SOLO: A Spoiler Story (contains spoilers)

[Werthead]

Just got back from seeing this. Highly enjoyable and I thought it was quite good fun to see the movie saying, "Hi, the TV shows are f***ing canon and if you haven't seen them, you're really not going to see the ending coming, and go see them because they are awesome." But it worked really well beyond that, fresh and breezy with a real sense of what makes Star Wars Star Wars: pulpy space adventure without so much of the Jedi and the laser swords and other stuff that's cool but we've seen too much of.

The Good: most of the movie. The pacing is good (up until the end), the actors are all solid (Ehrenreich) to very good (Clarke) to outstanding (Harrelson, Glover, Bettany), and the movie doesn't let up for a moment. Also, lots of use of real sets, stunts and actors, relatively minimal use of CGI outside the obvious space battle and travel set-pieces. You could probably guess Qi'ra's story arc (as a Solo motivational tool) from the outset and the fact it goes in a completely different direction is excellent. Also, lots of Expanded Universe shout-outs and the fact it nods to the previous version of Kessel in Kevin J. Anderson's terrible novels without actually reminding you of those novels, which is impressive going.

The Bad: the ending goes on a little too long, although fortunately this is mostly taken up by acting-based scenes of characters one-upping and double-crossing one another rather than lots of tedious fight scenes. The actual "final battle" is restrained. More tiresomely, the film sets up a sequel a bit too obviously, but I'd quite like to see that (moreso if Kasdan Snr. is writing it), so not too much of a problem.

Ranking: better than the prequels (obviously), The Last Jedi and probably Rogue One. Maybe knocking around the level of The Force Awakens in quality, possibly a bit higher because whilst The Force Awakens never surprises the viewer, Solo actually does a few times.

[AndrewJ]

For me, both Force Awakens and Last Jedi had their problems - but they also had their awesome parts. Solo doesn't suffer from the lows of those two movies, but neither does it ever reach their highs. It's just a solid, fun, enjoyable movie.

Oh... And I didn't really buy Woody Harrelson betraying Vision at the end there. The whole movie he'd been wanting to return the fuel to get his big pay out. So, right at the end, when he's likely earmed himself even more of a reward by betraying Han, he.. what... decides to take the fuel to get a big payout somewhere else and have Vision out to kill him. Why not just take his huge reward from Bettany?

(And yeah... I can't rcall the characters' names. Jim something-or-other and... Dreisden?)

[YoungGriff89]

Just got back from watching the movie. A few thoughts, don't read if you don't want spoilers.
 

Spoiler

 

If I had to rank it on a scale of 1-10, it's a solid 7.  The performances are actually pretty good, Alden Ehrenreich does a fantastic job.  Paul Bettany is good as a villain, but he wasn't in the movie as much as I thought he would be.  Emilia Clarke's character was pretty unremarkable but she sold it.  I really enjoyed Woody Harrelson's performance even if it was a little reminiscent of other characters he's played in other movies.  I'm actually really impressed by how different L3-37 is from K2SO.  My big concern was her just being a female version of the same token droid character we've already seen in a spinoff and I was pleasantly surprised.

I know George Lucas had his own prequel tie in for Han's backstory (Han living among the Wookiees most of his life) but I have to say I prefer the route Disney has taken.  I'm not too familiar with Han's background in the EU but it seems like it was adapted pretty closely in this movie.  Han being some kind of former imperial officer, rescuing Chewie from imprisonment, the Kessel run being some kind of tricky route through a cluster of black holes, etc.  That's the gist of what I know from the EU and that's all here in one form or another.  Some of the bigger twists you could see coming a mile away, but there were some smaller twists that legitimately surprised me (Enfys Nest's true agenda/ Darth Maul showing up). 

Ron Howard's directing is quite fluid, but the pacing of the movie is pretty messy.  I don't know how much of that is the result of two different directing teams (Howard, Lord and Miller) and how much is the result of cramming so much into two hours.  It is a packed movie, I would argue there's too much going on.  I think I remember an article saying Paul Bettany's character was originally a henchman of the main villain, and the actor playing the main villain couldn't do reshoots under Ron Howard's direction so some re-writing made Bettany the main villain.  His appearance is kind of weird, there are times when he doesn't give off the main villain vibe, and you're not really sure why everyone is so afraid of him and I think that comes from a blend of original footage and reshoots.  

