Solo: A Star Wars Story (Post-release)

Films are so subjective. Even among us SW fans.

I went in with pretty low expectations. The trailers were just ok and the reviews were lackluster.

I don’t think I could have loved it more. To me, it had a very OT feel. Casting was great. Creatures excellent. A few twists and turns. Han/Chewie relationship building was perfect.

I don’t know, I was 10 when ANH came out, and this really worked for me.

For the record, I dislike the prequels and think TLJ was almost unwatchable. SOLO sits right there with TFA as the next best SW film after the OT.

But...I seem to be in the minority.

I agree the score was entirely forgettable. I loved Lando sitting in the Falcon dictating his memoirs.

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It was also a battle site in the Clone Wars.

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Bu the mentioned that we see it ten years later. And splinter isn't canon, is it?

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Bryancd said:

I agree the score was entirely forgettable. I loved Lando sitting in the Falcon dictating his memoirs.

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You know what I find Odd, when we meet Lando in ESB, he's suippoed to be dressed different than he used to. Han says's that he looks respectable.

That gave me the impression that the capes were a new thing. Like when your college drinking buddy gets a job at a bank

MooCriket said:

Curious to know how many repeat viewings this film will garner at the box office. I saw it this past Thursday, and already I have forgotten most of the film, and really feel zero interest in watching it again, much less purchasing it in the future. Just bland and forgettable.

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Bland is a good way to put it.

I find myself thinking more about my experience than I do about the actual movie.

I remember awhile back I bought a carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from the store. I came home, ate dinner, and then went to get some dessert. I opened the carton to discover that because of a factory screw up, it was filled with just vanilla. It was still ice cream... but it was vanilla.

I think that pretty much sums up Solo for me.

I personally loved it and can't wait to see it again! Not sure what everyone is complaining about it being too darkly lit, I didn't have problems seeing anything....maybe I'm used to more darkly lit films being a horror fan I don't know. I loved the design work for the film, not sure why the stand alone films seem so much for fleshed out design wise compared to the sequels, they just seem patched together from the most obvious OT references. Rogue One is still my favorite of the newer films but this is a close 2nd.

darthwhitey said:

Films are so subjective. Even among us SW fans.

I went in with pretty low expectations. The trailers were just ok and the reviews were lackluster.

I don’t think I could have loved it more. To me, it had a very OT feel. Casting was great. Creatures excellent. A few twists and turns. Han/Chewie relationship building was perfect.

I don’t know, I was 10 when ANH came out, and this really worked for me.

For the record, I dislike the prequels and think TLJ was almost unwatchable. SOLO sits right there with TFA as the next best SW film after the OT.

But...I seem to be in the minority.

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Im with you here. I went again last night to take my daughter to see it and I gotta say that I'm really enjoying this movie. It feels like a SW movie to me. I think I would have enjoyed it more though if they had made it about a new character and not Han Solo. Donald Glover totally crushed it as Lando. I think they really did well with the Han and Chewie interactions as well. IDK, i dont see how someone can hate this movie but i can maybe understand the bland complaint. IMO its a fun damn movie and I actually like it better than R1 which i thought was boring. Solo is probably not as rewatchable as some SW movies but still a good step in the right direction after the unwatchable TLJ.

I see a lot of people are having a problem with the pacing. Personally, I loved the pacing. There was room to breathe and have some characters. Rogue one was a movie where all the dialogue was plot.

And the two other films are just "faster and more intense" so that people don't notice the plot contrivances until they leave the theatre

Why were there imperial troopers on the train? Were they robbing the empire?

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And who was excited to see Maul voiced by Sam Witwer???

So what OT references did we NOT see? Dumping Jabba's cargo and getting boarded, Lando's little manoeuvre at the battle of Tanaab, possibly "you've got a lot of nerve coming here after what you pulled"? I think everything else was touched on in terms of backstory/throwaway lines.

cayman shen said:

So what OT references did we NOT see? Dumping Jabba's cargo and getting boarded, Lando's little manoeuvre at the battle of Tanaab, possibly "you've got a lot of nerve coming here after what you pulled"? I think everything else was touched on in terms of backstory/throwaway lines.

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That's how I felt about the entirety of Rogue one.

Or most of the dialogue in The force Awakens

astroboy said:

That's how I felt about the entirety of Rogue one.

Or most of the dialogue in The force Awakens

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I didn't say I FELT any particular way about it, just curious. But I think Solo, R1, and TFA do all have too many callbacks, yes. I appreciate a few; it's fun. But too many is corny. In R1 I hate Ponda and Evazon on Jeddha. In Solo, I thought the skiff guard gear was overkill.

astroboy wrote :"Why were there imperial troopers on the train? Were they robbing the empire?"

