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Solo: A Star Wars Story

But will a young Lobot show up? Will we discover is he some kind of cyborg, or just wearing a sick pair of beats by Dre.?
 
CaptainWacky said:
I guess if you're 190 you can spend a few decades away from your wife hanging out with a cool man.
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They're giant bipedal dogs, guessing monogamy isn't really too high up there in their cultural mores anyway. Probably a few slots down from butt sniffing and pissing on trees.
 
This is possibly the first star wars movie I have not seen on the 1st day it came out.

That said I am going to see it tomorrow.
 
I saw Solo: A Star Wars Story and it was okay I guess.

I'm really struggling to think what to actually say about this film because nothing nothing really amazing in it that sticks out as something to highlight.

Please don't read the spoilers because there's a big one in there and it's basically the most daring thing the film does so it's good not to know what it is.

The cast were, on the whole, actually pretty good. Alden Ehrenreich was fine and didn't feel like someone doing a Harrison Ford impression while still kinda feeling like someone who could turn out to be the Han Solo we know in Star Wars. Donald Glover is a good as everyone thought he would be. Woody Harrelson was surprisingly good, as was Paul Bettany. Really the only weak spot was Emilia Clarke, who was just kind of there.

L3 is a weird one. Her whole character is that she's for droid rights and equality, which is actually something that has been in the background of a lot of Star Wars content - except it's never played as anything but a joke. Like it would have been far more interesting if someone actually had to think about the fact that they surround themselves with robot slaves, but everyone just rolls their eyes instead. L3 basically being nothing but a joke character makes her death seem empty because there's never really a reason to care about the character. K-2SO at least had some sort of character development and pathos that made us care when he died, but L3 doesn't because the film never treats her seriously. Which is a shame because if it did she could have been a really good character!

Honestly the thing that makes this film so bland is the direction. Everything is in these weird muted colours and nothing really looks very interesting. We start on Corellia, which is a boring grey industrial palace, then Mimban which is a boring grey battlefield, then to wherever it was the first sabacc game is, which is another grey nondescript planet, to Vandor-1 (which the train heist is) which changes things up a bit by being a bland white snow planet. And on and on and on. It's like someone at the digital grading stage just decided to knock the saturation down a ton because that's what cool films do these days. It's especially bad in comparison to The Last Jedi which is an insanely beautiful film at times and really the only shots that come close to that are some of the CGI-only shots (presumably because Ron Howard didn't have as much direct involvement in them!).

But really the thing that makes me kind of mad is how Han's story ends. Han has a choice at the end of the film to make a lot of money or help out a group of people fighting against evil (they're more like AN ALLIANCE or A REBELLION!!!!! Seriously the film is as subtle as a brick about it and it's terrible). And despite that fact that literally about 5 minutes before Han proclaimed himself to be not a good guy, he sacrifices the money to help them out. And it's like... wasn't the entire point of Han's arc in Star Wars that he is exactly the type of person who would take the money and run (WHICH HE LITERALLY DOES IN STAR WARS) until he has a change of heart and comes back. Now we just have a Han Solo who's always been a nice guy at heart, really.

That's the thing about this film, it's toothless. They didn't want to have a Han with any sort of edge to him, so it's just bland. They kicked out the directors who might have made it somewhat interesting and gave it to a safe, bland pair of hands. It couldn't pick a tone and just sits in the middle. There are parts of it that feel like they could have been good comedy bits had they been directed well, but again it's just so fucking bland. I just wish this film had the balls to pick a direction. Light-hearted full-on comedy? Sure! Serious western-inspired character story about a morally-grey protagonist? That would have worked too! But that means taking risks and risks are scary so fuck it just let Ron Howard do it.

But it's not, like, terrible. It's just not very interesting? I mean, realistically, this is probably a "better" film than, like, Attack of the Clones. But I'd much rather watch Attack of the Clones because it's actually trying to do interesting things (and sometimes succeeding!).

It's like eating a bag of Ready Salted crisps. There's nothing wrong with Ready Salted crisps, really. I'd eat one if there was nothing else left in the multi-pack. But I'd much rather eat a Cheese and Onion or a Salt and Vinegar.

Other random things:
HE'S CALLED SOLO BECAUSE HE'S ON HIS OWN. THAT'S LITERALLY THE REASON. I mean George Lucas' character naming isn't exactly subtle, did we really need it spelled out like that?

Darth Maul is in this film and it's literally the most interesting thing it does because it just straight up has Darth Maul on the screen with Dual of the Fates playing and in a world where people keep saying Disney hates the prequels (they don't) this is nice to see.
Rio Durant felt like a knock-off Rocket Raccoon so it's probably good that he dies early!
THEY WERE JUST FUCKING RANDOM WOOKIEES AND NOT CHEWBACCA'S WONDERFUL FAMILY FUCK YOU DISNEY YOU'RE ALL COWARDS FOR NOT HAVING THE BEAUTIFUL MALLATOBUCK IN THIS FILM I'M REALLY MAD ABOUT THIS.
 
