ONE ROGUE
Movie Review – Solo: A Star Wars Story
Review by Paul Preston
The backstory of the rascally space smuggler who lost the woman he loved, was killed by his son and nobody cared finally comes to the big screen. Hmmm…put it that way, it doesn’t sound like much fun. Actually, put it many ways and the misguided Solo: A Star Wars Story doesn’t sound like much fun.
If you’ve read my reviews of the recent crop of Star Wars movies, I think they’ve lost their way. The story choices and dopey jokes that wouldn’t be caught dead in The Empire Strikes Back now run roughshod over the galaxy. Han Solo is different than all that, though. He’s a scoundrel, the kind of guy that could upend the current trajectory of the Star Wars universe and give the franchise a shot of Ragnarok it already needs in its short four-movie span. Unfortunately, this film reflects more the bumpy road it took to get it made in the first place.
Han Solo is ripe for backstory. When we meet him in Mos Eisley Spaceport, he talks a great game, boasting about his adventures, and we meet Greedo, who clearly has a beef with him that’s evolved out of a history of Solo’s we never see. I feared that this would be a two hour and fifteen minute version of the first ten minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where we get to see all (literally ALL) of the things that make out character the lovable action hero he is. Wisely, Solo sidesteps that trap to go with an original story (for example, we are saved another situation that justifies Harrison Ford’s chin scar).
We first meet young Solo, it turns out his smuggling roots are in service of a Correlian overlord named Lady Proxima, and Han plans to escape with the help of a young woman named Qi’ra. He escapes, she does not, and Han pursues his ambition to be a great pilot, while swearing to return for Qi’ra. Along the way, he befriends some criminals and undertakes a mission for a ganglord that sets him down the path to becoming an outlaw himself. What happens next is a series of double-crosses that rival those in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, involving characters you either don’t trust in the first place or care about much. Remember the Crystal Skull allegiance shifts? Mack? Anyone? Bueller? You won’t remember these plot twists in ten years, either. What we should be enjoying is Han and Chewie having a Thor and The Hulk-type intergalactic adventure, but it gets mucked up along the way by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan’s stuffy dialogue.
This would probably be a good time to bring up the movie that never was. Solo’s original directors were Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the brains behind The LEGO Movie and the 21 Jump Street movies. They could’ve Ragnaroked the HELL out of this adventure, and it’s a shame we’ll never see their movie. They were notoriously pulled from the project by Lucasfilm well over 50% of the way through production. Ron Howard came in as the safe choice to finish the movie. It’s as if Howard and producer Kathleen Kennedy meddled with project to fight for its blandness.
Lawrence Kasdan was one of the best writers of the ‘80s, but now there are either goofy bits or glaring errors mucking up his work. Solo spends a LOT of time (A LOT) on Han Solo’s dice. These dice showed up in the original Star Wars from 1977, but never played a major part in the plot. But now they’ve become a major item that signifies the love Han has for Qi’ra. So, when Luke Skywalker gives General Leia Han’s dice (sorta) at the end of The Last Jedi, what good does it do to give them to the woman NOT associated with the dice at all? To maybe remind her there was someone else?!? This series needs to ditch the dice and have someone actually care that Han was dead, as opposed to being dispatched so unceremoniously in The Force Awakens (I’m not still bothered by that or anything). Also, Han lies about a ship in a game of sabacc and then loses it during the game to Lando. Lando never makes a stink. He mentions it briefly, then they’re off on adventures. Really, there were NO consequences for this? It’s hard to have fun in a movie like this when so many script blunders block the path.
There is also a major cameo at the end of Solo by a character who is dead. He’s dead. I know ther are storylines from the Star Wars animated TV shows, but I don’t watch those, so the timeline doesn’t make sense for me. And if that character can’t be killed by what happened to him in The Phantom Menace than it’s clear he will never die.
On the production end, the cinematography and production design is DARK. There’s rarely light, rarely a scene of bright colors that pop, leaving me with an overall drab memory of the film’s action sequences. Alden Ehrenreich was great in The Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar!, hilariously playing a bad actor. Early word on Solo was that Ehrenreich was also bad as the lead actor. Not true. He’s got charm and the looks to pull off Solo. Joonas Suotamo takes over for Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca who, apparently…eats people…now?
So, what do you think it will take to get the Lord and Miller Solo movie edited and released? A petition? Documentary a la Tim Burton’s Superman? Total collapse of The Walt Disney Company? Let’s get moving, internet.
Directed by: Ron Howard
Release Date: May 25, 2018
Run Time: 135 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
Country: USA
Distributor: Walt Disney Motion Pictures
