A few days ago, I finally got around to seeing Solo: A Star Wars Story. This is an interesting movie for a number of reasons, so today, instead of just reviewing the movie (which I will be doing), I will also try to examine the stigma surrounding this film and address the monetary backlash it has faced as a result. But, first things first: the review. Let’s get to it.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
So, Ian, what is the reason for this film existing? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s an origin story for everyone’s favorite smuggler and scoundrel, Han Solo, played convincingly by a charismatic Alden Ehrenreich. There are lots of scenes that explicitly mention or point out how Han Solo, for instance, gets his name:
Officer- What’s your name?
Han- Han.
Officer- But who are your people?
Han- I don’t have any people.
Officer- So, Han…Solo.
or the one where Chewbacca gets his nickname:
Han- What’s your name?
Chewbacca- WAAAAAAAAAAARGH
Han- Chewbacca? That’s too long, you’re gonna need a nickname.
that are groan-inducing and unnecessary. Why can’t his last name just be Solo? Why do we need a scene showing how he shortens Chewbacca to Chewie? That’s like, three less letters than Chewbacca. Stuff like that was really stupid and got on my nerves, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that. Besides, there were plenty of other name drops and Easter Eggs that weren’t annoying, and that I felt cool for catching on to, like the one where it mentions Aurra Sing, the bounty hunter from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I’m getting off track. Anyways, there are name drop things that work and some that really do not.
1. STREET RAT
The first act of the movie involves Han escaping the planet Corellia and joining forces with a smuggler gang and meeting Chewbacca. During a mission with the gang, two of them, Val, played by Thandie Newton, and Rio, voiced by Jon Favreau, are killed by the mercenary group Enfys Nest, leaving Han, Chewie, and Val’s boyfriend Tobias Beckett, played by Woody Harrelson, cargo-less.
The three then must go and meet the gangster Dryden Vos, played by Paul Bettany. Vos is a fun villain, and different from most Star Wars villains in that he’s not a Sith lord or Force-user. He’s just a piece-of-shit gangster instead. Here, Han is also reunited with his girlfriend Kira, who he couldn’t take from Correlia. She works for Vos, and she helps convince him to give them one more chance to get the Coaxium for him. This first act is fun, and the death of the original crew opens the door for Han to show off his piloting skills, which he is desperate to do. As I said, the name-drops about Han’s last name and stuff are dumb, but for the most part this portion of the film works.
2. HAN AND LANDO BEGIN THEIR WONDERFUL FRIENDSHIP
To pull off this job, the crew needs to find a ship to get to and escape the planet Kessel quickly, due to the volatility of the unrefined Coaxium that they are after. Kira takes them to Lando Calrissian, played gleefully by Donald Glover, who agrees to let them use his ship, the Millenium Falcon, for a portion of the profits. Lando and his co-pilot, a robot named L3, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, take the crew to Kessel. First, a note on L3. She’s a rebellious robot that is very serious about equal rights for robots. This characterization is directly related to our current fights for gay rights and equal pay, and sadly comes off as kind of hammy and in-your-face. I definitely appreciate the effort, though. Anyways, they pull off the mission on Kessel, but L3 gets killed, again opening the door for Han to show off his piloting skills. He completes the “Kessel run” mentioned in the original Star Wars in 12 parsecs, 8 whole parsecs below what was thought to be possible. This is a pretty thrilling sequence, and it has some awesome visuals, especially where the ship is getting pulled into a gravity maelstrom. Great stuff. Overall, this second act is really breezy and fun, and has some great moments.
3. DOUBLE-CROSSED BY THE DOUBLE-CROSSER WHO DOUBLE-CROSSES THE OTHER DOUBLE-CROSSER
Confused by the heading? Yeah, I’ll get to that in a second. To refine the coaxium so it doesn’t explode, the crew heads to a barren planet with a refinery not controlled by the Empire. They arrange for Dryden Vos to meet them there, and have the coaxium refined. Here, Enfys Nest reappears and reveals themselves to be victims of Vos’ group Crimson Dawn. There’s a fun little joke here where Han threatens them with an army and then Lando just flies away. Nest’s planets were pillaged for resources, so they fight back against those who do the same thing. Solo decides to help them, so he, Kira, and Chewbacca board Vos’ ship with a plan to betray him while Beckett leaves. However, Beckett tells Vos that this is happening, and then Vos gets the drop on Solo, but then Solo reveals he knew this would happen and tricks Vos and then Vos tells Kira to decide where her loyalties lie so she chooses Solo and then Solo and Kira kill Vos in a cool little battle and then Solo goes down to fight Beckett and save Chewbacca and then Kira contacts Darth Maul, thereby betraying Solo, and then she flies away as Solo saves Chewbacca and shoots Beckett before Beckett can shoot him so Han shot first and then everything is fine. Exhausted? Yeah, I know, because it’s crazy how many betrayals there are in this final act. There are no loyalties, which makes sense since they’re all criminals, but is also a little ridiculous in execution. Anyways, Han and Chewie go win the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a card game and then decide to meet a gangster on Tatooine (who I realized was Jabba the Hutt after the movie had ended).
