SOLO: A Spoiler Story (contains spoilers)

[williamjm]

I saw the film earlier today. I thought it was fun to watch, but might have worked as a standalone space heist film rather than as the backstory to one of the key characters in the Star Wars trilogy. I thought Alden Ehrenreich put in a likeable performance but I never really felt like I was watching a young Han Solo. I think that's partially because Ehrenreich is no Harrison Ford and partly that the character seemed too naive and idealistic - I know there's a few years between this film and A New Hope for him to grow more cynical and world-weary, but if he hasn't already become cynical after growing up on the streets of Correllia and then going through the Imperial War machine then he seems like more of a natrual optimist than the Original Trilogy suggested.

I thought the rest of the cast were good despite some under-written characters. Bettany has fun with the role even if there isn't much depth there. I thought Emilia Clarke did well with the material she was given but the script has too much telling-not-showing for her character, it does make a point of telling us how she's done terrible ruthless things but we never see her doing anything bad.

The train heist was a good scene, and the unintended drone riot on Kessel was entertaining. The ending was perhaps the weakest bit of the film with too much predictable double-crossing and the out-of-nowhere cameo by the Rebellion.

[dbunting]

Seems like they would have benefited by doing a Marvel type sequence. Show us how Kylo Ren came to be, show us how the Empire has risen back to power again, a pretty dark movie, that could have had Poe and Capt Phasma in it, then show us TFA. Then maybe a movie with Luke training Rey, with some side stories about what Luke's version of Kylo Ren turning, before TLJ so it all ties together. 

[Darth Richard II]

The film cost was double because it was pretty much filmed twice.

[Slurktan]

5 hours ago, red snow said:

As for Disney losing money I don't buy it. They are only losing profit. Before the film started there were at least 3 tie in ads with the film shamelessly being used to promote cars, phones etc. I'm sure these kind of things help offset the advertising of the film. Then there's the aforementioned merchandise. There's no way the film should have cost 250 million to make either. No idea how much the new director and reshoots cost but I can't see why it should have cost more than Blade runner 2049 or The Last Jedi. Clearly getting in new directors and reshoots cost a lot as rogue one was even more expensive.

As said in the post above, they essentially had to shoot the movie twice.  Yes there are car ads and mobile phone ads and what not.... they do not  add up to the advertising budget of a hollywood big budget movie.  Everything I've read and such points to a blockbuster generally doubling its budget due to advertising.  So Solo didn't just cost 250 million, it cost roughly 500 million.  And merchandising ain't the cash cow it used to be..

Regardless saying "they are only losing profit" is pretty much ridiculous.  No corporation in the world ever says "You know what, we expected to make this much and have made roughly 40% less than what we were expecting.  That's ok  We still might make back it's budget. That's good enough."

[Darth Richard II]

 Yeah the speculation is it needs 600 mil to break even and it looks unlikely to happen.

[Spring Bass]

42 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah the speculation is it needs 600 mil to break even and it looks unlikely to happen.

Estimates I've seen are that it will probably have a 65% drop in at least the domestic box office this weekend, although I guess we won't know until tomorrow. It's not quite as much of a loss as it would be for most studio-distributers, since Disney has negotiated such a huge cut of the first couple weekends of the Star Wars movies (or at least they did for The Last Jedi, and I find it hard to believe they didn't get the same thing for Solo). Supposedly they're getting about 65% of the estimated total box office (probably higher the opening weekend and later in subsequent weekends), compared to the usual 50-55%. 

It's not great, although Disney will easily make up the money in distribution deals down the line for streaming and TV rentals (unless they decide to make it exclusive to that Netflix competitor they're building). "Solo, coming to an FX 7:30 PM Friday Slot near you!"

[felice]

2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

As said in the post above, they essentially had to shoot the movie twice.  Yes there are car ads and mobile phone ads and what not.... they do not  add up to the advertising budget of a hollywood big budget movie.  Everything I've read and such points to a blockbuster generally doubling its budget due to advertising.  So Solo didn't just cost 250 million, it cost roughly 500 million. 

