Solo: A Star Wars Story

I think, ultimately, that the failure of this film was a financial one, not a storytelling one. The film itself is solid, but tapping Lord & Miller was......really stupid. You can see the humor infused into the film, and as it plays on screen, it plays well. But I can also see how all of those scenes could have been played WAY more for comedy and broad laughs, and how that wouldn't have worked and would have completely changed the vibe of the film. The thing that gets me is, when you hire the directors of 21 Jump Street, you ought to know what you're getting. I mean, yes, the Russo Brothers started in comedy, too, and now are directing some of Marvel's best films...but just because those guys did it doesn't mean that these guys could as well. That just strikes me as typical dumb Hollywood trendiness. Comedic directors can understand drama, but that doesn't mean ALL of them do. Nor does it mean that you hire guys who work primarily in the improv world for a precisely budgeted film. For all of the crap that Kathleen Kennedy has received for things I think she didn't deserve, she definitely deserves a dressing down for that.

And the thing is, if the film had stayed at something like $140-150M -- which it's possible it could have if not for the reshoots -- then it would have made enough money to at least break even. And if it had been marketed effectively, it might have made more. That said, I do think the "fatigue" effect is correctly recognized as a problem, especially given how divisive TLJ turned out to be. There needs to be more time to build up some anticipation to these films, instead of just "Eh, whatever. I'll catch it when it's on blu-ray."

This did a lot to turn me sour on KK's judgment. You can't hire guys who have only done a certain thing and then be surprised when they make your movie too much of that same thing.

I also would have dressed KK down for waiting so long to bail on Lord & Miller. There's no effing way they had to finish 80% of shooting before they knew L&M needed replacing. I bet the experienced industry veterans on that production were smelling trouble within the first week. I bet everyone was smelling it within 2-3 weeks. But after the 'Rogue One' mess, KK probably hated admitting they had the wrong directors again and kept digging in trying to save it.

Lately LFL is re-shooting every SW movie except the one that the public is most unhappy with. Ep#8 could be improved a lot if they did some test screenings and chose even 10% of it to redo.


Between George Lucas, and now KK and RJ . . . . . Star Wars is always suffering from creators who get stubborn about their missteps.
 
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Do we really need multiple movies about Hans life until he meets Luke and Ben in the Cantina? A New Hope is more than good enough to serve as a "sequel" to Solo. More movies will just make Han an even less mysterious and cool character.

Yea, lets keep him just like the old EU Han, the one with a dozen books about his youth, his time with swoop gangs, speeder races, old girl friends, all those named bounty hunters he met as a kid; no backstory, just like before :p

Honestly, as far as "Sequels" go, I'd be more interested in them making a "spin off" sequel about Lando. The actor rocked the role, and it can be used to fill in the, now missing, official EU. Could even have crimson dawn play a part in his film. I'd enjoy the heck out of it, but I don't need it.
 
This did a lot to turn me sour on KK's judgment. You can't hire guys who have only done a certain thing and then be surprised when they make your movie too much of that same thing.

To be fair, taking a risk on comedic directors in a new action/sci-fi genre film may be worth it. As I said, the Russo Brothers had no background in action/scifi but have become some of the best directors in the Marvel bullpen. Whatever you may think of his "humor" on twitter, James Gunn hadn't done anything as big as Guardians, and he knocked it out of the park. It can be done.

The key difference, I think, is that the Russo Bros. worked a lot with scripted material, as did Gunn, whereas L&M were more on the "improv" side. I think it's the improv bit that was problematic here. That style of filmmaking can be fantastic for comedies, but comedies are also lower budget affairs. For stuff like this, stick to the damn script and don't assume you'll get to do 30 takes just to play around with a joke.

I also would have dressed KK down for waiting so long to bail on Lord & Miller. There's no effing way they had to finish 80% of shooting before they knew L&M needed replacing. I bet the experienced industry veterans on that production were smelling trouble within the first week. I bet everyone was smelling it within 2-3 weeks. But after the 'Rogue One' mess, KK probably hated admitting they had the wrong directors again and kept digging in trying to save it.

Lately LFL is re-shooting every SW movie except the one that the public is most unhappy with. Ep#8 could be improved a lot if they did some test screenings and chose even 10% of it to redo.


Between George Lucas, and now KK and RJ . . . . . Star Wars is always suffering from creators who get stubborn about their missteps.

I don't know if this was stubbornness about a mistake. I have no idea what her calculus was, or what info she actually had. But the buck stops with her, so she takes the blame for it either way.

Do we really need multiple movies about Hans life until he meets Luke and Ben in the Cantina? A New Hope is more than good enough to serve as a "sequel" to Solo. More movies will just make Han an even less mysterious and cool character.

I'd see it less as being "about" Han, and more as being about the Crimson Dawn threat, and the underworld, with Han being the figure who travels through the stories. You could focus it on him as the central character, but he'd be more the connective tissue between other characters, rather than necessarily the primary "hero" of the story who saves the day. That's how I'd do it, anyway.

Yea, lets keep him just like the old EU Han, the one with a dozen books about his youth, his time with swoop gangs, speeder races, old girl friends, all those named bounty hunters he met as a kid; no backstory, just like before :p

Honestly, as far as "Sequels" go, I'd be more interested in them making a "spin off" sequel about Lando. The actor rocked the role, and it can be used to fill in the, now missing, official EU. Could even have crimson dawn play a part in his film. I'd enjoy the heck out of it, but I don't need it.