It was an empirial train, no? I thought the magnetic boots were kinda neat myself

(Sorry messed up the quote!)

cayman shen said:

So what OT references did we NOT see? Dumping Jabba's cargo and getting boarded, Lando's little manoeuvre at the battle of Tanaab, possibly "you've got a lot of nerve coming here after what you pulled"? I think everything else was touched on in terms of backstory/throwaway lines.

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That's exactly what we're gonna see in Solo 2, I think

I hope it's going to be a double Kasdan again so the same people can continue this story. I really like proper continuity ..

Nitz146 said:

Im with you here. I went again last night to take my daughter to see it and I gotta say that I'm really enjoying this movie. It feels like a SW movie to me. I think I would have enjoyed it more though if they had made it about a new character and not Han Solo. Donald Glover totally crushed it as Lando. I think they really did well with the Han and Chewie interactions as well. IDK, i dont see how someone can hate this movie but i can maybe understand the bland complaint. IMO its a fun damn movie and I actually like it better than R1 which i thought was boring. Solo is probably not as rewatchable as some SW movies but still a good step in the right direction after the unwatchable TLJ.

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I’m right there with both of you on all points. VERY happy to have come out of a theatre from a Star Wars movie grinning ear to ear again


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cayman shen said:

I didn't say I FELT any particular way about it, just curious. But I think Solo, R1, and TFA do all have too many callbacks, yes. I appreciate a few; it's fun. But too many is corny. In R1 I hate Ponda and Evazon on Jeddha. In Solo, I thought the skiff guard gear was overkill.

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The first JJTrek was pretty awful for this too.

The one I really couldn't deal with in TFA was when Han suggested the Garbage trash compactor. That felt like an SNL moment or something.

And if I ever see blue milk in a star wars film again I'm gonna scream.

Oh...and the dice. I friggin' hate those dice

I want to add a bit to my last comment about this seeming like an SNL skit.

When we reduce these characters to simple callbacks, it's just parody. As much respect as I have for Chris pine, Kirk has been parodied SO much since the 60's that the general public has a much different memory of what he was actually like. So of course they had to have a scene where was getting out of bed with a Green woman. And then, how can you do a star trek reboot film with showing us the kobayashi maru? Except that it eats in to the time you have to tell an actual story.


It's the same thing here. Did we need to see han do the kessel run? Or Meet Chewie? Or get the falcon? or do all the damage to the falcon on one day that turned it into the one we know and love? We could have started this movie in the middle of a heist and just gone from there. I loved having lando in the movie, but he didn't need to lose the falcon in this.


By having all of these events happen on one day, we get the feeling that nothing happened to Han solo between now and ANH. Hell, we even get the impression that he went right from this job to the failed Jabba job the next day.

And it stops being a used universe full of adventure after adventure.

God I miss George Lucas

My feelings....

What I liked:

-Chewbacca. Let's be honest, Peter Mayhew was TALL. He was never an athlete. He was knock-kneed during the OT and his costume weight a ton. They could make Chewie seem tall and imposing, but he could never muster more than a jog and camera tricks were used to show off his strength. In TFA, I felt we finally got the Chewie that was always intended. He was running, jumping, climbing-- in a lot of ways, at that point that was the best of Chewie we'd seen thanks to better costume materials, better stunt rigging capabilities, cgi assists, and a younger person in the suit. After the action he saw in TFA, Chewie was barely a blip in TLJ, and that was criminal. Solo gave me the Chewie I wanted-- cracking necks, busting skulls, ripping off arms, etc.

-Han. Recasting for a younger version of a known character has been practiced for decades. Be it for a prequel, or a flashback, and yet for some reason, people seemed to just absolutely lose their minds over Alden being cast as a young Han. I think they either just WANTED to be mad, or they think that Ingruber dude being able to do a great impression means he can carry a movie. Looking at Alden, I buy him as a young Harrison Ford more than I do River Phoenix. He got the mannerisms down, he looked the part, he was fine. Was he the best actor OMG ever, no-- but I wouldn't expect that in a SW movie. I never questioned him as Han.

-Lando-- because come on. He was perfect.

-The train heist. SW is running out of locales and stunt sequence ideas. A train heist is literally the oldest action sequence known to cinema, next to maybe a horse chase. And yet, this felt really cool and fresh to me.

-The OT aesthetic. Like Rogue One, I love modern production design and money recreating the old Star Wars look. I also liked how PT Draven's ship and crew were. I didn't like it on Canto Bight in TLJ, but here I did for some reason.

What I didn't like:

-No real stakes ever. It was a fun ride, but all the stakes were selfish or pre-determined. If you're going to make a prequel, you at least have to make the journey unexpected and earned.

-The Music. VERY cut and paste.

Amazingly, the don't like list is short. It's rare for a SW movie outside of the PT to not make me go "oh that's terrible" at least once. Solo and R1 are the only post-Lucas movies to do that. Maybe that's why I like them best.

