(Photo: David James, Lucasfilm)
The release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens celebrated the return of the epic franchise; it was a great experience seeing Star Wars once again, and seeing the stars of the original trilogy return, but many of us were sad to see Han Solo die in the hands of his own son, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.
During a recent interview with Fandango, director J.J. Abrams discussed the scene, and described how Harrison Ford reacted when he first heard about his character's fate. Listen to the interview here:
"He was very thoughtful about it, and he got it. He understood why it was so powerful. And I think part of it was because Harrison himself -- Han, the character -- has so much ahead of him. Has so much life and fight and adventure -- that this was the time to do that thing. If we felt like the character was sort of at the end of his days, it wouldn't have been as powerful. The thing that made it potentially meaningful wasn't just who does it and how it happened, but that it's a character that is so vital that is meeting his demise. I'll also say that Harrison's always said that he knew that Han needed to have clear utility, and that's what he wanted to do. And that's why he argued back in the day that Han should die and George [Lucas] didn't want to do it. And I don't know what his utility in that regard would've been, though I'm sure Harrison would've come up with a clever pitch for it. But in this case there was such a clear utility -- it's about bringing this new villain to the fore, and there's nothing I could think of that is more hideous than patricide, especially when it comes to Han Solo."
Although I thought Han Solo's death was essential to the story, the scene itself looked too staged. It didn't make as much impact as I expected, but hopefully, we'll see how his death affected the characters in Episodes VIII and IX.
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