My hope with these films was that they'd launch spinoff stories about other characters. Unfortunately, the ones I was most interested in didn't make it through the film.
 
Yea, lets keep him just like the old EU Han, the one with a dozen books about his youth, his time with swoop gangs, speeder races, old girl friends, all those named bounty hunters he met as a kid; no backstory, just like before :p

Honestly, as far as "Sequels" go, I'd be more interested in them making a "spin off" sequel about Lando. The actor rocked the role, and it can be used to fill in the, now missing, official EU. Could even have crimson dawn play a part in his film. I'd enjoy the heck out of it, but I don't need it.

EU/Legends stories are non-canonical and irrelevant to the movie version of Han Solo.
 
EU/Legends stories are non-canonical and irrelevant to the movie version of Han Solo.

They're non-canon now. They weren't up until a few years ago. And non-canon doesn't mean purged without a trace -- everything that worked and wasn't a mess of contradictions in the EU keeps having a tendency to show up in the new canon. This movie and its novelization reference the three non-canon (and, frankly, pretty weak -- especially compared to Brian Daley's Han Solo offerings of the same time period) Lando Calrissian books repeatedly. Mimban is directly from the first proto-EU novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. So I highly recommend not dismissing things out-of-hand from that whole body of work. A lot of it could yet find its way in... from a certain point of view. Frankly, I'm happy at how Han's getting in and out of Imperial service has been altered from the original source materials. Some of the broader strokes are still there (he did enlist because of a girl, his getting kicked out did involve Chewie...), but the details have been tweaked. I would expect no less from any future offerings. The EU is still quite relevant.
 
To be fair, taking a risk on comedic directors in a new action/sci-fi genre film may be worth it. As I said, the Russo Brothers had no background in action/scifi but have become some of the best directors in the Marvel bullpen. Whatever you may think of his "humor" on twitter, James Gunn hadn't done anything as big as Guardians, and he knocked it out of the park. It can be done.

The key difference, I think, is that the Russo Bros. worked a lot with scripted material, as did Gunn, whereas L&M were more on the "improv" side. I think it's the improv bit that was problematic here. That style of filmmaking can be fantastic for comedies, but comedies are also lower budget affairs. For stuff like this, stick to the damn script and don't assume you'll get to do 30 takes just to play around with a joke.

I don't know if this was stubbornness about a mistake. I have no idea what her calculus was, or what info she actually had. But the buck stops with her, so she takes the blame for it either way.


That's my point though. 'Solo' was obviously the wrong movie for directors to be goofing around with 30 takes of a scene. And I think it was predictable that L&M were liable to do that.

If a football coach decides to try a player in a new position and it doesn't work out, okay. I don't blame the coach for that. But I will blame the coach if the problem was fairly predictable and then the coach takes 80% of the season to decide it was a mistake.
 
They're non-canon now. They weren't up until a few years ago. And non-canon doesn't mean purged without a trace -- everything that worked and wasn't a mess of contradictions in the EU keeps having a tendency to show up in the new canon. This movie and its novelization reference the three non-canon (and, frankly, pretty weak -- especially compared to Brian Daley's Han Solo offerings of the same time period) Lando Calrissian books repeatedly. Mimban is directly from the first proto-EU novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. So I highly recommend not dismissing things out-of-hand from that whole body of work. A lot of it could yet find its way in... from a certain point of view. Frankly, I'm happy at how Han's getting in and out of Imperial service has been altered from the original source materials. Some of the broader strokes are still there (he did enlist because of a girl, his getting kicked out did involve Chewie...), but the details have been tweaked. I would expect no less from any future offerings. The EU is still quite relevant.

Disney picking and choosing what it wants to adopt does not suddenly mean movie Han has a well fleshed out history consisting of EU/Legend stories. Nor does it canonize the novels or sources those bits and pieces came from whole-hog. Even GL relegated all non-movie stories to "alternate universe" status.

Movie Han's history is what was told on-screen.
 
I finally watched it today. I thought it was better than TLJ, but not the greatest movie ever. Both the guy playing Han and Lando came off as really good younger versions IMO. I don't think Dryden Vos was played up enough for you to really care about him as a bad guy. The same thing with Lando's droid. The droid was funny setting the Kessel droids loose, but I didn't care one way or another when she was killed. I felt way more when K-2SO was killed defending his friends. There were a lot of good EU references in there like Coronet city, Teras Kasi, etc. I would have preferred they did Sabaac how it was in the EU with the electronic changing cards, but they did keep the suits (they mention Staves) at least.
 
Kind of a neat "what if..."

I didn't hate the movie, but I was underwhelmed. Don't know that I'd ever buy it, but this definitely made me want to give it a second look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ANXucrz7Hjs

LOVE THIS!! Cool how they superimposed Ford's face! Makes me wonder how AI would have been in this role. Just......wanted.......soooooomething that resembles the Han we know and love. I get this a bit over the top because it's actually Ford. But the scene where Beckett throws him the blaster, Han's familiar face and that reaction made me smile.
 
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