Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story is not a film I was necessarily looking forward to, nor did I really feel a need for it. I was pretty ambivalent until I saw a trailer shortly before its release. That sneak peek did get me a little more interested, but I haven't been crazy about the last few Star Wars movies so my expectations were decidedly mixed. I'm happy to say that having seen it, I didn't hate it. I didn't love it, necessarily, but I didn't hate it either. 

This is of course the origin story, of sorts, of Han Solo, everyone's favorite scoundrel in the Star Wars universe. Does the movie work? Well, I guess. It's one of those movies that's just there. Nothing really groundbreaking, a lot of familiar tropes. I have to say that after this movie and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I'm a little less impressed with Lawrence Kasdan as a screenwriter. He of course co-wrote the Empire Strikes Back, among other things, so I always had a pretty good view of him but that's taken a nosedive. Although I will say the script here is better than The Force Awakens. There's just nothing particularly noteworthy here, in my view. 

This movie of course had some well- documented missteps, including a change of directors late in the game. Who can say what might have been? Would it have been worse, or did the change save the movie? Hard to say. It has a lot of callbacks to the original movies, perhaps too many, and it tries to give us those iconic moments- I mean, we see where Han got his famous blaster, we see how he wins the Millennium Falcon, we meet Lando for the first time, you name it. Lando, by the way, is pretty awesome- Donald Glover lives up to his billing and owns that role- and I thought Woody Harrelson did a great job as Tobias Beckett as well. I wasn't sure how he would work in a Star Wars movie. 

Overall though I think the callbacks and Easter eggs were maybe a bit much. I don't need to see everything- sometimes less is more, leave some things to the imagination- like the origin of the dice Han keeps in the Falcon's cockpit. I don't really care. But that's just me, others may think the level of fan service is just right. To each their own. I also thought Chewbacca was outstanding. And Emilia Clarke was effective as Qira, the early love of Han's life. 

I was happy to finally see Corellia, a pretty prominent planet in the Star Wars universe. This is the first time we've seen it in the movies, and it's about time! I've said for a long time that we should be seeing more of the "name" planets- Corellia being just one of several. So that was welcome. I wasn't super impressed with how Corellia was portrayed, but as the birthplace of Han and as a renowned shipbuilding center, it made sense to see it. 

Other than that we do visit a few other planets although I didn't catch their names, if they were mentioned. Okay I just checked Wikipedia and apparently the planet that Han visits early in the movie is Mimban, which made me chuckle. Mimban of course is the world featured in Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first spinoff Star Wars book released way back in 1978. Nice little touch there. Although this is apparently after he was expelled from the Academy- I would have liked to see some of his time at the Academy, especially since his time there would have presumably involved an important world, perhaps Coruscant? Like I always say after these movies, why don't we ever see more of the Inner Rim worlds? 

One thing I did like was a certain throwaway line to the effect that Tobias Beckett killed Aurra Sing. Aurra is a famous bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe who appeared briefly on screen in Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. While I generally don't care for the prequels and tend to scowl when they're referenced, I did like that line. It kind of established Beckett's bona fides as a badass, and frankly Sing (along with Darth Maul) was one of the few things I liked from Episode 1. I also thought the music was mostly effective, with just enough hints of the original trilogy themes without being a rehash. There was even a hint of the Imperial March at one point and that made me smile.  

Spoilers/ discussion

A few thoughts. I liked how Han won the Falcon- out cheating Lando basically. That seems appropriate. The fact that their friendship is in fact tenuous. And I like the emphasis on double- crosses. That also makes sense in a movie of this sort. I'm not a fan of heist movies generally, but there were some things that I felt worked here. The biggest surprise for me was the appearance of Darth Maul at the end. I like his role as head of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate- I mean, who better?- but at the same time it's a reminder of the first movie, which I have a very dim view of. They could have at least given him better dialogue, and I didn't think he looked great either.