Solo: A Star Wars Story (Post-release)

What did you think of Solo: A Star Wars Story?


  • Total voters
    278
I’m not going to watch it because as a middle aged white male SW fan I’m a sexist, racist, bigot. Plus, I’ll probably just end up trolling the actors that starred in it until they break.

Seriously though. This is an ‘origin’ story no one asked for or wanted and I for one will stand by that. I will not see it. Once you watch something, you can’t unwatch it.
 
Haven't seen it but I'll check it out on the Blu-ray. I laugh every time I come to this thread and see people saying they WON'T see it, is it that important everyone knows you still don't have first hand knowledge of the film? :D
 
I can not for the life of me understand the anger towards this movie. Im as big a fan of the franchises as anyone having grown up with the OT and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

I'm with you on that. Star Wars is pretty much dead to me outside of the first three movies and I saw Solo TWICE!
 
I'm with you on that. Star Wars is pretty much dead to me outside of the first three movies and I saw Solo TWICE!

Same here (and I honestly don't even love Jedi all that much either) but right now Im pretty much embarrassed to be a Star Wars fan with the way a small but very vocal section of the fan base has been acting these past few years (or longer if you count they way they went to town on Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen).
 
I can not for the life of me understand the anger towards this movie. Im as big a fan of the franchises as anyone having grown up with the OT and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Hey Runner well I reckon it's because a lot of us are suffering from a TLJ hangover and so we are a bit jaundiced towards Disney's part of this franchise. I've already posted my opinions here I wont bore everyone by repeating them.

But I am certainly one of those SW fans who is coming to increasingly dislike TLJ and Disney's approach to the franchise. It seemed to have started out as " we are going to protect and preserve the legacy" and moved to "kill the past" in a couple of years. Don't understand it. Don't like it. :)
 
Just watched it. I think it was much better than expected. The plot was a bit of boring, but it wasn't a real struggle to watch it. Casting was ok. Liked some scenes with Han and Chewie. The end was a bit of interesting. Maybe I would hate this movie, but Rian Johnson lowered the bar so much, that any SW movie having a plot who makes sense for 5 minutes is a masterpiece if you've seen TLJ.
 
I can not for the life of me understand the anger towards this movie. Im as big a fan of the franchises as anyone having grown up with the OT and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Angry about it? Nope. But I do think it's pointless, poorly written, focused on the wrong lore about Solo and just all around a bland movie. At least The Last Jedi had some character to it. Solo was just vanilla ice cream.
 
long winded gripes and vents ahead,

There was a key factor missing from the overall tone and feel of the movie which was popular back in the 70's with a strong influence on the character of Han Solo, dont trust anyone over 30. Instead we are told to not trust anyone by a weak mentor character in a terrible hair piece. One sad trait of modern rushed film making is the loss of character development and the complete dumbing down of the modern day film viewer. Where once an actor was there to create a character, find ways to convey or connect with the viewer, show depth... we have been forced into a rut of over explanation or surface deep predictable plot and reheated popcorn action scenes. Solo is a prime example of all this.
I know Ron Howard understands the dont trust anyone over 30 thing because he was ripe age for it at the height of it all. Why its missing from this movie is mind boggling. Instead Han is happy and out going all around. This alone kills the vibe of the film as a whole. Being someone that see's both sides of a situation I wonder if this was a conscious decision to keep existing footage melded with the reshoots for a completed film.

Is it just me or was the train job a direct rehash of the episode literally titled "the Train Job" from Firefly which was a series itself ripped from an idea of the adventures of Han Solo. No joke, I expected to hear someone say "goram" or speak a lick of Chinese during the train job.

Doing it all for the love of a girl, terrible idea, just awful. Its just as bad as linking the heist itself to funding the rebellion and making it well known Han is the good guy by repeatedly telling us Han is the good guy. Han was an anti hero that became a good guy by doing the right thing, in ANH after he took his space ship full of credits and left only to return to steal glory and likely another space ship full of credits as a reward and to make this into something as confusing as the Terminator timeline (for those that cant accept each movie is the current time because time travel) Han actually got paid by his own job at the end of Solo by allowing the cargo to go to the rebellion! It was a deferred payment which could well be one of the greatest trolls in movie history. Brief explanation, most indie productions will attempt to get people to work for them on a deferred payment which of course that payment never happens. Ive friends that worked on Reservoir Dogs that still to this day were never paid yet received full credit in the film. Actual work, not donut wrangler or radio battery attendant. Han gets paid in ANH by a deferred payment from the heist in Solo. Good job, really, no sarcasm, bravo.