The Tomtrek said:
I saw Solo: A Star Wars Story and it was okay I guess.

I'm really struggling to think what to actually say about this film because nothing nothing really amazing in it that sticks out as something to highlight.

Please don't read the spoilers because there's a big one in there and it's basically the most daring thing the film does so it's good not to know what it is.

The cast were, on the whole, actually pretty good. Alden Ehrenreich was fine and didn't feel like someone doing a Harrison Ford impression while still kinda feeling like someone who could turn out to be the Han Solo we know in Star Wars. Donald Glover is a good as everyone thought he would be. Woody Harrelson was surprisingly good, as was Paul Bettany. Really the only weak spot was Emilia Clarke, who was just kind of there.

L3 is a weird one. Her whole character is that she's for droid rights and equality, which is actually something that has been in the background of a lot of Star Wars content - except it's never played as anything but a joke. Like it would have been far more interesting if someone actually had to think about the fact that they surround themselves with robot slaves, but everyone just rolls their eyes instead. L3 basically being nothing but a joke character makes her death seem empty because there's never really a reason to care about the character. K-2SO at least had some sort of character development and pathos that made us care when he died, but L3 doesn't because the film never treats her seriously. Which is a shame because if it did she could have been a really good character!

Honestly the thing that makes this film so bland is the direction. Everything is in these weird muted colours and nothing really looks very interesting. We start on Corellia, which is a boring grey industrial palace, then Mimban which is a boring grey battlefield, then to wherever it was the first sabacc game is, which is another grey nondescript planet, to Vandor-1 (which the train heist is) which changes things up a bit by being a bland white snow planet. And on and on and on. It's like someone at the digital grading stage just decided to knock the saturation down a ton because that's what cool films do these days. It's especially bad in comparison to The Last Jedi which is an insanely beautiful film at times and really the only shots that come close to that are some of the CGI-only shots (presumably because Ron Howard didn't have as much direct involvement in them!).

But really the thing that makes me kind of mad is how Han's story ends. Han has a choice at the end of the film to make a lot of money or help out a group of people fighting against evil (they're more like AN ALLIANCE or A REBELLION!!!!! Seriously the film is as subtle as a brick about it and it's terrible). And despite that fact that literally about 5 minutes before Han proclaimed himself to be not a good guy, he sacrifices the money to help them out. And it's like... wasn't the entire point of Han's arc in Star Wars that he is exactly the type of person who would take the money and run (WHICH HE LITERALLY DOES IN STAR WARS) until he has a change of heart and comes back. Now we just have a Han Solo who's always been a nice guy at heart, really.

That's the thing about this film, it's toothless. They didn't want to have a Han with any sort of edge to him, so it's just bland. They kicked out the directors who might have made it somewhat interesting and gave it to a safe, bland pair of hands. It couldn't pick a tone and just sits in the middle. There are parts of it that feel like they could have been good comedy bits had they been directed well, but again it's just so fucking bland. I just wish this film had the balls to pick a direction. Light-hearted full-on comedy? Sure! Serious western-inspired character story about a morally-grey protagonist? That would have worked too! But that means taking risks and risks are scary so fuck it just let Ron Howard do it.

But it's not, like, terrible. It's just not very interesting? I mean, realistically, this is probably a "better" film than, like, Attack of the Clones. But I'd much rather watch Attack of the Clones because it's actually trying to do interesting things (and sometimes succeeding!).

It's like eating a bag of Ready Salted crisps. There's nothing wrong with Ready Salted crisps, really. I'd eat one if there was nothing else left in the multi-pack. But I'd much rather eat a Cheese and Onion or a Salt and Vinegar.

Other random things:
HE'S CALLED SOLO BECAUSE HE'S ON HIS OWN. THAT'S LITERALLY THE REASON. I mean George Lucas' character naming isn't exactly subtle, did we really need it spelled out like that?

Darth Maul is in this film and it's literally the most interesting thing it does because it just straight up has Darth Maul on the screen with Dual of the Fates playing and in a world where people keep saying Disney hates the prequels (they don't) this is nice to see.
Rio Durant felt like a knock-off Rocket Raccoon so it's probably good that he dies early!
THEY WERE JUST FUCKING RANDOM WOOKIEES AND NOT CHEWBACCA'S WONDERFUL FAMILY FUCK YOU DISNEY YOU'RE ALL COWARDS FOR NOT HAVING THE BEAUTIFUL MALLATOBUCK IN THIS FILM I'M REALLY MAD ABOUT THIS.
Click to expand...
I'm glad I read the spoiler. I was thinking about waiting until it comes out on HBO or one of the movie channels. Now I am.
 