Now, if you're skeptical about this movie about the whole "droid rights" thing or Lando's pansexuality, then stop worrying so much about getting triggered by the movie.  The droid rights thing is something blown way out of proportion, it's presented in the movie as more of a joke that Lando goes along with rather than some legitimate agenda he's helping to push.  Lando's sexuality doesn't come up at all, no there's no indication he's fucking his droid or every alien creature he comes across.  It's a totally unnecessary movie, and I have to also dock points from it for that.  It's not great, but it's a good movie. Definitely not deserving of the hatred it's gotten so far. I'd really recommend watching Solo before you make your mind up about it.

 

 

[dbunting]

I thought it was a pretty good movie but it felt a little long. Like Rogue One this one didn't seem to pander to little kids like the main series does.

I thought the acting was good enough, nothing stood out as being great or bad to me. 

I loved the fact that it wasn't full of CGI. To me that is what helped ruin the prequels. They have no "soul" because 90% of what you see isn't real. 

There were a few surprises like who I assume was Darth Maul showing up at the end as Crimson whatever his name was, the turning on of his light saber was just pandering, everyone knew immediately who he was. Him appearing sets the time frame for this movie too, if that was in fact Darth Maul. Didn't expect Qira (?) to be in with Crimson guy so that was also a surprise.

Loved the obvious nod to "did Solo shoot first"...yes, yes he did.

 

[Crazydog7]

They have been saying that behind the scenes the film was having script/rewrite problem and that is really the Achilles heel here.  Its not that the film is necessarily bad because there are more then a few cool parts what stifles the potential is that the film actually feels like three smaller films written by three different competing teams of writers and then sort of unconvincingly cobbled together.  The result being that none of the three competing films feels complete or fleshed out which is awful because if they had just picked a story line the film could have been something really cool.  The star of the film is actually Donald Glover Disney needs to sign him on for more Star Wars film projects like now.  I did like that they had Warrick Davis in there at the very end. 

[Slurktan]

Didn't even see the spoiler thread....

It's passable.  Everything in it is extremely predictable even Maul. As soon as Paul Bettany mentioned his higher up it would have to have been either Maul or Shadows of the Empire dude who isn't re-canoned yet so had to be Maul.  Although I guess this is supposed to be what Maul did in between the end of Clone Wars and Rebels.  I'm guessing the hinted at sequel (although I'd say doubtful if projections are right)  will have Han thwarting him while working for Jabba thus making him Old man Maul from Rebels.  Making yet another paint by numbers movie.

The Droid was pretty terrible and pointless, the story would not change at all if she wasn't in the movie.  Emilia Clarke continues to be one of the worst actresses on film and tv.  Harrelson was solid,  The only non predictable thing to me was something that wasn't in the film IE Boba Fett.  I'd guess that would be for a sequel where Han is working for Jabba.

Still I thought the rapport between Han and Chewie was spot on and Lando was great.  So it did the things I wanted it to do. I guess a low bar.

EDIT:  I forgot, I thought it was really pretty terrible that they had Han basically bankroll the Rebellion.  Like actually fucking terrible.  They even had dude from Rogue One there getting his cash (Not Forest Whitaker, Alien dude who sort of looks like Jedi Plo Koon)

EDIT 2: I also didn't like the way they had Han save Chewie.  Like saving him from a mud wrestling pit (where Chewie apparently ate humans WTF?) is enough for Chewie to give up his family for 60 years?

EDIT 3 : Last one I promise.  I loved that the Imperial March is an in-universe song used to help recruit people to fight for the Empire.

[Crazydog7]

I will say that the movie's take on how Han got the name "Solo" was pretty cool.  And the recruitment officer seemed to be a decent enough sort for an Imperial.  

[RhaenysBee]

Oh there’s the spoiler thread I’ve been looking for. 

