Red Cup, a Star Wars Story

[ironymaiden]

i finally saw Solo. i came out of it thinking that it was an okay movie. it's not holding up to any post-film scrutiny, and the more i think about it the less i like or endorse it.* i know that i blew past some spoiler reviews on my reading list, but failed to bookmark them. link me in comments?

i would have enjoyed it 1000% more if this same story was told with all-new characters, or if they had made adventures of the scum and villainy of Clone Wars or Rebels. i generally love capers. i would watch the heck out of a Hondo Ohnaka movie. as it was, i felt like the film couldn't decide if it was a "Han Solo origin story" or "a story with Han Solo in it". i don't know yet which one i actually wanted.**

things that bothered me:

• in general, this background messes with the arc in Star Wars of the scoundrel whose heart grew three sizes. he seems awfully soft for a street rat orphan and never gets to where i believe he's on his way to becoming the guy we meet in Mos Eisley.


• they made a deal out of showing us the dice, but not why they meant anything.


• they told us he went to pilot school, and never showed any of it.


• i thought Chewie choosing Solo over the freed Wookiees was completely tossed off.


• so Han has always been able to talk Wookiee reasonably well and he just doesn't, even when it would be useful to be speaking a second language in front of others? gross.


• it felt like that was the last time Han and Lando saw each other, and implied that Han was on his way to work for Jabba. the timescale just seemed messed up. like, Star Wars can't happen more than a year after Solo dumps Jabba's shipment. but he has a rep as a smuggler built up long before then and he's a good ten years older than Luke. does he really just go to Tattooine and work for Jabba for like ten years?


• i'm sure movie fans were confused by that Maul appearance.

things that were pretty okay:

• Paul Bettany is so pretty. i like him in all the things.


• Chewie DOES pull someone's arms off. it's nice to have a healthy person in the suit, and he does a great job.


• The Falcon, clean inside and out. (I'm not sure that i like the idea of Solo treating the ship so badly when he owns her - the implication is that he ruins everything he touches. which is okay, arguably true, but i can't square that with the screenwriter's supposed love of the character.)


• The origin of the navicomp who speaks a weird dialect. Oh honey, i liked you.


• Donald Glover as Lando. Lando's cape closet. Lando's matching gold everything.


• I think some of the proto-rebels were in Saw Guerrera's crew in Rogue One.

*i briefly visited r/starwars to look for chatter on it, but the comments are full of people who think wrong thoughts.
**unlike Thor, where i definitely wish it had gone 100% fish-out-of-water rom-com where Thor discovers Toaster Strudel are even better than Pop-Tarts. also, i didn't ask to know anything more about Solo. i am reminded of a Patton Oswalt bit, where he talks about why the prequels didn't work for him.

Comments

[buhrger]

haven't yet seen it my own self, am considering going this weekend, will put off looking under the spoiler tag until then.

[sartorias]

Oh, good point. I would have loved all new characters, too.

[ironymaiden]

yeah.

Or maybe it needed to be told from the perspective of Beckett, with "the kid" not having a name until after the train heist or later.

[ted_grouper]

I could have sworn I left a comment on this, but maybe I forgot to hit "Post".

I've seen in a number of places, people saying nobody asked for a Han Solo origin story (or a Vader origin story in the case of the prequels). New characters would've been much better. But Disney does like to strip every bit of cash milk out of its cows.

That said, my parents and my bro & SIL liked it. I'm not a SW fan so I probably won't see it.

[dorchadas]

I still kind of wish the had based the Solo movie on the old Han Solo trilogy from the 90s, because then maybe they'd make movies about the Lando trilogy. Han Solo at Stars' End is a pretty pedestrian movie name, but I'd definitely pay to watch Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu or Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon.

[musesfool]

Here via the network, and I would 100% watch a Hondo Ohnaka movie, probably more than once if it were any good! Solo was the perfect opportunity to introduce him as a live action character and I don't understand why they didn't.

[ironymaiden]

well, I get that the galaxy is big and not everyone knows everyone else so he couldn't replace Beckett. but man,that yacht party could have been loaded with Clone Wars easter eggs.