Thanks Tomtrek, for a while I thought they were running the projector at half power, it shouldn't be that dark on the falcon. Even in the trailers the film was lighter.

For a film I would agree, it was OK.
 
There was a few things I liked, the Lando skiff guard disguise, the explanation of why the falcon went from five landing gears here to three in a new hope, and the fact they rewarded people who had watched the cartoons, I bet there are quite a lot of people out there going WTF, who only watched the movies at seeing Maul. I wished I hadn't read spoilers a while back, but at the time they seemed so outlandish I thought they had to be made up.
 
I saw it today. It...was okay. It existed. On the good side, Alden Surname was actually pretty good. Its weird that they barely showed him in the marketing. He was a likable lead and good with Chewie (who was also good.) Paul Bettany was a lot of fun crunching the scenery as the villain, but he didn't really get much to do except threaten people and wave around a lighsaber-knife thing. Woody was good, even though he was just stock Woody character, I thought Emilia Clarke actually had good chemistry with Han (but there were problems with her character I'll come to) and Lando, while not in it enough, was pretty good fun...up until a stupid bit.

Okay, I concluded pretty quickly that one of the main problems with this movie is that it did a really poor job setting things up. Like with Lando, the part that didn't work at all was his reaction to L3's death. Because up until that point L3's just been comic relief. And we never really got the sense that Lando thought of her as a real person who he cared about (yes she said he had the hots for her but that scene played out like a joke.) So when he does "MY EMOTIONS!" when she dies it just felt silly. And with Qi'ra too I felt like they didn't set up at all the fact that she had some secret alliance. It just came out of nowhere. We don't really get a sense of what she's thinking for most of the movie. Even Becket turning on Han at the end seemed a bit random (and why did he bother telling Han about the big job on Tatooine if he was planning to betray him and most likely get him killed?)

And what was Han's journey in this movie meant to be? I don't actually mind him helping the Cloud Rebels (or whatever their name was) because he's still young and idealistic, but shouldn't all the betrayals and stuff have taught him to be more selfish and cynical and made him more like the Han we see in the original movie? Or are they leaving that development for a sequel? If so they're being a bit overly optimistic!

The guy with the arms sounded too much like Rocket, while not being as funny or as good a character.

I don't really get why Val blew up the bridge.

I did like the train part in general though, it felt like a Star Wars scene. I liked seeing Han fighting a ground battle for the Empire as that's the kind of thing we haven't really seen before, though like a lot of the movie the picture was too murky to fully enjoy it.

The Kessel Run didn't seem like it was down to impressive piloting by Han but just L3's brain coming up with the right route?

Maul...it was good that they got Sam Witwer to do the voice. But they just seem to have thrown it in there at the last minute (from what Google tells me) and I imagine it confused a lot of people? Is Qi'ra supposed to be involved in some Dark Side shit since she's gonig to Dathomir? It's all a bit weird!

Anyway that's all I can remember for now.
 
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Can we just have a Chewbacca movie that shows what happened after Revenge of the Sith to Solo? Most of the characters and dialogue are Wookies. And Wookie sex, lots of Wookie sex.
 
Also, were the events depicted in this movie supposed to be the only time Han and Lando ever met before TESB? Because the way Lando welcomes Han with "you've got a lot of nerve showing up here..." in TESB seems to match with how they left things here. BUT I always got the impression Han and Chewie knew Lando fairly well in TESB (look how personally they took his betrayal, with Chewie nearly killing him) whereas if this was the only time they met, they'd just be people who did one mission together like thirteen years earlier (did Chewie and Lando even talk in this movie?)
 
I think the bridge had to he blown because the trains wheels are inside the bridge, like a rollercoaster, so it can't leave the track unless there is a hole in the track.
 
I thought it was something like that but I'm sure they didn't mention it in the movie (so we didn't know what Val was doing until the moment she blew up.)
 
Here's a thing that probably isn't a thing, but did anyone else get the feeling that Enfys Nest was going to be Backett and Val's daughter in an earlier version of the script? Like maybe in the Lord and Miller version and they changed it when Ron Howard came on. I have no evidence to support this at all, but the moment where she takes her helmet off (in front of Beckett) feels like it's supposed to be some big reveal...then she's just some girl we don't know. And she does talk about her mother shortly after that. Obviously in the finished version of the movie she isn't their daughter, since she or Beckett would have mentioned it, I just get the vague feeling it was going to be a thing.
 
There was also the weirdness of L3 being kind of sarcastic saying "I don't know, go start a rebellion or something" to the droids she freed on Kessel, then going "hey, I've found my calling!" like she'd just decided she was all about droid rights then, when actually she was already doing the droid rights thing earlier in the movie at the droid fight club.

(I'll admit I stole this from Jenny Nicholson's video but I did find it weird when I was watching the movie too I think!)

 
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