Oh god. This was... not good. The trailer looked so promising and yet the movie itself turned out to be mediocre, at best. It was basically 60% meh, 30% omfg why and 10% aww that’s adorable. It managed to create tension for a full 3 minutes when they were trying to escape the gravity pit. The other 133 minutes were either predictable or boring or plainly bad or predictable AND plainly bad. I checked my phone for the time twice. 

Young Han, though the actor did a passable job grasping the cockiness of Harrison Ford, was out of character way too often and there was no arch or turning point that would direct his character development toward the Solo we know and love. 

Chewie was sweet, Lando was kinda meh, Rio was a pleasant and disappointingly short lived pop of color on the character palette, we essentially learned nothing about QiRa and Vos was a feeble joke for a villain. The only enjoyable character in terms of both acting and writing was Woody Harrelson. 

If I had to pick one of the many lowest points, it would probably be when the smuggler competition took off his Sauron mask to reveal a doe-eyed, victimized teenager who is only fighting for the greater good. An honorable mention is when Han freaking Solo trying to convince someone to give away a load of cash they risked their necks for, because... aforementioned teenager who had previously almost got them killed and who they had know for 5 minutes had such a touching story and good cause? The most un-Solo-like thing I could ever imagine. The high point of the movie was definitely when that ridiculous droid was finally sliced in half. Ugh god.

And I’m still allergic to franchise blockbusters trying to convey messages about social agendas. Especially if they attempt to jam pack five of those into one star wars movie, which I watch - shocker- for its universe, characters, storyline and action scenes, rather than a lecture about social issues. If a cause is important to you and you want to incorporate it into your work as an artist, 100% do so. Just be an artist. Embed it into the context, be subtle and don’t shove it down my throat, so it might even work and won’t immediately trigger my reverse psychology. 

I did enjoy Rio, Chewie and Han’s friendship, Emilia Clarke’s hairstyles, the references to previous Star Wars movies (minus the aged Darth Maul - aren’t there imperial botox salons anyway?), Woody Harrelson and... the Corelia space airport scene... and... yeah. 

-just my humble opinion that nobody needs to agree with. I just needed to let out the disappointment rage. 

[RumHam]

I like that the spin-off movies are so willing to embrace the cartoons. I just don't see how you use Maul in a Solo sequel. Han doesn't believe in the force in the original movie. Having him encounter Maul would be really weird, in my opinion. 

[Joe Pesci]

I rather enjoyed this film. My expectations weren't high, but that's my going rate for just about anything these days. I'd go see it again in the theater without a doubt. 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

I like that the spin-off movies are so willing to embrace the cartoons. I just don't see how you use Maul in a Solo sequel. Han doesn't believe in the force in the original movie. Having him encounter Maul would be really weird, in my opinion. 

Does he have to get involved with Maul himself though? Or do they just have Jabba the Hutt and Qi'ra in common? 

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

Does he have to get involved with Maul himself though? Or do they just have Jabba the Hutt and Qi'ra in common? 

You're right, but it's still kinda limiting, no? Han can't learn too much about the nature of Maul, and Qi'ra is the only one who can die. 

[Nictarion]

I liked it. Not great, but certainly not bad. Kept me entertained throughout. The entire cast was solid, and seeing Chewie get so much screen time was worth the price of admission alone. Ron Howard deserves a lot of credit for salvaging a pretty decent movie. 

I read C-3PO was supposed to be in it but I missed him can anyone tell me what scene he was in? 

[Aemon Stark]

Just came back from seeing this. 

While it was kind of fun, this movie was something of a disaster in execution. It shows a lot of evidence of production and writing problems and above all being rushed. The highlights were some of world-building details like the Corelia spaceport scene and the brief thing with the Imperial recruiter (though the Solo name origin bit was all too cute) and Donald Glover. He completely pulled off Lando, almost emulating Billy Dee Williams voice. I also liked all the little EU callbacks like sabacc and Kessel and the like. The idea of big crime syndicates that seem heavily embedded with the Empire (all those officers at Vision's party) was pretty interesting too. 

