Posted on by Dunc

Discussion: What did you think of Solo?

Have something to say about Solo: A Star Wars Story? Go for it right here, in our comments. Spoilers are permitted, so don’t click through until you’ve seen it!

9 Replies to “Discussion: What did you think of Solo?”

  1. I thought it was a lovely, well crafted film. I can see why Kennedy wanted to curtail improve and comedy – the film was very tight and clean as Howard directed it.

    I like how you had elements of mature Han in both Beckett and Lando. You see why and how he grows.

  2. I loved it! By the end of the film, I totally believed that this was Han Solo I was watching. My daughter agreed with me (and that says a lot coming from her, as she has been a huge Han Solo fan since she was little.) And Lando was simply marvelous (. . . the scene with him dictating his memoirs into a recorder with a hologram of himself on it :) :) )

  3. I loved it. Least favourite part was the heavy fan service, but it’s probably what the general community needed right now. I loved almost all of the new characters.

    1. Yeah, a lot of it felt like a reaction to the criticisms of The Last Jedi, but if it threw the less civil fans a bone I’m okay with that. I’d prefer less complaining about Star Wars online in general. But who knows? Maybe they’ll hate it for being “illogical” or too focused on female characters etc. etc. I can’t wait to watch an angry video tearing apart the physics of the maw and our hero’s plan to rush the crystals to the refinery :P

  4. I thought it was a fun film. Lots of fan Easter eggs. The entire cast was well done.

  5. Wait…Woody killed Aurra Sing? Seriously? All the name dropping and surprises frame the adventure into the wider saga. No Star Wars fatigue here, instant classic.

  6. I’m torn. It was well made and the story worked. What I disliked was making Han too much of a hero—I’d prefer that arc to happen in A New Hope—and how the space scenes seemed so rushed and small scale. The Maw scene could have been so cool and epic but they made it look like the size of a baseball field. Also, the visuals were so dark and muddy it was hard to see and the camera movement and quick cutting also made the action scenes kind of a mess. I don’t understand why they went for this look since Star Wars has always been about crisp cinematic visuals and editing. Lando was perfect! I loved how intricately they hinted at the expanded universe too—who ever though Teras Kasi would make it into the big screen! :) And Darth Maul is back? YES! I felt like I was 13 again :)

  7. I enjoyed it much more than I figured I would. I had really assumed the movie was going to disappoint and instead I find myself having walked out more excited about the future of the movies than I had previously been.

    It was total fan service but I really enjoyed the bits of EU they dropped in here or there (as has been mentioned in other comments here). Didn’t do anything for the story but it was fun.

    The Maw/Nebula/Space Octopus sequence was probably they weakest of the film for me. That or maybe the revel of the marauders as “good guys” at the end. That felt kind of tacked on.

    Overall, I think my favorite thing was just that I felt like it was a fun movie. I walked out with a smile on my face, something which eluded me after TLJ.

  8. For the most part, I really enjoyed SOLO! I could go see it multiple times times like I did other Star Wars movies. I loved the characters, especially L3, Qi’Ra, Rio Durant, Beckett and Val. I thought Alden and Donald were both solid as Han and Lando, and I could easily grow into their versions of the characters. Dryden Vos was a solid villain, and I loved the EMPIRE propaganda video! Loved the mention of Bossk, the subtle Han/Lando punch that turns into a hug (this time, from Han’s point of view, mirroring what we get later in the Star Wars timeline from ESB), and most of the little things about this movie. I thought that the Kessel Run with the ‘get away by the seat of your pants type of escape’ was a bit of a stretch, but every Star Wars movie has a scene like this, so it was nothing new. I thought that the story was very well done overall, better than the A.C. Crispin books, but missing one essential thing (connection at the end).

    I wasn’t bothered by L3’s ‘droid political activism’ or her presumed romantic relationship with Lando. I figured both of those side plots were kind of a joke and didn’t take them too seriously. I also didn’t take Lando’s supposed “pansexualism” seriously, either. I found the name of the character “Enfys Nest” a bit odd, but figured there was a reason behind it that we would find out later.