Would they have doubled it's actual budget with reshoot costs included, or just the original budget? I wouldn't expect needing to spend a fortune on reshoots would make them want to spend more on advertising, and there seems to be a general feeling that it was insufficiently promoted.

[mormont]

13 hours ago, Spaßvogel said:

It's actually a little sad that the movie to be hit by the opening weekend fan boycott was this one. 

Don't be sad. Of all the factors affecting the box office take for Solo, I guarantee the 'fan boycott' was way down the list. I hadn't even realised there was a fan boycott of this movie.

The people organising and participating in these boycotts can't accept that they are a tiny, tiny minority with no influence and no real awareness that they even exist outside of a handful of sites on the internet. 

I think the issue is that most fans just weren't that excited. My gf is a huge, HUGE Star Wars fan. I saw the last three SW films within a day or two after release and saw them all a second time in the theatre before buying them on Blu-Ray. We eventually got around to seeing Solo last Thursday, and we seriously debated going to see Infinity War a second time instead. We are pretty much the audience that should have been queueing up to see this on day 1. But we just weren't excited by anything about this film going in. And coming out, we were both of the opinion that it was 'OK'. Nothing too terrible, nothing great either. Some solid performances, some nice Easter eggs, a serviceable plot: it was fine. It was better than the prequels. But it doesn't hold a candle to any of the OT or the last three releases. It's just... fine. 

[red snow]

4 hours ago, Slurktan said:

As said in the post above, they essentially had to shoot the movie twice.  Yes there are car ads and mobile phone ads and what not.... they do not  add up to the advertising budget of a hollywood big budget movie.  Everything I've read and such points to a blockbuster generally doubling its budget due to advertising.  So Solo didn't just cost 250 million, it cost roughly 500 million.  And merchandising ain't the cash cow it used to be..

Regardless saying "they are only losing profit" is pretty much ridiculous.  No corporation in the world ever says "You know what, we expected to make this much and have made roughly 40% less than what we were expecting.  That's ok  We still might make back it's budget. That's good enough."

I still think "we expect this to make 150 million in the first weekend" and then acting like you've lost 50 million when it makes 100 million is different from it cost this much to make and we got less back than that. I'd say their predictions were far too optimistic.

I don't think the budget doubled but it probably cost another 100 to make. And I'd say that is also the studios fault somehow expecting people to buy more tickets to warrant the extra cost. Especially when reshoots and director changes tend to put people off a film not encourage them to appear.

[Jace, Extat]

Yeah, Jace is so Star Wars she's practically a Jolee Bindo but I ain't gone to see this. It's clear that it isn't the disaster I expected, even the Half in the Bag guys liked it, but I just don't give a fuck about a Han Solo movie. 

Not even one fuck. 

Well, wait. Does bitching that I don't give a fuck giving a fuck? I get so confused by my preemptive fanboy attack rebuttals.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

Yeah, Jace is so Star Wars she's practically a Jolee Bindo but I ain't gone to see this. It's clear that it isn't the disaster I expected, even the Half in the Bag guys liked it, but I just don't give a fuck about a Han Solo movie. 

Not even one fuck. 

Well, wait. Does bitching that I don't give a fuck giving a fuck? I get so confused by my preemptive fanboy attack rebuttals.

You're thinking several steps ahead with your defense of potential come backs

[dbunting]

3 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

Yeah, Jace is so Star Wars she's practically a Jolee Bindo but I ain't gone to see this. It's clear that it isn't the disaster I expected, even the Half in the Bag guys liked it, but I just don't give a fuck about a Han Solo movie. 

Not even one fuck. 

Well, wait. Does bitching that I don't give a fuck giving a fuck? I get so confused by my preemptive fanboy attack rebuttals.

Well i would say that since you have posted multiple times in this thread means that deep, deep, deep down inside; Jaces' inner child wants to see it.

BTW, it isn't a bad movie, it isn't as good as R1, but it's a fun movie.

[Darth Richard II]

I do blame the marketing push a lot for this one. It was way too little too late.

[Jace, Extat]

I fucking loathed Rogue One.