So that’s the story. While there are silly references and scenes that don’t make any sense and some story problems, overall the movie is just a really fun ride that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t have much bearing over the rest of the Star Wars universe. The performances are all-around good, and Alden Ehrenreich is a good Han Solo without being a Harrison Ford imitation. The movie just flies by and I honestly could watch Han Solo adventures forever. It’s just a really fun movie, and I would give it an 8/10. Despite it’s flaws, I really enjoyed myself and would recommend anybody see it, which brings me from my review and into my discussion of the movie’s box office fate.
TROUBLED PRODUCTION, TOXIC FANDOM, AND FRANCHISE FATIGUE
Solo is a good movie, and from what I’ve said about it, you’d think that it would do pretty well in theaters, especially because of it’s name recognition as a Star Wars movie. After all, the last three movies in the series, being The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi have all grossed over $1 billion at the global box office. Solo, however, hasn’t even grossed $400 million, which is what it needs to break even. Therefore, this is the first Star Wars movie to “flop”. You see, the movie was originally directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller of The LEGO Movie and 21 Jump Street fame. However, they were going over budget and the movie was too silly for Lucasfilm’s liking, so they were fired and replaced by Ron Howard. This production trouble, along with reports of Ehrenreich needing an “acting coach”, were well-publicized, making the movie look like it would be bad to the average consumer.
Then, there’s the problem of toxic fandom. The Last Jedi is one of my favorite Star Wars movies, but not everyone was so pleased with it. A certain group of devout fans bombarded the film with hate, including bad reviews, racist and sexist tweets and videos, and other nasty stuff. These “fans” claimed that the film ruined the franchise, and this hate was also well-publicized, leaving both the average consumer and hardcore “fans” with a sour taste in their mouth. On a side note, these “fans” do nothing but ruin other people’s experience and lives, and should not be given any attention. A few days ago, it was reported that Ahmed Best, who played Jar-Jar Binks in the prequel movies, considered suicide due to the fan backlash against his character. Kelly-Marie Tran was bullied off of Twitter because of her character in The Last Jedi. These are not “fans”, these are trolls, and they don’t deserve our attention, especially not when people who are just fucking acting are affected in real life for their portrayals of fictional characters. Fuck toxic fandom, fuck the “chauvinist cut” of The Last Jedi, and fuck people who hurt other people’s lives.
Finally, the film is the fourth film in as many years in the Star Wars franchise. This, paired with the fact that nobody was really clamoring for a Han Solo origin movie, made hype for this movie almost nonexistent among general audiences, leading to the unfortunate flop of this movie. And it is unfortunate, because this is honestly a really fun movie that should have done much better than it did, especially considering its quality despite the numerous obstacles in its path to success. It’s a shame that this movie flopped, because it deserves to be seen and enjoyed like any other Star Wars movie. This series is meant to be dumb sci-fi and fantasy fun, not a hardcore nerd bible that divides people and hurts those involved in the films. This movie, like any Star Wars movie, is something that should be seen because it’s good fun, and it’s a shame that nobody wanted to join in on that fun.
I’ll end my article with a ranking of the Star Wars series, because I figured you guys would like to see how Solo placed in the grand scheme of things.
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens
- Episode IV: A New Hope
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (tie)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (tie)
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones
- Episode I: The Phantom Menace
I hope you guys enjoyed this article, and I hope you see Solo while it’s still in theaters, or later on DVD. It really deserved to do better than something like, I don’t know, friggin’ Fate of the Furious or some dumb shit like that. Anyways, thanks for reading. I should be back with an Ant-Man and the Wasp article sometime later this week. H.
State of Confusion 