The clothes, WTF was going on with the clothes through the entire film? Where is this custom tailor to everyone in the Solo film verse. Its beyond distracting making Han look as if he is wearing a childrens jacket. On a personal eye roll, dont walk around with your hands on the gun belt. Its not a gunslinger thing to do.

The cast, as ive said prior, AE did a good job on an impossible task. But the cast overall was flat and one dimensional. Woody Harrelson is one of my favorite actors but totally wrong for the part of Beckett. Lee Marvin is dead but thats who the role needed. Ill go out on a limb and toss in Clive Owen as proper casting. Thats someone that could visually convey a gritty history, can talk his way out of things as a good guy yet still be a bad guy at the end. A proper mentor with an implied history based on visual alone, a swagger walk, experienced enough to know you cant bull**** a bull****ter so you have to play the game to tread water. The person Han would grow into vs the boy he started out as whom without said mentor would have succumbed to the streets at a young age. Opportunity missed.
Throw away characters I dont even know the names of, Becketts original crew, total throw away characters. The multiple monkey arm guy that was a monkey arm guy for whatever reason other to have a multiple armed monkey guy and at the mall Forever 21 girl that pulls on things on the gun then blows herself up, just generic filler.

Han and Chewie meet at possibly the worst thought out way possiblistically, because Han randomly speaks Wookie. It made a real impact on Chewie because shower scene.

More wasted character development, because I cant remember the name of the main bad guy with random marks on his face. Early on it was implied he would be a prior Mandalorian Warrior with the main boss he answers to being Boba Fett. This all could have left when the original directors did as its well established the original actor chosen had scheduling conflicts. As per the actor intended being half tiger or something, meh. In the end they went with Darth Maul as the crime boss so the Fett things moot anyways.

When everything went all Temple of Doom I had to laugh. But am I missing something with Chewie and the Wookie's he leaves to help? Ive seen the movie twice ironically in both good and bad (dark and blurry) projection and seemed to miss something both times or is any interaction just missing with those Wookies. Or am I just supposed to know thats his wife from the Holiday Special?

The Nest character, again problem with design and wardrobe. The typical cosplay problems excel here being over propped and designed in a way physical movement is sacrificed for the sake of looking neat. The helmet alone looks like it was inspired by my WiFi router. Again poorly thought out character as the gang is introduced as cold blooded killers and thugs then reduced to peaceful talking when the loot is at hand and the threat outnumbered. With that stand off my gut feeling is the writer was aiming for Josey Wales on paper yet the actual outcome was solving grade school issues with the teacher watching.

Han and the bad guys end fight and the pose for the camera fighting between the girl and the bad guy, as flat as can be. One could argue time and reshoots as a practical reason for this but its the end finale on a super dollar budget movie. We get a feared main villain with a couple throw away guards (I think there were a couple but they go down so fast I missed it both times) and thats it. This big bad guy everyone fears crossing has a couple guys with him on his entire ship. I get the feeling I could go rob the guy, fart on his couch, make a sammich, sleep in his bed and nobody would even know I was there.


To end with some positives,

I like how dark it was visually on proper screening. Most movies these days are lite like a shopping mall with no ambience or atmosphere. I get the feeling of both black and white movies as well as low budget sci-fi from it but it works very well. Its extremely difficult to make things work this way on camera with digital while keeping depth. On the downside to this, there are some generic camera set ups that take me out of it.

The WW1 vibe of the mud tranches. Its a shame we didnt spend more time here with Han seeing some bad stuff helping his demeanor become darker and cynical.

Little things such as weapons show some decent thought went into things. Missed opportunity for Beckett to give Han his first blaster and that blaster being the one Han gives to Rey in TFA. Han shouldnt have been given the ANH blaster, he should have taken it off Becketts body after he shoots him. If I recall this is how Eastwoods character gets his snake gripped Colt in Rawhide, than the snakes carry over to the Man With No Name trilogy.

Although I dont care for how the Kessel Run was handled, the nod to NOS and supercharging an engine for a boost is a throw back to old hot rodders. This I did expect from Ron Howard 100% and I am glad its there. Makes me wonder how many here used to go to, take part in, or know enough about old skool street races where people would run aviation fuel or have a custom cheater system hidden within an air filter housing or faux duel carb set up with a NOS set up hidden within.


