Why didn’t Harrison Ford keep running? On how Han Solo was a coward, and yet we loved him for it, to the very end.

First published Friday 15th July 2016

 

A spin-off Star Wars film in 2018 will be based around the adventures of a young Han Solo, with the lead role being played by Alden Ehrenreich. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing a young Han and Chewbacca, but only if they get one vital element right; Han Solo must be a coward.

I should point out that this is not a criticism. I love Han Solo, partly for his cynical attitude and one-liners of course but also because of his all-too-human fear and always-reliable cowardice. Solo’s wit and humour were sorely missed across the prequels, and the attempts to shoehorn the comedic weight of responsibility on to Ewan MacGregor instead, only served to make Obi Wan Kenobi come off as a well-humoured but slightly rubbish Jedi.

It was Han Solo’s non-heroism (would that make him a scaredypanti-hero?) that made the original trilogy so damned cool. This had little to do with George Lucas, as Harrison Ford regularly ignored the flat, leaden script that the cast were given and just ad-libbed most of his lines. It was Ford who injected much of the charisma which is so lacking in the prequels and yet emanated through the original films.

However, it was not those one liners alone that made the originals so enjoyable but rather it was Han Solo’s roguish nature and dubious morality which enticed us as an audience. In the Mos Eisley Cantina scene, did Solo shoot first? Of course he bloody did! And we loved him instantly for it. That George Lucas later CGI re-edited the scene to insert a shot of Greedo firing first demonstrates what Lucas lacks in understanding how a great character thinks but that Ford exudes with ease; the inherent human affiliation with a loveable coward.

Ford and Lucas went on to replicate this caddishness in Raiders of the Lost Ark when, as a skilled assassin confronts our relic-robbing protagonist and shows off his dazzling swordsmanship technique, an unfazed Indie just pulls out his revolver and unceremoniously shoots him. This unsporting, murderous act is endearing to us as an audience mainly because of Harrison Ford’s affableness, but it is only acceptable because Ford is so adept at displaying fear, and acting on it.

Most of Ford’s career rests on the laurels of that first, masterful demonstration of cowardice in A New Hope. Indelibly set in our minds is the scene where a momentarily heroic Solo charges after some retreating Stormtroopers, only to enter a hangar bay full of them.

A swift about-turn and Ford adopts his trademark pose, arms pumping and fear across his face as he sprints away in the other direction, hurtling past allies and friends on his route to escape. It’s no wonder that he made the Kessell Run in less than twelve parsecs, he was probably running for his life at the time.

Lucas practically opens the Indiana Jones franchise with this effective self-preservation trope as we follow the tension-building scene which opens Raiders of the Lost Ark, whereby Jones nervously negotiates each booby-trapped step and every pinging arrow before retrieving the idol he seeks, only to trigger that epic chase scene with the giant boulder careening after Indie as he hurtles away along the tunnel, petrified.

Although that archetypal humour of the Han Solo character faded away in many of his later films, Harrison Ford utilised his trademark flight reflex in everything from Bladerunner to Air Force One. He fled pretty much constantly as Jack Ryan throughout both Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and yet every successful, climactic film escapade seemed to carry him toward the next calamity he’d be directed to escape from. From their initial title decisions, Frantic and The Fugitive had given up on any pretence to do otherwise.

Ford’s Richard Kimble, alongside pursuing the one-armed man, can be seen sprinting, scrabbling, jumping and plummeting in his attempt to evade Tommy Lee Jones. Moreover, they even upped the ante in this film, shackling Kimble at arms and feet to see if Ford could out-shuffle an entire derailed train. He did.

And yet, without his hirsute sidekick, Han Solo would only live up to his own surname. Together, Han and Chewie represent an on-screen dynamic that evokes memories of another pair of unlikely heroes from the 1980s, Scooby Doo and Shaggy. No-one gave a shit about the blonde-haired, heroic leader who drove The Mystery Van and solved the cases. We want to see a terrified Chewbacca leaping into Han Solo’s arms before both disappear in a cloud of smoke, preferably with an over-sized and frankly impractical tower of sandwich hovering momentarily in mid-air, before falling to the floor.

It felt right to have Han Solo and Chewbacca return for The Force Awakens, and for a brief moment it felt like the good old days. Up until Solo did something uncharacteristic; and showed a brief moment of bravery. One moment when Solo trusted, and forgot his trusty urge to flee. That moment, which led to the unnecessary plot device of Han’s sacrificial death at the hands of Kylo Ren, that didn’t feel like Han Solo. I know that Harrison Ford desperately wanted out of the Star Wars franchise but it felt like Lucas wrote the scene and there was no ad-libbing allowed that day. It felt cheap and pointless.

In that moment. we lost Han Solo. They stole him from us. He was just gone, without even a boisterous ‘zoinks!’, or a puff of smoke.