    The ending of the movie is the part that I struggled with the most.

    I felt that Darth Maul’s appearance felt foreign for this movie, a reminder that this perhaps could be seen as a “marvelization” of Star Wars after all: not just having the marvel actors play in these Star Wars movies, but having other character story lines interjected out of nowhere to be part of the film. While this may be okay and actually work for marvel, I feel that it is more of a distraction for Star Wars unless it relates to the movie as a whole.

    As for Darth Maul himself, I didn’t like how his character was dispatched in The Phantom Menace (chopped in half) and thought that he died far too prematurely. However, he did, indeed die, and I don’t agree with bringing him back to play a major role, even though I loved the character. If he dies, then he’s dead. End of story.

    Also, I thought that bringing Maul back for this movie in particular was a distraction. All of the fan base now has to reconcile themselves with the decision that was made in the Rebels series – that they brought Maul back in that cartoon – and therefore justify Maul’s presence. The casual Star Wars fan doesn’t watch Rebels and now has to backtrack to figure out what is going on now since Maul clearly gets chopped in two in The Phantom Menace and isn’t heard from again in the Prequels.

    Also, by having Dryden Vos answer to Darth Maul, and not to, say, Prince Xizor of Black Sun or even Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine, I felt that they really missed a major connection that could have been made, especially with Solo and Jabba. Instead, it felt like Disney wanted to satisfy their studio aspirations like they can get away with doing in marvel by including Maul here instead of something that would be much more true to Star Wars and actually contribute much more to this Solo movie as a whole.

    But, for the most part, I enjoyed it.

    As far as how well SOLO is doing at the box office, well, I saw it once and don’t really have the money or opportunity to see it thirteen times like I did The Phantom Menace. Much of fandom points to the backlash against The Last Jedi. I personally found The Last Jedi very painful and couldn’t see it a second time. I haven’t purchased the blu-ray either. If Episode IX is anything like The Last Jedi, then I may even walk out of the movie theater or just boycott it altogether. I can’t believe that I am saying this about a Star Wars movie, but this is the truth.

    So, how do we bring Star Wars back from the height from which it has fallen?

    Generation X is the Generation that grew up with Star Wars originally. A New Hope in 1977 didn’t have a ‘hook’, or reason to go initially because it took a while for everyone to discover what that indie movie was all about. But when they did, it offered an escapist view of the world, something greater and something to strive for that was unquestionable in it’s high moral value – something new, an Awakening per say, that was true, noble and different from any movie, before or since.

    The Last Jedi was almost 180 degrees from this, the anti-“A New Hope”, itself offering absolutely no hope at all, showing that Nihilism has, at last, caught up to and conquered Star Wars over the span of 41 years.

    What “hook” can Episode IX bring? Give us that high moral, spiritual escapism once again. Gen X and the Millennials are all too familiar with Nihilism. We see it all around us. What we need is that “New Hope”, that escapism that takes us away, back to a high moral value that is unquestionably something greater and something to strive for. THAT is the hook that needs to be replicated so that fans are finally satisfied in the greatest possible way, deep to the core and spiritually, and Disney/Lucasfilm will see BIG DOLLARS again. So, they will be happy too, as a byproduct of the great, great happiness again enjoyed by fans. Siskel & Ebert used to say “Why am I watching this movie?” Well, every movie needs to have that reason why we watch. It just so happened that Star Wars (1977) had the greatest of them all. And just about nothing short of that experience is what Star Wars fandom needs right now.

    If I’m at Lucasfilm right now, sitting there in my chair, or JJ Abrams, wondering just how I’m going to do this, then just think about the above – think back to 1977 again, and how can I reclaim this high moral ground, this high spiritual and emotional character captured in this space movie so eloquently? THAT is the challenge. Can we do it with the current crop of characters? If not, then perhaps we should go back to EMPIRE when Luke asks “And sacrifice Han and Leia?” and Yoda replies “To honor what they fight for? Then YES.”

Comments are closed.