Had TLJ not been the travesty it is and Solo been released in December 2018 I think it would have done quite well. As I said before, the failure of this one ups the ante for the next stand alone film. Also I stated somewhere prior my hunch was Disney LFL may be aiming to have the stand alones piggy back off each other meaning Solo leads into Boba Fett which leads into Obi Wan which leads into ... making a coelenterate time line with a base line story to play off of. If not why bump Obi Wan for Boba Fett as the next film?
 
I know Ron Howard understands the dont trust anyone over 30 thing because he was ripe age for it at the height of it all. Why its missing from this movie is mind boggling. Instead Han is happy and out going all around. This alone kills the vibe of the film as a whole. Being someone that see's both sides of a situation I wonder if this was a conscious decision to keep existing footage melded with the reshoots for a completed film.

Woody Harrelson is one of my favorite actors but totally wrong for the part of Beckett.

I think this here is an interesting point, but I might be inclined to disagree with you about Woody. I don't think he was wrong so much as his character was completely wrong.

One of the first things Beckett says to Han is to not trust anyone. And then while Beckett doesn't do anything particularly shady to Han, he also doesn't do a whole heck of a lot to earn his trust, either. It's made pretty clear they are both basically just using each other. So despite the idiotic (and poorly written) bait and switch of Han turning to Qi'ra when told he was sold out, there is never any real sense betrayal when it really turns out to be Beckett. Han is basically one step ahead of him.

Better, I think, would have been to never have Beckett lead with "don't trust anyone." Have him better play Han by building up his trust, clearly using Han, but in such a way that Han buys into it. Make the betrayal a true betrayal, and not something Han worked out ahead of time anyway. This way by the end of the film, Han has an actual character-driven motivation to be cynical and not trusting of anyone over 30.

It was a missed opportunity in a film mired by them.

This is where I feel The Last Jedi is superior. There are certainly elements of that film that have obviously caused divisiveness, but one thing it does very well is set up a clear want/need dilemma for the three main characters (Poe, Finn, and Rey) AND give the conflict necessary to resolve those. In Solo, we get a lot of want out of his character, but zero need to motivate his character arc (which is why there is none) throughout the film.
 
I think this here is an interesting point, but I might be inclined to disagree with you about Woody. I don't think he was wrong so much as his character was completely wrong.

One of the first things Beckett says to Han is to not trust anyone. And then while Beckett doesn't do anything particularly shady to Han, he also doesn't do a whole heck of a lot to earn his trust, either. It's made pretty clear they are both basically just using each other. So despite the idiotic (and poorly written) bait and switch of Han turning to Qi'ra when told he was sold out, there is never any real sense betrayal when it really turns out to be Beckett. Han is basically one step ahead of him.

Better, I think, would have been to never have Beckett lead with "don't trust anyone." Have him better play Han by building up his trust, clearly using Han, but in such a way that Han buys into it. Make the betrayal a true betrayal, and not something Han worked out ahead of time anyway. This way by the end of the film, Han has an actual character-driven motivation to be cynical and not trusting of anyone over 30.

It was a missed opportunity in a film mired by them.

This is where I feel The Last Jedi is superior. There are certainly elements of that film that have obviously caused divisiveness, but one thing it does very well is set up a clear want/need dilemma for the three main characters (Poe, Finn, and Rey) AND give the conflict necessary to resolve those. In Solo, we get a lot of want out of his character, but zero need to motivate his character arc (which is why there is none) throughout the film.

IMO nothing about the TLJ is superior to Solo than perhaps the cinematography.
 
But isn't the whole NOS supercharged engine thing just another weaponised hyperspace? If Solo can do this to get through the kessel run why doesn't he just keep doing it all the time. Why doesn't everyone use this tactic? It didn't look like rocket science :) so thinking about it isn't it another example of breaking the 'rules' of that universe?
 
But isn't the whole NOS supercharged engine thing just another weaponised hyperspace? If Solo can do this to get through the kessel run why doesn't he just keep doing it all the time. Why doesn't everyone use this tactic? It didn't look like rocket science :) so thinking about it isn't it another example of breaking the 'rules' of that universe?

Because it was done with the unrefined fuel, which is unstable and has a limited life span. You can't keep it on hand to use whenever needed.
 
