As Ron Howard begins to get his feet under the table with Star Wars: Han Solo, it's worth remembering that the director has quite the history with the franchise as a whole.
For one thing, Howard starred in George Lucas' 1973 comedy smash hit, American Graffiti, as Steve Bolander and was friendly with Lucas for many years after the film was released. In fact, in 1999, Ron Howard wrote a strong rebuttal letter to an article printed in Newsweek which made mention of child actor Jake Lloyd.
The article in question referenced sources who supposedly claimed that studio executives weren't happy with Jake Lloyd's performance in the film, something which irked Howard - himself a former child actor.
Take a look.
Whatever you may think of him defending The Phantom Menace and saying he really liked it, the point here is that he was defending a child actor from unwarranted scrutiny and unwarranted criticism - and that shows integrity and human decency, which is something that's lacking in the world today and worth pointing out.
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