Unfortunately, I thought the Solo actor was utterly unconvincing and he looked far too old for the part. Ehrenreich almost seems older than Ford in A New Hope (certainly his face is more creased). It's jarring and weird. If his appearance weren't a problem, his performance is still problematic. There was far too much smirking. Nothing about it seemed natural. But then he also had no real narrative or emotional arc to work with. He's a cocky orphan who becomes a cocky soldier (what happened at the Academy??) who becomes a cocky smuggler I guess. But I didn't buy any of it, didn't feel like anything had any real stakes, and felt almost no tension about anything about his character or his emotions. 

That's a big problem. He's the main character. The title character! Yet I don't feel we really figure out anything about Han here other than how he got his name. His relationship with Qi'ra feels underwritten and I found myself uninterested in their relationship even from that opening scene - little to no chemistry between Clarke and Ehrenreich and they never have any "normal" moments in which to show more about their time together. 

I thought Emilia Clarke was okay, but her range is kinda limited and it shows. This would have been less of an issue had her character been better written. It would have been way more interesting to *see* some of the apparently ruthless/terrible stuff she did to survive. Instead she talked about it repeatedly and then killed Vision (who I did kinda like simply because Paul Bettany is capable of doing a lot with little) as if we'd seen prior evidence of her as a true femme fatale. 

Everyone else was fine. I liked Chewie and Harrelson - even if his character was an inconsistent mess - and I was surprised that they killed off Harrelson's friends to early on (Thandie Newton didn't get to do much at all sadly). I still didn't feel much tension about anything. The reveal about the Marauders was fairly bizarre and random. Didn't work for me at all. L3 wasn't bad as a droid character but was kinda too ridiculous for me to take seriously at all. 

I never watched Clone Wars so I actually had no idea that Darth Maul was still alive through some harebrained explanation. (The Internet told me after the fact.) Buddy was cut in half in an almost comical fashion and careened down a classic Star Wars exhaust shaft. Maybe his resurrection could be sold in animated fashion but in a live action film I thought it was RIDICULOUS. And since I didn't and don't have any interest in watching Clone Wars it made for a fairly laughable ending. But at least there was a little callback to "Duel of the Fates" and the relevant Williams music for that scene. 

But that brings me to my last complaint: the music. I like John Powell but I can only assume that this movie was almost entirely temp-tracked with pre-existing Star Wars music. The whole Kessel/Maw sequence was comprised of direct reprises of the "Asteroid Field" and "Here They Come" cues from Empire and A New Hope, respectively. A bit of reuse is okay but it's sad that (evidently) there wasn't time even to write/record something halfway original. Otherwise Powell just used existing themes haphazardly throughout the rest of the movie - the rebel motif without the presence of any rebels, Luke's theme without Luke. I'm not always a fan of Giacchino but he did good work with Rogue One. Williams's themes are leitmotifs and as such relate to specific characters and specific moments, but they're used without any care here. Very disappointing. I'm sure this reflects time constraints more than anything else, but it's inexcusable all the same. But I did like the kinda major Imperial March for that recruiting video. 

@Werthead

I'm surprised you liked this as much as you did! I'd certainly put this one welllllll below Rogue One (which I like best of all the newer ones). It gains some points over the new trilogy instalments with nice world-building details but really fails at any kind of emotional core or compelling character arcs. I suppose it's better than Episodes I and II, but Revenge of the Sith worked on an emotional level that Solo absolutely faltered on. Episode III is fairly flawed but generally earns its self-seriousness. 

I give it two Picard facepalms out of five (though Picard would argue there were only ever four possible facepalms). 

[felice]

5 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Buddy was cut in half in an almost comical fashion and careened down a classic Star Wars exhaust shaft. Maybe his resurrection could be sold in animated fashion but in a live action film I thought it was RIDICULOUS.

 

Nope, it's ridiculous and glossed over in the animated series too. But he's used well in the TV shows, so I can forgive it. And I enjoyed his surprise cameo in Solo.

Overall, while there are certainly ways the film could have been better, nothing about it struck me as especially awful, and it was a thoroughly entertaining couple of hours - which puts it above any Star Wars film since Return of the Jedi.

