It’s been months, and we still aren’t over the shocking (or not so much) death of one Han Solo, snark-center of the rebellion and professional leather jacket wearer, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Kylo Ren pulling the worst emancipation technique of all time was rough, but not being able to talk about it to friends and family who hadn’t seen the movie in the first few weeks was worse. Spoiler culture is a real thing, but holding everything inside without being able to discuss the emotional fallout of a fan-favorite character biting the dust is emotional damaging. So we can’t even imagine how Daisy Ridley felt, having to hide the film’s climactic death from her closest compatriots for months upon months after seeing it first hand on set. That sounds like an impossible job and one we frankly don’t envy her having to do.
Now, Ridley has finally opened up with her thoughts on the tragic event, and they are more emotionally resonating than you might expect when discussing a movie death.
“People die so awfully every day that if you experienced every grief the whole world would be a dark, dark place. So many awful things happened last year and Han Solo dying, which was one of the last moments of the year, is some weird way of people experiencing that,” she said.
“People are weighed down by awful things that are happening and what they see on the news. If everybody puts a piece of themselves into Han Solo and Han Solo dies – in the cinema, where it’s dark – you can express it and it alleviates some of the pain. His death is obviously not as important as actual lives that are lost but people probably use it as some kind of carrier for the grief.”
Ridley gets at the heart of what any fandom craves in a movie, television show, book, or graphic novel. A story that someone can enjoy and use to take a break from the world. But most creative endeavors aren’t worthwhile unless they also make you think in some way, or give you an outlet to work through some other facet of your life whether good or bad. Processing grief on screen might not be the way that everyone gets through their own feelings of loss or sadness, but there is a good chance that the majority of people crying in the theater when Han went over the edge with a lightsaber wound through his stomach were crying just as much because of what they were seeing as they were because of what they were remembering and connecting to the moment.
(via The Week)
