Solo: A Star Wars Story - 10 Concerns Raised By The New Trailer
Everything is under control. Right?
After months of waiting around for just a second of footage from the upcoming Han Solo spin-off, fans finally found themselves treated to a brief teaser this past Sunday, followed - a day later - by a extended, two-minute teaser trailer. And, yes, it's already racked up millions of views on YouTube and has been feverishly devoured, criticised, praised, and judged by the online masses.
The movie, which stars Alden Ehrenreich as the titular space pirate, is already well-known for its varied production troubles, mainly due to the fact that original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were fired by Disney over "creative difference" and replaced with Ron Howard, perhaps the world's most generic director. Yay?
It's impossible to know where Lord and Miller's work on the film ends and Howard's work starts just from looking at the trailer, of course, but one tends to think this was never going to be the perfect spin-off by any means - a point that seems even truer now that we've been granted a glimpse of some actual footage.
If you were already worried about this flick, chances are the teaser trailer did nothing to ease your space-based fears. Here's why you should be concerned...
10. Alden Ehrenreich Doesn't Have A Whiff Of Harrison Ford About Him
It was always going to be tough trying to replicate the magic of Harrison Ford's iconic performance, and nobody is denying the difficulty in that. Somehow, Ehrenreich has been tasked with capturing the charisma of what is perhaps Ford's most beloved character ever, whilst avoiding doing an outright impression.
A few mannerisms here and there, creating a link between the two actors, might have been enough - think Ewan McGregor channelling Alec Guinness for his brilliantly-judged performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's how you do it.
But watching this trailer, you don't get the sense that the actor is supposed to be playing Han Solo at all. If you weren't aware that this was even a Star Wars film, it's doubtful that anyone would be able to guess that the character we're watching would grow up to be everybody's favourite scruffy-looking nerf herder.
Ehrenreich appears to have gone the other way entirely. He's not even trying to bring a Ford-ness to his performance in this footage, the voice sounds nothing like Han Solo's voice, and suddenly we're all very clear as to why there have been rumours that Disney have been unhappy with the young actor's work.
Granted, this is a trailer, and it doesn't showcase an entire performance, but so far it looks to expose a huge disconnect between Ford and Ehrenreich.