Speaking recently on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Phil Lord and Chris Miller discussed the sticky subject of their departure from Solo: A Star Wars Story, and while it would be entirely reasonable to believe that the whole scenario left a bad taste in their mouths, far from it – they appear to only have taken fond memories and useful filmmaking knowledge from their time on the second and – so far – final Star Wars Story film.
Phil Lord: “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. It was funny, about Star Wars, 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.”
“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, what we call in animation, put ‘pencil miles’ under our belts and it made us better filmmakers in the long run. So, in a funny way, there’s obviously a lot of 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.”
Chris MIller: “It’s certainly colored [the experience], you also know how the sausage is made, so you’re actually watching [and say], ‘Oh, I know where that prop came from. I saw that prop in the prop warehouse.’ That sort of thing, so it’s interesting in that way.”
Phil Lord: “Also, watching some of the things we came up with on Solo sort of trickle in to the rest of the canon.” Miller went on to add, “A lot of these aliens and robots. Six-eyed guy that goes like this, each eye is independently moving like a piece of armature is pretty fun.”
“And it’s very easy to root for Rian Johnson, for example. Just having spent a lot of time with him and watching his movie come together. It was really easy to root for Gareth [Edwards], having been on the ground watching him put that together. And on and on, all through the ILM group, there’s a lot of great craftspeople that we love rooting for. The creature shop people that are amazing.”
