Some late-game thoughts...
Regarding box-office performance. First of all, for those decrying how it lost $50 million or -- impressively --
$150 million. Or more. Nooo...? As of yesterday, its worldwide gross was $391.3 million. With a final-with-reshoots budget around $250-$275 million, it's made that back, even if not the (feeble) marketing costs. I don't know enough about that end of things to speculate. I also don't know what the original budget was before L&M got booted, but some estimates are that bringing in Howard for the frantically-accelerated reshoots as much as doubled the budget. So it
definitely made back -- and doubled -- that original budget. That's a win for most movies, but because of the problems around Solo, it's more of a wash. From there it gets into murkier guessing games. How much less would it have made if L&M had finished the movie
their way (the surviving L&M bits are some of the worst in the film, IMO)? How much more if Howard had been on from the get-go (same proviso)?
There are other factors, too, in comparing it to other Star Wars films. The world the OT and PT were released in no longer exists. The OT was largely unavailable to us plebes until the mid-'80s when more people were starting to have VCRs. My aunt and uncle were videophiles who had a laser-disc player, so I actually got to watch them other than in theatrical re-releases up until I was able to get my own set of video tapes in the late '80s (pan-and-scan at first -- it was a shock compared to what I was used to watching). So the box office for, say, the original film includes the re-release in '78, the re-release in '79, the re-release in '80... all the way up to the Special Edition in '97. For the Prequels, those came out the week before Memorial Day, but were in theaters until October. And TPM's take got a modest bump from the 3D release. By contrast, with the DVDs coming out so soon after release, their availability on streaming services, and so forth, that's had an impact on how many people still go out to movies, period. I'm still hoping to get to at least one more theatrical viewing of Solo, but it's only playing in two theaters within two hours of me, so I don't know if it's going to happen. There were missteps on the production an dmarketing end, yes, but also other factors playing into its box-office performance. The last showing I saw was in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the end of June, mid-week, mid-day, and the theater was 2/3-3/4 full.
Regarding his last name. I actually liked that. He still has extended family out there, probably, but we don't know who they are. Whatever warm feelings he might have had for his dad when he was younger, how the man coped after being laid off from CEC apparently soured things badly between them. We don't know whether his dad died (and, presumably, his mother), but he was either orphaned or ran away sometime prior to his teens. The impression is that he's been with Proxima's gang for a while, at 16. A nonzero number of militaries in history (and even a few today) let people enlist without documanetation, even running away from their pasts. The Swedish army had (and still has, to a degree) a practice of assigning a non-Scandinavian surname to people to avoid the obvious issues of a whole platoon full of Jonsons, Johanssons, Jonassons, etc. That's actually where my last name came from, five generations removed.
It also plays into old material. I need to go back and re-read, but it was in one of the OT movie novelizations or one of Brian Daley's Han Solo novels. Someone was pondering the ramifications of his last name. "Solo. Alone." And how he was no longer alone. I find it a nice nod, that maybe it was actually deliberately so, in-universe.
Regarding L3, including
vis-à-vis Lando. There's a long-running history in the ancillary material of droids objecting to being treated like furniture that (sometimes) talks. All the way back to stuff in th e'80s, there have been droids-rights movements, droid rebellions, etc. It's germane. As for her relationship with Lando, it was obvious on first viewing, and became moreso with each subsequent, that it's projected on her part. He appreciates her navigational skills, and puts up with the rest. But he is obviously more embarrassed by her quirks when others are around. She's been around for a while, and has had relationships with other organics -- but, again, we don't know if those were "real" or also projected on her part. People with delusions truly see the world differently. Either way, she and Lando were close colleagues. That's it. Nothing sexual. Yes, she was jealous and possessive. Remember --
she was the one in the relationship, there, not him.
Regarding Lando's sexuality. There was nothing explicit or implicit in the film itself. I would be profoundly unsurprised if he turned out to be a Captain Jack Harkness of the Star Wars universe, attracted to the person, regardless of the chromosome set or fur or claws or feathers or what-have-you. But what we saw was a consummate con man. Remember the "con" in that term is short for "confidence", being the trait they exude to sucker people. Which he does. A con man flirts with the universe. Those who are naturally charming do well, as it's an essential job skill. Some people point to his "you're a
dorable" to Han as an indicator of attraction. But in the context of the sabacc game, it fits the byplay between them of two card-players each maintaining a cool, carefree, vaguely condescending demeanor for their opponent. That was the same kind of "you're adorable" as this one:
Regarding the "believability" of Enfys Nest. For the majority of our history as a species, we had rites of passage to adulthood at puberty. This has contemporary echoes still in things like the Jewish Bar/Bat Mitzvah at 13. Historically, that was when someone publicly declared they were ready to take their place in that society as an adult and be treated as such. Harsh/primitive environments and "warrior cultures" are more likely to practice this sort of thing. In-universe, the Mandalorians were such a society (and at the time of the films, many in the fringes of their sector still are), with toddlers being trained to shoot and fight and being considered adults by their mid-teens. Enfys isn't Mandalorian, but representatives of other warrior cultures are in her group, so no stretch to say she's from one such, and would have been training to be a warrior since she was two years old. Casting an Irish actress is appropriate, given much of their history is as such a culture.
Reason I find her believable? Have a dear friend who had been taking tae kwon do for most of her life. As of her tweens, was consistently placing in the top three nationally in tournaments. Was
also the only girl in her hockey league. Player on the other team once tried to feel her up during a body check (early bloomer, in that department). Her instinctive reaction landed him on the ice with an arm broken in three places. And she was younger than Enfys at the time.
And regarding a Certain Someone's appearance at the end. Yes, it helps to have been watching the cartoons and been reading the comics to know more solidly what's led to that point, but the Mysterious Return has been a trope in serial fiction since forever. Including bad guys who were even more definitively dead. Often there's no explanation for their very-much-not-dead state when they show up again. The audience just took it as read that the villain was preternaturally capable and tough and thus even more scary.
There are things I would have liked to have seen handled differently, yes. But overall, it's about on par with ROTJ with me, and for many of the same pros and cons.
