By far the worst thing about the announcement that Disney was acquiring LucasFilm and planning a Star Wars Episode VII was knowing that it would mean probably five years of fact-free Star Wars speculation. So get excited for that. (*puts together 50-page slideshow of ‘EPISODE VII PLOTS WE’D LIKE TO SEE’, counts money*)
Today’s non-story? Harrison Ford would be “open” to returning as Han Solo. In other words, Harrison Ford is not allergic to money.
“Harrison is open to the idea of doing the movie and he’s upbeat about it, all three of them are,” said one highly placed source, referring to Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, the trio that made a hyper-speed jump to global fame on May 25, 1977, the opening night for George Lucas’s original Star Wars film.
Who is this “highly-placed” source who happens to be BFFs with Ford, Hammill, and Carrie Fisher? Somehow I doubt those three are partying together on the weekends. Meanwhile, as even EW’s Geoff Boucher who broke the story, is quick to point out, Harrison Ford has long seemed not all that thrilled about Star Wars.
The actor, now 70, is plenty proud of Indy, Jack Ryan, John Book, and Dr. Richard Kimble but in the past he didn’t disguise his disdain for Solo. “As a character he was not so interesting to me,” the frosty Ford explained in an ABC interview in 2010.
As Ford told ABC in the same interview: “I thought he should have died in the last one to give it some bottom…George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.” […]
In the 29 years since the red carpet premiere of Return of the Jedi, Ford has declined hundreds – if not thousands — of offers to appear at Star Wars events and cast reunions even the ones sanctioned and run by Lucasfilm. In fact, in all those years was only one offer he accepted: He attended a 30th anniversary screening of the The Empire Strikes Back in 2010 to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
About 400 fans (including Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, Jon Favreau, and Kevin Feige) paid $100-$175 each to hear Ford reflect on his Millennium Falcon days. I was the moderator for the event and the star arrived in a cheery mood but, after watching the film, he was weary of the crowd’s zeal for something he could never love.
“I don’t know that I understood it very well,” Ford said in a flat tone of the franchise’s ascension in popular culture. “I’m not sure I understand it yet…I was very happy to be involved. I was pleased to be a part of an ensemble.” [EntertainmentWeekly]
Back in 2010, Movieline even ran a piece called “Harrison Ford’s Long History of Hating Star Wars.”
I’ve heard through the grapevine more than once that Ford is not a fan of the subject of Star Wars. I was told that before the 30th anniversary party for The Empire Strikes Back earlier this year, Ford was sarcastically trying to build excitement amongst people he would meet by promising, “The guy in the dog suit will be there.” No matter how he really feels about the saga personally, there’s no doubt whatsoever that he hates talking about it. Remember, even back in when he was filming the original Star Wars, Ford famously said, “George, you can type this sh*t, but you sure can’t say it.” So when watching Ford on Letterman sigh and say, “yeah, yeah,” after Letterman called Star Wars “iconic,” or Ford referring to his character as Ham Yoyo, that’s not really an act. [Movieline]
In naming Harrison Ford their number three most prickly interview subject (behind Billy Bob Thornton and Bob Dylan), The AV Club said of him:
Professional tip: Never ask him about Han Solo or Indiana Jones, and certainly don’t ask about them in the same question. And definitely don’t open with that question, either, because things will go downhill from there.)
Of course, Harrison Ford wasn’t the only Star Wars actor who hated Star Wars, he wasn’t nearly as good at it as Alec Guiness:
In the final volume of the book A Positively Final Appearance (1997), Guinness recounts grudgingly giving an autograph to a young fan who claimed to have watched Star Wars over 100 times, on the condition that the boy promise to stop watching the film, because, as Guinness told him, “this is going to be an ill effect on your life.” The fan was stunned at first, but later thanked him (though some sources say it went differently). Guinness is quoted as saying: “‘Well,’ I said, ‘do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?’ He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an immense height. ‘What a dreadful thing to say to a child!’ she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities.”
He probably is, but it gets worse: we pretty much all are. In fact, we’re living in a fantasy world of rumors about what those secondhand, childish banalities might someday consist of. It’s not all bad though, I mean here’s an At-At made of bacon:
[at-at via CHUD]