If I wanted to nitpick, 12 parsecs is nearly 40 lightyears, so basing the film around retconning a forty-year-old science mistake and getting it wrong again was perhaps not the smartest move.

[RumHam]

19 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Unfortunately, I thought the Solo actor was utterly unconvincing and he looked far too old for the part. Ehrenreich almost seems older than Ford in A New Hope (certainly his face is more creased). It's jarring and weird.

You know one day there's gonna be a "special edition" where they use AI to put Ford's face on him. Fans will probably do it as soon as the blu-ray comes out. 

[Nictarion]

41 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

I read C-3PO was supposed to be in it but I missed him can anyone tell me what scene he was in? 

Never mind. Just found the answer online. Apparently Anthony Daniels made a cameo, but not as 3PO. 

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, felice said:

Nope, it's ridiculous and glossed over in the animated series too. But he's used well in the TV shows, so I can forgive it. And I enjoyed his surprise cameo in Solo.

Yup, Darth Maul's resurrection in Clone Wars is extremely implausible, but they sold it really well by having him suffering from severe PTSD over it, for years, and then the rest of his story arc (which ended in Rebels) was really good, so no issues with that.

Because Rebels ended his storyline, I think his involvement in any sequel will be very much behind the scenes, possible with Qi'ra and Jabba as the main villains. He may get another cameo but that will be it. As someone else pointed out, they can also have the Obi-Wan movie re-depict the final confrontation between Obi-Wan and Maul from Rebels.

[Corvinus85]

I quite enjoyed it. I thought the acting was solid throughout, and it had a pretty good plot, straightforward, but also with the twists you expect from a heist movie. It's a good mix of lighthearted adventure and grim story telling that has started to characterize the new movies.

Alden Ehrenreich bounced between really becoming Han and being some other guy playing Ford's role. He sold me in the scene when he pretends a rock is a thermal detonator, but in other scenes he was just passable. Donald Glover was also mostly good as Lando, too, though his voice seemed to be inconsistent, at times sounding a lot like Billy Dee Williams, other times only like Glover. I am not ready to jump on the bandwagon that declares we should have a Lando movie.

There was little or no character development for pretty much everyone, but there was some nice fleshing out of known characters. I thought that Lando's last scene with L3 was endearing, and I liked how they showed that Han always had that hero streak in him, he was just trying to repress it.

The various throwbacks and connections to the at large universe were well done. As someone who has watched both of the canon animated shows, Maul's appearance was great. Best part about it was that they kept that connection with the shows alive by having Sam Witwer voice the character. On the other hand, it was completely unnecessary to show his lightsaber. Between that, and Qi'ra vs Vos fight, it shows that Star Wars simply can't go without a bit of lightsaberish stuff in a cinematic story.

While this movie is somewhat inconsequential, certainly not having the gravitas of the main trilogies, I think it fits well with how the canon has been developing. There were times when I felt I was watching one of those extended plot archs in Rebels. Corellia had a very Lothal-like feeling. There was a good mix of new and old alien races throughout the movie. The galactic conflict was mainly just alluded to, and didn't take center stage. I think that battle we see on Minbar (?) is just a conquest campaign by the Empire, they were not fighting the Rebels. I actually loved all those scenes, showing the down and dirty theater of war.

My main complaint was that the movie wasn't lighted well, and thank God for having the final arc on a sunny beach and in Vos's quarters, because the rest was too dark. 

I also felt that the presence of the Imperial star destroyer at Kessel wasn't necessary; it was just an excuse to have another TIEs chasing the Falcon scene. The famous run already had a good reason behind it in the form of the unstable fuel.

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, felice said:

If I wanted to nitpick, 12 parsecs is nearly 40 lightyears, so basing the film around retconning a forty-year-old science mistake and getting it wrong again was perhaps not the smartest move.

I don't know why that's a mistake. The movie shows that to get to Kessel you need to get out of lightspeed, navigate through the maelstrom a bit, then go into lightspeed again. (It may be multiple short jumps) All in all a distance of 20 parsecs. Han takes a shortcut, therefore doing it in 12. After they escape the gravity well, the Falcon goes to lightspeed, but they were still in the maelstrom.