the latest Star Wars spin-off film Solo: A Star War Story can leave someone wondering how different things were before Ron Howard replaced Phil Lord and Chris Miller as director. Not much has been revealed on that aside from perhaps how the directors handled things on set. Howard himself has been relatively silent about it but it seems that editor for Solo, Pietro Scalia has a few things to say about the changes Howard made after Lord and Miller left the director’s chair.
The Oscar winning editor with credits to critically acclaimed films such as JFK, Good Will Hunting and Gladiator spoke to /Film on the differences between the directors. He highlighted the scene in the film in which Han and Qi’ra are reunited, saying:
“That scene was shot several times. The first time around, when Chris and Phil were there, there were different actors, different blocking. Ron wanted to do something different and we shot it. It was not so much the performance, it was more about blocking and moving the camera, getting a little bit more of the environment and the party.”
The Han and Qi’ra reunion was somewhat lacking in environmental atmosphere in Howard’s cut as it was relatively bland. Perhaps Lord and Miller had a far better vision in mind for that scene. Then again, the casino scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a little bloated, maybe it is for the best. Scalia also added that the tone of the film was different between the directors and that he had to start over from scratch, saying:
“It was different. I wouldn’t be mixing and combining, it’s completely different. It’s just that once Ron came on, it changed completely and over 70% of the film was re-shot, at the same time, when I came on, I had to start back from scratch. I was not building on something that was already built. I worked for a few weeks with Chris and Phil. I did start back from the beginning building the scene – the only way I could actually understand the material, no disrespect to who was there before me, the other editor. It was simply that in order to understand how to build it, you need to know the material and you need to start at the base.
It seemed that Howard really didn’t want much of Lord and Miller’s prints on this or maybe those scenes were the reason they were fired in the first place, so it wouldn’t make sense to retain so much of it. Maybe it was a better choice to keep Lord and Miller, maybe it wasn’t but it’s really a question as to how things would’ve been if they remained as directors.
Source: /Film
