Recasting a Hero: From Pali Elementary to Lego Land

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Four months before Alden Ehrenreich debuts as the young anti-hero Han Solo in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” the Palisades Charter Elementary School alum is receiving an even higher honor.

He has been transformed into a Lego character on board a new version of the spaceship Millennium Falcon.

The Lego set portrays the slender young actor as a little chunky with a square head, but apparently his parents, who live in Las Casas, can still recognize him.

It is unreported how long the 28-year-old actor had to stand still and model as Danish brick-wranglers assembled his likeness out of dozens of brown and white plastics, but as part of a set made up of nearly 1,500 pieces, he apparently slots right in.

The $169 set, which includes Lego’s seventh version of the Solo spaceship, a hairier-than-ever Chewbacca and Solo’s school yard buddy Qi’ra, played by Venice resident Emilia Clarke, better known as Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones,” was revealed on Valentine’s Day.

Ehrenreich got his big break when Steven Spielberg spotted him goofing around in a kimono in a bat mitzvah video and introduced him to his first agent. Since then he made an impact in films such Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” and the Coen Brothers comedy “Hail Ceasar.”

Spielberg, of The Riviera, may have made some movies but he has never been transformed into a real Lego figure.

The closest the Palisadian director has come to such glory was as a playable figure in the “Lego Jurassic Park” video game with the special power “can take photographs.” Yes, he can.

Between 1949 and 2016, more than 600 billion Lego parts were produced.

The new “Star Wars” movie with Alden Ehrenreich will be released on May 25.