Star Wars Episode 7: Five Fears Of Harrison Ford Returning

Yesterday, news broke that Harrison Ford is apparently very close to committing to appear in Star Wars Episode VII. Needless to say, half of the Internet rejoiced, while the other half booed through their cupped hands.In other words, it’s the Internet.At any rate, upon seeing these reactions, we wanted to collect up some of the responses and try and sift through why people are so keen to see, or not to see, the great actor return to arguably his most iconic role. We’ll bring you the good stuff tomorrow, but the stuff people are worrying about? Well, here we go…His AgeWhile Harrison Ford, a Hollywood actor with fitness and dietary coaches at his disposal, is almost certainly in better shape at 145 years old than the average 32-year-old comics blogger, nobody’s asking those of us who hide behind our keyboards for a living to fight a Storm Trooper.Nope, that’s the exclusive domain of Star Wars actors, and it’s difficult to imagine Harrison Ford still being up to that particular challenge.Now, one argument against this is that frankly Han never did a ton of hand-to-hand combat to begin with; most of his value was behind the wheel of the Millennium Falcon and there’s no reason that Ford can’t do that.It’s worth noting that many fans think Ford acquitted himself pretty well in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, doing his best with the script he was given, and they were able to cover up some of the things he couldn’t do anymore via the use of dialogue that joked about his age.The problem, then? Well, he’s another five years or so older still and they haven’t even started to shoot. Even accounting for the fact that Han is a lot snarkier than Indy and the jokes would probably land better in Star Wars, you don’t want him to be having so much trouble in the shots where he’s clearly himself that anything they hand to the stunt performers is going to seem silly and unbelievable.