Thandie Newton was absolutely wasted. I'll agree with that.
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Thandie Newton was absolutely wasted. I'll agree with that.
The thing about Thandie Newton's character is [] Just a sloppy, silly, cliche, lazy bit and resolution for a promising character, and in what otherwise might be the most engaging action sequence of the movie!
I still have no idea what I think about this movie overall. Maybe my expectations were so low that I was happily surprised I mostly enjoyed it in the moment, but now so much of it just lingers in my head in frustrating ways. I really do like the idea of a strong story being told in the Star Wars universe that isn't a massive, tide-shifting Episode, but on the other end of the spectrum, we have this, and I'm not sure this is anything but inessential and time-passing, which is such a bummer of a turn of events from the excitement of the movies being back just a few years ago.
It feels like a fun, extremely expensive TV pilot for a series that didn't/won't get picked up. My only hope with the awkward and confusing choice of the ending cameo is that they find a way to connect it to [] But now I'm just mad that Star Wars may now have to make those kind of sub-level MCU-style choices at all.
I swear in the first sequence where Han finds Qi'ra in the tunnels (at least in how it was projected for me) looked like it had a fluidity like it was shot at 48 frames or more at certain points. Like, I understand that even if you need to do that to compensate for the dark environment on set, but how on a movie like this isn't there some work done to it in post to try to pull down the frames artificially? It was an unpleasant flashback to digital cinematography from the turn of the decade.
And the thing is Bradford Young is usually reliably strong with his cinematography (A Most Violent Year, Pariah, and Ain't Them Bodies Saints, especially). I just wonder if by the time he was shooting most of these scenes the second time around, Howard was giving him less or more passive direction in that area, or if it's simply a situation of "The bigger the movie, the less time you have" made only worse by the time constraints of re-shooting 70% of a movie, and shooting it just passably enough to make those days.
Yeah, definitely feels like there was a CGI-haze/fog/darkness to it to cover up, but after it left Corellia, I didn't have too much offense to it.
As it resonates, I'm much more fine with a singular story focusing on one character. If this were to happen for Obi-Wan's time between III and IV, I'd be fine with that. If it were about Boba Fett, I would definitely be into that too. I figure Obi-Wan was mostly reclusive, and most figured he was probably dead by the time IV comes around. McGregor is still 14 years younger than Alec Guinness at New Hope age.
I had fun with this. Not gonna die on Solo mountain defending it or anything, but for a movie with so much behind the scenes strife I think it turned out pretty decent. The ending cameo worked for me more than I thought it would from descriptions.
Solid and fun, but nothing too memorable. Oh well.
More taken with the location designs and cinematography than I expected. Some too dim scenes asides this is one gorgeous, tangible Star Wars. I almost liked the genre hotpot of derring-do heist and twisty noir too if they're mixed a little better; the half-hearted, almost-but-not-quite comedic tone dilutes both aspects at long stretches. The film is not committed to being light enough or weighty enough, so the story comes off fast-moving but unmemorable.
Fascinating though to think of the differences, maybe perceived from my own end, between the main entries and anthology ones. Even the best of the Episodes traffic in larger-than-life personalities that never feel as real as the people in these two. The (underrated imo) Rogue One team may be weak on individual characterization but their scrappy dispensability as a whole feels weighty, especially when it comes to that stirring climax (and this point is underlined in the last Vader scene).
Meanwhile, Solo's vivid characters are its strongest point, feeling like real little people struggling in the cracks and shadows of the saga's main lore (Quite shrewd having Ehrenreich and his character still developing, not yet on the way to that irreplicable larger-than-life Han), so the way the film dovetails several arcs in the home stretch becomes quite resonating for me, terrible cameo asides. And it may help explains why this has the most complex, fascinating female character in the entire Star Wars series. Everyone was good here -- Glover's role is more minor than I expected, but charisma oozes and sparks fly immediately with his appearance, and he plays off so well with both Ehrenreich and that damn great robot -- but it turns out I will be interested in that maybe sequel mostly for Clarke's character. 6.5/10
Way imperfect, but I had fun with it. Liked Rogue One and Last Jedi better.
I'm sure Disney has draconian NDAs for all their movies, but I'd be very curious if Bradford Young ever lets the cat out of the bag as to what hell was going on with the 'look' of this film. I would not be surprised if someone at Disney (Kathleen Kennedy?) had all of the footage color corrected during post production in that sepia brown murk to keep a uniform look between Ron Howard and the other guys' footage. I'm not even convinced this is Bradford Young's doing, but it might be, who knows with this production, but if it wasn't him, I'd be pissed if I were Bradford Young since he's going to be the one blamed for how murky this looks.
Hahahah you're so wacky.
I was surprised how awful this is. It's amateurish and poorly done to a surprising extent. The main problem is the actors. Ehrenreich is awful and uncharismatic, which is why they surrounded him with such a large ensemble cast, I suppose. Clarke is also pretty bland. So all that's left to care about are the supporting characters, which are OK, I guess. Glover does a fine imitation of Lando. The cinematography is surprisingly dark to an uncomfortable extent and the editing is also jumpy and clumsy. This one should have been revised a bit more or maybe even shelved altogether.
Ugh, this was awful.
Now that I've seen it, I'm inclined to believe the rumors that were swirling during production, that Ehrenreich was doing so poorly that they needed to hire an on-set acting coach.
He was terrible. And I'm not meaning in comparison to Ford, or how "accurate" his portrayal of Solo is. He was just terrible all round. A charisma black hole from which no likeability or excitement can possibly escape. This movie was ruined the second he was cast in the lead.
On top of that, the repetitive shtick of having origin stories for every piece of Han's outfit was both boring and cringey. Here's how he got his blaster! Here's how he got his jacket! Here's how he got his NAME. And every one was lame.
Some awful effects work, terrible lighting, a story I could not have cared less about.
Congratulations, Disney. Over the course of 3 years you raised Star Wars back up to its original heights, then dropped it lower than it has ever been.
Most impressive.