Han Solo and the Lost Legacy
Is that relly the title of a Han Solo book? When I read it, it's not the Star Wars theme I hear, but a certain other John Williams soundtrack, to a certain other Lucas/Ford film franchise. This makes me very dubious of the writer.
I'm sorry but the talent that came up with 4-6? Just wasn't there anymore.
The talent that made 4-6 was Kasdan, even though he wasn't there for 4. What was the best Indy film? The only one Kasdan was involved in. Kasdan is back, and that might just save the franchise.
Lucas's defence for Crystal Skull was that viewers didn't understand his source material, and that's true, but in a way irrelevant. Lucas grew up reading adventure comics that mixed magic and aliens and mysticism and everything else on a whim -- the legacy of that lives on in Marvel's current cinematic line-up where the god of thunder works alongside a man in a homemade robotic exoskeleton, a WWII hero on steroids and a bloody archer to fight off a menace from another world who have interbred with humans to create an ancient bloodlne of superpowered beings. Head to the comic world and you could even add in a sorcerer and a genetic mutant, then send them all through time to face off against the grandfather of the devil. I like to think of Crystal Skull as the sequel to Temple of Doom. You remember Temple of Doom, right? Using a life-raft as a parachute/sledge combo, a ridiculously twisty mine shaft booby-trapped with an ugly great boulder etc. That wasn't Kasdan -- that was Lucas. What we all rmmber as Indy is Raiders of the lost Ark, where Kasdan really paid homage to the source material while constructing a genuinely good film. Over-the-top Nazis, wisecracks and character interplay, even the scene with the creepy gestapo guy reaching towards the camera after burning his hand -- all pulled straight from pulp comics, and deftly done. Crucially, it kept all the magic and mysticism to the very end, and Jones cynical to the last, so there was some kind of reveal and change. The Last Crusade was a sequel to Raiders, but somewhat formulaic and slightly overplayed. But again, Nazis, and no magic until the end, after facing all sorts of mechanical pseudo-magic.
So I have some hope for the Star Wars sequels. However, I'm not sure about a Han origin story. Han shot first. Han was rehabilitated by Luke and Leia. So Han should be a bastard, but current Hollywood narratives don't work that way. Now there are goodies and baddies.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion