The Star Wars films have always had great luck with CGI characters: Unconvincing Jabba, Jar Jar Binks, The Eternal Shame of the Peter Cushing Estate—fan favorites and artistic triumphs, one and all. Now Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the star of Amazon’s Fleabag, may join their august ranks. Variety reports that she is in talks to appear in the upcoming Han Solo standalone film as an unspecified CGI character, said to be in the vein of Alan Tudyk’s performance in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
The untitled film, which is set before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, will star Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, and Woody Harrelson as a character who probably dies, since he isn’t in the later films. The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and Chris Miller are directing. That’s a lot of high-end comedy talent for a Star Wars movie, even one about a smartass like Han Solo. It will be interesting to see where Lord and Miller go tonally, given that previous efforts to make Star Wars funnier (see, again, Jar Jar Binks) have been somewhat less than successful.
The film is scheduled to be released on May 25, 2018; if it’s a hit, we’ll have decades of sequels and spinoffs to look forward to, many of which will no doubt feature Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s CGI character. Then we’ll have centuries more in which the role of Waller-Bridge’s CGI character will be taken up by a CGI Phoebe Waller-Bridge, eventually for a CGI audience. Meanwhile, the last surviving humans will be hunted and killed by a legion of CGI Alan Tudyks, after a CGI Darth Maul attains consciousness and leads the CGI cast of Star Wars in an all-too-real rebellion against their human masters, finally bringing the beloved franchise to a close. See you at the movies!
