Lucasfilm is building a great roster of talent for its untitled Han Solo project, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller directing, Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover starring (as Han and Lando, respectively) and cinematographer Bradford Young — whose resumé includes stunning work on another recent sci-fi film: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. Those are some very bold names involved with the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, but just how subversive can we expect this movie to be when it’s tied to such a prominent franchise? According to Young, he’s been “pleasantly surprised” by the amount of creative freedom they have at Lucasfilm.

Lord and Miller are remarkably skilled at taking seemingly bad ideas and turning them into surprisingly great movies with wonderful, character driven-stories and a fantastic sense of humor. Although the Han Solo project seems tailor-made for their skills, we’ve been wondering just how much freedom the pair will have to play around in the Star Wars sandbox.

Young, who also served as Ava DuVernay’s cinematographer on Selma, recently addressed this very subject in a new interview with Collider:

We’re doing our own thing, that’s why we’re there. Phil and Chris are there to bring what they bring to their films, their very unique vision, their perspective on story and they asked me to come bring what I bring, and so just for that it won’t feel like any of the other films. And nobody at Lucasfilm is asking us to betray that, they’re saying ‘We’re in full support of what you do and we wanna make sure that we’re able to help you do it in the best way.’ It’s gonna feel like a ‘Star Wars’ film, but we’re definitely gonna break some rules, and we’re encouraged to do that. Visually, narratively that’s a good mandate. They really are about, from what I’ve seen so far, supporting up and coming artists, artists who have a strong vision and voice and perspective, and they really wanna permeate the films with those kinds of voices. So it’s interesting, very interesting. Not what I thought it would be, that’s for sure. I’m pleasantly encouraged and pleasantly surprised.

Following all those rumors and reports of reshoots on Rogue One, Young’s statement is really encouraging, and we’d expect nothing less than at least a little rule-breaking from the guys who took so-so concepts like a 21 Jump Street reboot and an animated movie about LEGOs and turned them into brilliant, full-on franchises.

The untitled Han Solo spinoff hits theaters on May 25, 2018.

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