I stormed out of the theater the second the credits rolled.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

14 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

Yeah, Jace is so Star Wars she's practically a Jolee Bindo but I ain't gone to see this. It's clear that it isn't the disaster I expected, even the Half in the Bag guys liked it, but I just don't give a fuck about a Han Solo movie. 

Not even one fuck. 

Well, wait. Does bitching that I don't give a fuck giving a fuck? I get so confused by my preemptive fanboy attack rebuttals.

Yes. Yes it does.

I suspect a lot of people are waiting for the blu ray, which is a shame because its really good on the big screen.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 5/31/2018 at 9:58 AM, felice said:

The prequels are flawed in different ways from TLJ, so it depends what your priorities are. I haven't seen the prequels recently, and I've only seen TLJ once, but a prequel rewatch appeals more. Possibly the Clone Wars TV series building my attachment to the prequel characters is a factor.

And I can't understand why the Clone Wars animated series is so maligned by so many Star Wars fans.  I can say without any hesitation that the Clone Wars animated TV series the the best thing to come from Star Wars since the original trilogy, and that includes Solo which I quite liked and would probably say is the best Star War movie since the originals.

It's quite sad that Solo will be the movie that kills the current overarching strategy. IMO, the anthology movies are fine and it's the numbered main-sequence movies that have lost their way. Solo is being punished for the sins of its immediate predecessors and not succeeding or failing on its own merits, which is unfortunate.

But now that Star Wars has pretty much cleaned house with the major characters of the original movies finally being killed off. Perhaps they will be able to start exploring stories that have noting to do with the original trilogy. Personally, I'd like to see movies set far in the past, when the Jedi was at the peak of its power and influence, but when the rot was just starting to set in and the seeds that resulted in the establishment of the empire being sown. But that would probably mean making the Jedi into the bad guys, because if the Jedi weren't doing dodgy things (or turning a blind eye to the dodgy things the republic was doing) then the Empire would never have arisen.

This Star Wars thing is allegorical of the Roman Republic turning into the Roman Empire, and then turning into the Holy Roman Empire right? So let's look at the Republic for a bit.

[Astromech]

16 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

This Star Wars thing is allegorical of the Roman Republic turning into the Roman Empire, and then turning into the Holy Roman Empire right? So let's look at the Republic for a bit.

Hopefully the Old Republic.

[mcbigski]

Yeah I'm probably going to wait until this one is on for free somewhere.  I have a whole lot of BIG! FRANCHISE!! fatigue.  TLJ was kind of a bloated mess.  Finn was probably my favorite character in TFA, but his storyline was almost totally irrelevant in Ep8.  Rouge One I found surprisingly good after the first half hour or so (where I almost fell asleep) but once it got in gear it was fine.  Probably because all of the protagonists could be one offs.  And maybe I'm sentimental about it because I skipped out of work and the first thing I saw online when I got back to my office was that Carrie Fisher had just died.

But I feel like Solo is basically just going to be checking off a bunch of boxes we know about already.  Han joins the Imperial fleet.  He quits and buddies up with Chewie.  He wins the Falcon in some sort of bet with Lando.  Kessel run.  Not a whole lot of new ground here.

Probably good that this one sort of flopped.  Means that in the long run, Disney will need to tell better stories, instead of just automatically being able to make 9 figures on whatever they extrude twice a year.

[red snow]

10 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I do blame the marketing push a lot for this one. It was way too little too late.

I read an article where some senior film industry person said that was exactly the problem. I guess what happened was they tried to recoup their losses on the reshoots/director change and naively thought "it's star wars, no-one needs to be encouraged" and were utterly wrong. It was also pointed out that the first trailer seemed to be shy of revealing Han as well which could have been interpreted with lack of confidence.

Given it was a film that expanded on things we already knew - this one required more of a push than the episodes did.

[red snow]

6 hours ago, Astromech said:

Hopefully the Old Republic.

I just hope they don't confuse lack of interest in stories set in the recent past isn't confused with "we don't want to see films set in the past where it's a completelely different era and unconnected from exosting star wars characters"

Surely the money is on Benioff and Weiss doing an old republic film franchise?