Soloed Out

I’m old enough to have seen Star Wars: a New Hope in the theaters (not the initial release, but the re-issue a year or two later), and was a fan, mostly more in my younger years. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Solo after all the bad reviews. Last week I got the timing off and would have had to wait a while to see the film I’d planned to see, so instead I saw Solo and was pleasantly surprised. It won’t be my favorite Star Wars film, but it was rather enjoyable.

A film podcast I listen to – At the Movies with Arch and Ann – features Washington Post columnist Ann Hornaday, who had made repeated negative comments about the film and criticized Ron Howard, calling him “workmanlike.” Another listener called her out on that in the recent podcast, reminding her that he directed A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon, and Rush, all great films. Hornaday did agree to that and then went on to blame the screenwriters (Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon), and made mention that if a young director had been able to complete the project it might have been different.

I respect Ann Hornaday, but have two problems with this analysis that I’d like to talk about.

First, the age issue. Full disclosure, I’m 48, so probably not what Hollywood would call young. As someone who’s gone back to school in audio/video and electronic media, I’ve experienced first-hand the ridiculousness my fellow (mostly male students) think of a woman my age in these classes. That said, I think I’ve done better than quite a lot of them, but sadly they’ll probably get work quicker than I will.

While some of my fellow students were imaginative and inventive, many lacked the discipline to actually spend the necessary time getting the work done. Watching shows on YouTube and various streaming services were far more important to them than putting in the time to actually make something worth viewing. Others just thought they knew it all, refused to budge on their first concept (even if it made no sense), and claimed the professors were clueless for not seeing how brilliant they were.

Of course, I kept feeling what a waste of time and money it was for these students to be in school if they truly did know more than the faculty. It’s not to say I wasn’t upset at times to not get the accolades we all desire, but perhaps with age I’d get annoyed, but then would go back and try to figure out what I did wrong and how to do better next time. Like any student, I would find ways to make excuses, but eventually would realize the professor had a point (like that I should have gotten over my copyright concerns and just figured out how to rip a DVD to get the exact scenes I needed for my Media Studies video essay).

I think what also annoyed me about Hornaday’s mention that a younger director might have made a difference is that if you supposedly lose all your creativity after say age 30 then that means a whole lot of directors in this business need to go into retirement, including Martin McDonagh, who's my age, Guillermo del Toro, five years older than me, Quentin Tarantino, six years older than me, and Martin Scorsese, 27 years older. Again, I mentioned my own experience being a student with people much younger to show that youth doesn’t mean you’ll have the discipline, the focus, the emotional intelligence, and even the stamina (try getting a 20-something-year old up after too much drinking and partying the night before) to make a film. It’s not that it’s impossible for a young person to create a brilliant film, but I don’t think that should be the model because if it is, then your career will be over as soon as it begins.

My other issue is that I’m not sure you can blame the writers either. Lawrence Kasdan has written and directed great films. What really should be talked about is the rigid establishment of the current LucasFilm (i.e. Disney). I certainly don’t know what took place on the set with the “young” directors who were fired, but for the studio to replace them with an established director like Ron Howard, it’s pretty obvious the people in charge didn’t want innovative; the studio wanted consistency for this new offshoot. I’m not saying that’s what Howard is known for, but he’s made enough films that have made money, making him far less risky and more reliable than a younger director.

Clearly there’s an anti-establishment sentiment in the country, which has given us a political novice who will more than likely bankrupt our country and then abandon us to let someone else more mature pick up the pieces. After all he has North Korean beaches to develop.
          I've never been a keen supporter of the establishment until recently, and it's not because of my age, but my fear of what an unpredictable and erratic outside will do. Maybe the studio was equally as fearful of what could happen to their franchise if not fiercely protected.

Ultimately it’s not fair to blame Ron Howard for not being a “young” director, nor should the Kasdans be blamed for what many fans and reviewers claim is an unacceptable Star Wars film, since who knows what their mandate from the studio was. If anyone should be blamed, it should be the studio that keeps churning out film after film so quickly that it’s more likely than not that the audience is just burned out on the stories. After all, there’s something to be said about having to wait.