A short clip of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny producer Kathleen Kennedy talking about Harrison Ford’s indispensability is being interpreted by some as throwing shade on another movie she produced, Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The clip in question features Kennedy uttering: “Oftentimes when you’re sitting in a room saying, ‘We need to find another Harrison Ford’…You can’t find him, he doesn’t exist.” One self-confessed Star Wars fan admitted they interpreted the remark as being a slight against Alden Ehrenreich, the actor who played a much younger version of Ford’s character Han Solo in his titular stand-alone film from 2018.
The Ehrenreich stan went on to say that Kennedy was “on thin ice when it comes to Alden slander!!!!!”
I admit when it comes to the question of how Dial of Destiny should have handled the scenes involving a much younger version of Indiana Jones in flashbacks, it is hard to know what might have been the best approach. The method the filmmakers went with was a digitally de-aged Ford for the opening sequence on a train, which in my view turned out to be a wildly inconsistent experience. There’s little doubt this digital de-aging process probably over-inflated the film’s budget, as well. Had Ehrenreich been chosen for those scenes, would it have fared any better?
On the one hand, it would be nice to not have to look at a digital double that sometimes resembles a Madame Tussaund wax figure — and at other times, looks amazingly convincing. A previous Indiana Jones adventure, The Last Crusade, also featured an action scene on a train with a child-age version of the character portrayed by a different actor, River Phoenix, which turned out fine. However, Ehrenreich playing an adult Indy probably would’ve been weird.
My honest opinion is that perhaps Dial of Destiny would’ve been better off without any flashback scenes at all, all things considered, though I had fun with the movie, overall, as is. Regardless, you can check the film out yourself and decide if it needs a sprinkle of Ehrenreich as it is currently playing at a theater near you.