Because it was done with the unrefined fuel, which is unstable and has a limited life span. You can't keep it on hand to use whenever needed.

Sort of like how ships are, by nature, a finite resource. You can't just hyperspace them into one another whenever needed.

Although the suspense of the scene in Solo was robbed by the fact that we know the Falcon and (main) crew survive the stunt, this was one element the writing did a decent job of setting up. We knew how dangerous and unstable this fuel is, illustrating just how desperate this act was.

Likewise, we've had explanations in the Star Wars universe about just how dangerous unplotted hyperspace jumps are and how catastrophic it is to run into something at that speed. So it had been previously set up for us just how desperate Holdo's move was.
 
Just wanted to say, if anybody likes "The Art of" books, even for movies they did not enjoy, The Art of Solo is a home run. They produced a LOT of concept art for this movie, and it's well represented in this book, and it's all fantastic.

The Cloud Riders in particular had some very interesting and cool concept art created for them. Makes me wish they had more of a presence in the film, and were more menacing.

The concept art for the props, ships and blasters that they didn't use was, as usual for me, very compelling. There is a DL-44 steampunkish blaster that I might build just for the fun of it.
 
Sort of like how ships are, by nature, a finite resource. You can't just hyperspace them into one another whenever needed.

Although the suspense of the scene in Solo was robbed by the fact that we know the Falcon and (main) crew survive the stunt, this was one element the writing did a decent job of setting up. We knew how dangerous and unstable this fuel is, illustrating just how desperate this act was.

Likewise, we've had explanations in the Star Wars universe about just how dangerous unplotted hyperspace jumps are and how catastrophic it is to run into something at that speed. So it had been previously set up for us just how desperate Holdo's move was.

But the rebellion's been in desperate situations before. You'd think they would've just put a ship on auto-pilot to ram the DEATH STAR at hyperspace velocity. You know, rather than relying on a farm boy who listens to ghosts fly in as close as possible to blow it up.

Face it, that move, and the fact that the purple hair hunger games lady somehow needed to go down with the ship, was absurd, and lazy storytelling.
 
But the rebellion's been in desperate situations before. You'd think they would've just put a ship on auto-pilot to ram the DEATH STAR at hyperspace velocity. You know, rather than relying on a farm boy who listens to ghosts fly in as close as possible to blow it up.

Face it, that move, and the fact that the purple hair hunger games lady somehow needed to go down with the ship, was absurd, and lazy storytelling.

Mass is still important, even in a space fantasy like Star Wars.

We already saw an incredibly huge Star Destroyer -- bigger than anything the Rebellion has -- crash into the Death Star without much more than poking a hole. At hyperspace velocity would it have caused significantly more damage? Likely. But as I said, that was significantly larger than anything the Rebels had access to.

What we saw in The Last Jedi was significant damage, yes, but it also involved ships not nearly as unbalanced in mass as a cruiser versus a small moon.

Furthermore, there is nothing to suggest that Holdo even really knew what the effect would be. It was pure desperation, which was the point.

So the argument that the Rebels could have used this tactic all along is pretty lazy.
 
The rules of jumping to Lightspeed has been rewritten a couple of times in the ST......in TFA Han jumps to lightspeed from inside his Freighter,......without damaging anything.....it dematerialises through the walls of the ship.....then in TLJ Lightspeed is totally different with different rules,.... if they'd used TFA rules,...Holdo's ship should have passed through the Star Destroyer

Theres no consistency

Han said 'Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it'

Using Lightspeed as a weapon has changed the whole drama of everything in the past,...Any Imperial threat could have been easily taken out with no loss of life for the Rebels.....& TFA lightspeed trick could have also allowed the Rebels to jump through the shields on the DSII in ROTJ

J
 
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I don't think in TFA he dematerializes through the ship. The ship was facing the open door (or whatever), wasn't it? He just put it in high gear and zoomed out the door. At least that was what I got out of it.
 
I don't think in TFA he dematerializes through the ship. The ship was facing the open door (or whatever), wasn't it? He just put it in high gear and zoomed out the door. At least that was what I got out of it.

Yeah....just watched it again....you're right.....the doors were opening.....damn

BUT!!!.......still all this jumping from stationary,....& jumping through shields (faster than the shields refresh rate??)....TFA still makes its own rules

....(maybe not all that I thought it did)

J
 
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