Really, the only other bad thing I could say is that while it was fun, and I was engaged, it never truly hit me anywhere emotionally. TFA has the feels. TLJ, as problematic as it is for many reasons, has a strong emotional story. Rogue One manages to build something between Cassian and Jyn that makes you feel for them-- they have drive. Solo was a great ride, but there was nothing ever for me ultimately really care about. At the end of the day, Han's goals were selfish and materialistic. The worst that could happen to him in this movie is that he could die (which we know won't happen) get his heart broken (which happens early on and we know it won't change) and he'd lose out on a payday. While I get the respect paid to the fact that he needs to stay a scoundrel until the end of ANH, without an emotional core to Han, I didn't CARE as much as they wanted me too.. but at least it was fun!

Objectively speaking, this was an okay and forgettable movie...

... but I absolutely LOVED it!!

This was 90's Star Wars, and I loved it. I love the cheesiness of the 90's expanded universe, and there was so much of it in this movie. It captured the spirit of so many of those awful books I read, and I couldn't be more happy about that.

The Han in this movie is not the Han from the OT, but I was fine with that. I still really liked this character. And unlike many of the other Disney Star Wars characters, he had depth. I found the angle of him trying hard to be someone he's not as incredibly relatable. Lando? He was fantastic. His memoir recording was great. I would be perfectly fine with a Donald Glover-led Lando movie.

I haven't enjoyed a single Disney Star Wars until now, and I haven't felt this happy leaving movie theater in a very, very long time.

This movie was such a joy!

I want you to ask yourself: How would this movie be if it was just a movie about a guy you don't know who wants to be a pilot? ...without it being riddled with references from other Star Wars movies you know and love.

Personally I was incredibly underwhelmed and bored. Tired of the whole slavery/robot rights thing already. The plot was stupid, the action was actually pretty boring and the "twists" you could spot from a mile away. And the acting was just as cardboard as Rogue One. Again, the robot is the only character with any feeling behind them... As annoying as those feelings may be.

And how is it that the mobility and humanization of the robots degrade so much later on? L3-37 and K-2SO are practically human, in movement and emotion... And then 20 years later we have C-3PO, who moves like the tin man needing his oil can and is continuously going on about odds and such? Just doesn't make sense.

And how am I supposed to be worried about these characters being in any kind of danger considering I already know they all live on another 40+ years? Without any risk I'm just sitting there watching a CGI spectacle. I felt like I was watching Loki's play about himself from Thor Ragnarock. I half expected to see Matt Damon somewhere.

The thing with Han's name was down right stupid. The way Han and Chewbacca became friends immediately after Han spits out a Wookie sentence is asinine and made me think of Step Brothers. And then Han is bossing Chewbacca around right after that? Dumb. Where's the life debt? Where's the bonding? Maybe the special bonding happened in the extended shower scene cut (hopefully something I'll never see, I've already seen too much)

And anybody saying they thought this guy "nailed" being Han is downright fooling themselves. He didn't even come close! Glover started off as a good impersonation of Lando Calrissian but quickly dropped that persona and just was himself.

And the idea of the Falcon being some super fancy party ship is dumb as **** considering it's a freighter. You don't turn freight trains into luxury passenger trains... They are completely built from the ground up to be their own thing. A freighter hauls freight... There is no luxury involved... Which is the idea I always got from the original trilogy. Everybody underestimated the Falcon because it's the equivalent to a beat up old semi-truck.

This movie and all these nostalgia-induced retro-ideas are grossly painful to watch, especially if you're someone like me who grew up watching the originals in theaters and then watched them again and again, maybe hundreds of times because they were so damned good.

SethS said:

My feelings....

What I liked:

-Chewbacca. Let's be honest, Peter Mayhew was TALL. He was never an athlete. He was knock-kneed during the OT and his costume weight a ton. They could make Chewie seem tall and imposing, but he could never muster more than a jog and camera tricks were used to show off his strength. In TFA, I felt we finally got the Chewie that was always intended. He was running, jumping, climbing-- in a lot of ways, at that point that was the best of Chewie we'd seen thanks to better costume materials, better stunt rigging capabilities, cgi assists, and a younger person in the suit. After the action he saw in TFA, Chewie was barely a blip in TLJ, and that was criminal. Solo gave me the Chewie I wanted-- cracking necks, busting skulls, ripping off arms, etc.

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I mentioned this as the highlight to a buddy of mine today. This was the first movie where Chewy seems like the character they keep TELLING us he is.


On someone else's point: I feel like I'm the only guy who has no problem with the skiff guard armor. Lando had it in the falcon for criminal crap he was pulling. Becket used it here, Lando used it in Jedi.

I mean, come on. people keep whining about this.

LANDO WORE HANS EXACT ANH CLOTHES IN THE LAST SHOT OF EMPIRE.

No one ever mentions how weird that is.

It wasn't a captains uniform.