What makes a good prequel?
A new comic! Plus, the biggest difference between Andor and Solo
Like many, I was recently obsessed by “Andor,” the Star Wars spy thriller set in the run up to the 2016 movie “Rogue One.” It was perfect — heart-pounding, revealing, devastating. And yet, it was a different prequel project from that universe which actually sent me down a new creative path. (No real spoilers for anything, except minor stuff.)
In many ways, 2018’s “Solo,” the other “A Star Wars Story” movie, is everything that “Andor” is not1: while Andor is deeply specific, Solo is numbingly generalized. Andor explores rich, untapped territory, while Solo is merely tracing the edges of a story most of us know by heart, often in the form of expositional nonsense no one asked for. It’s a fine line really, between transcendent and trashy, and each movie is solidly on either side of that line.
But to me, Solo’s greatest sin is something you see all the time now, which I have taken to calling “prequel disease.” Seemingly meaningless background details in the original story are explained unnecessarily, in a tone that imbues them with great story weight. The worst offense, by far, is when we learn that Han’s surname is “Solo” because he is … traveling alone. But there are many more examples. Contrast that with when something pays off in Andor, like when we learn why Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera inhales that gas in Rogue One. It’s actually cool, unexpected, and almost tossed off.
And to some extent, who cares? Yet, there’s something else about Solo I can’t stop thinking about.2 Imagine Alden Ehrenreich, the actor cast to play young Han Solo. In many ways, it was a dream role. But as production rolled on, the powers at be were rumored to have lost some confidence in their star, and Alden was said to have been working with an acting coach while filming the movie.
Then of course, it got bad reviews and became the first Star Wars movie to bomb at the box office and not earn back its budget. Before long, this dream role may have become something like an albatross around Alden’s neck.
With some distance, I now think that Solo is actually not that bad of a movie, prequel sins aside. It has some fun pieces, including, yes, Donald Glover, who steals whole chunks of the movie as young Lando. It’s obviously not Andor, but hey, what is these days?
Still, thinking about poor Alden, and what that movie may have been like to make, did kind of send me somewhere new. Eventually, I drew this new comic, “Prequel,” which is my own take on a leading man stuck trying to embody a role that no one is sure he’s up to.
Let me know what you think, please! I had fun with this one, especially the color, which I did in a new way. I’m happy with how it came out. I find myself looking at the blank page, metaphorically, and if you’re also a cartoonist or writer trying to figure out what to do next, send me a note, let’s chat. After all…
I have friends everywhere,
–Josh
I’m just gonna drop the quotation marks here, because I find them annoying.
This was implanted deep in my psyche by Blank Check, which in recent years has taken over as my favorite podcast, and there’s a small hat tip to it in my new comic that Blankies might recognize.