We Have Proof Star Wars' Han Solo Movie Could've Been Way Better

Solo: A Star Wars Movie was a divisive entry in the franchise. It earned 69% on Rotten Tomatoes, bombed at the box office, and often sits in the middle of ranked Star Wars lists. Solo is considered fine by many, but it could have been so much better.

Solo: A Star Wars Story was commissioned with a script by Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan, and a cast that included Alden Ehrenreich playing Han Solo, Donald Glover portraying Lando Calrissian, and Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke as a new character, Qi'ra. Anticipation was high for a film about the origins of Star Wars' most devilish rogue with a story from the writer of The Empire Strikes Back. Right from the start, it had so much potential.

Adding to that potential was the directing duo attached: Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The pair were known for hit comedies like 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie. They hadn't tackled a live-action sci-fi franchise film like Star Wars before, but they'd come off production of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (an eventual Oscar winner), which proved they could handle franchise fare. 

The pairing of Lord and Miller with Han Solo was a risk, but the sensibilities between the duo's style and the character seemed to make sense. It signalled the potential for a bold new Star Wars chapter, similar to the gritty spy tone Rogue One: A Star Wars Story brought to the table in 2016.

However, after six months of filming, it was announced that Miller and Lord had been fired and would be replaced by Ron Howard. At the time, Lucasfilm cited creative differences. The trades reported that it was due to a constant clash between Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and the directors, who weren’t given the space to execute their vision. Miller and Lord said in their own statement that "our vision and process weren’t aligned with our partners on this project."

Howard did what he could with Solo. The film underwent extensive reshoots and was released in May 2018, where it failed to break even at the box office.

Now, eight years later, a new blockbuster sci-fi film has revealed exactly what Solo: A Star Wars Story missed out on when Lucasfilm fired Lord and Miller.

Project Hail Mary Reveals What Solo Could Have Been

Phil Lord and Chris Miller didn't direct another film for years after Solo, but remained producers and sometimes writers on projects like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Cocaine Bear. Their first directing gig in eight years was yet another big-budget sci-fi, this time adapting Andy Weir's bestselling novel Project Hail Mary.

Project Hail Mary was essentially Lord and Miller's second chance at directing a dream space project. While Project Hail Mary had expectations due to its basis in Weir's book, it didn't carry the franchise baggage that Star Wars did, so the duo could lean into their visionary style.

The positive word of mouth from preview screenings and critics' reviews established Project Hail Mary as a classic weeks before it even hit cinemas. It's considered a huge win for Lord and Miller. 

Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a school teacher who wakes on a spaceship hundreds of light-years from Earth and must figure out how to save his planet (and himself) as the sole survivor of the mission. The film's tone blends sci-fi with an epic sense of action and adventure, plus a comedic edge. 

While Project Hail Mary is much more consistently comedic than Solo, it raises the question of whether Lord and Miller's version of comedy in Solo would have been better for it. While Gosling's Grace is no scoundrel, it's still easy to see the comparisons between the two space adventurers that would have attracted Lord and Miller to his character. Han Solo is known for his wisecracking, charming personality. 

There's an argument to be made that infusing Han's character and the movie in general with more of Lorde and Miller's comedic quirk could have made it a better film. Despite some of the different directions it's gone in, Star Wars has typically been a fun family adventure that doesn't take itself too seriously. Solo was definitely fun, but it wasn't the kind of fun that Lord and Miller bring to their work. Adding the same charm that drew audiences to Spider-Verse and The LEGO Movie could have given Star Wars a way to reinvigorate that sensibility. 

Similar to Han, Grace also makes friends with an unlikely alien companion, a many-legged rock creature, Rocky. The duo's relationship is the beating heart of Project Hail Mary. Solo had this potential as well, as it introduced Han Solo to his constant companion, Chewbacca. The origin story of Han and Chewie's meeting is something fans were eager to see in Solo, and while the scene itself works, Han and Chewie's friendship is never anything more than a subplot. It's a wonder what Solo would've been like had the movie infused Chewie and Han's friendship with the same level of heart and detail as Grace and Rocky's.

Visually, Project Hail Mary is a treat, but this isn't at all surprising when considering the feasts for the eyes that Miller and Lord have shepherded in the Spider-Verse films. The pair is not afraid to lean into creativity, allowing CGI visuals to be a form of wonder rather than just a generic backdrop. Project Hail Mary emphasises the true beauty of space through its visuals. There's no telling what Solo's Kessel Run sequence might have looked like with their visual flair. 

While Project Hail Mary is galaxies away from what Star Wars is, its success has nevertheless proven what a sci-fi blockbuster can be under Lord and Miller. One of the common criticisms lobbied at Solo is that it was perhaps too safely within the Star Wars house style. It was fun, but lacked a distinct sense of unexpectedness for a film about a character as unpredictable as Han Solo. 

If there's one thing that's true of Lord and Miller, it's that they are bold and unique. This pays off in Project Hail Mary, and it's hard to imagine it wouldn't have paid off in Solo too, if they'd been given the chance to execute their vision and push the boundaries of the Star Wars style.