George Lucas Helped Create a Scene of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’

Disney and Lucasfilm are busy trying to turn around the on-set troubles and early skepticism about Solo: A Star Wars Story, in time to market the movie for early summer release. Solo is getting a major push this week, thanks to the first trailer reveal on the back of the Super Bowl, and now a major feature article.

Of the many issues surrounding Solo discussed in the EW article, there’s been one clear standout: an anecdote about Star Wars creator George Lucas visiting the set, and ending up helping out with the crafting of an entire scene in the film!

“He came by to visit the first day that I picked up shooting,” explained director Ron Howard. “George and his wife, Melody, came by to pay a little set visit. It made me feel great.

As Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy further explained:

“He had intended to just kind of stop by and say hi, and he stayed five hours. There’s even one little moment in a scene that — I can’t tell you what, sorry — but in the scene on the Millennium Falcon where George said, ‘Why doesn’t Han just do this.’”

It actually is a funny little bit that will probably get a laugh. And Ron happened to be by the monitor and not inside the Falcon and he goes, ‘Oh that’s a great idea,’ and ran in and said, ‘George wants us to do this.’ So that was pretty cool. I think George felt pretty great about that. He could revisit these characters, and I think he felt so comfortable, obviously with Ron being there, that it was just fun for him.”

As the article explains in detail, the comfort between Lucas and Ron Howard is a story that extends all the way back to when Howard starred in Lucas’ breakout 1973 coming-of-age film, American Graffiti. So what did Lucas have to say all these later about his young star now directing one of the Star Wars movies?

“He told me just trust my instincts, you know? I know he kind of fundamentally feels like, first and foremost, [these films are] sort of for 12-year-old boys, and yet even he knows that it’s grown so far beyond that, and the fans have grown with the series in a great, important way. So he didn’t offer a lot of advice except, ‘You’ll get this.’”

The Star Wars franchise will continue with Solo: A Star Wars Story on May 25th, and Star Wars: Episode IX on December 20, 2019.