Solo (Ron Howard & Friends)

[Dukefrukem]

Ouch $83 million opening not including tomorrow of course, but still.

[Pop Trash]

More like NOLO: A STAR WARS BOREY amirite?!


Almost everything about this doesn't work. Bradford Young's cinematography is murky and has a post-apocalyptic brown sheen across everything. All the faces are dimly lit, but not in any interesting Gordon Willis chiaroscuro way, just in an ugly off-kilter way. Ron Howard films everything in uninteresting handheld medium close-ups. The screenplay is heavy on exposition and jargon with very little wit or memorable lines. Ehrenreich and Clarke are mostly bland.

I will say the movie picks-up when Glover as Lando shows up at the halfway point. I also really liked the Robot Justice Warrior that is L3-37. Her describing the relationship with Lando is the only time I laughed in this laborious movie. Oh and the cameo of a certain fan-fave character towards the end was cool and unexpected.

Mostly, I sat there wishing I was watching THE LAST JEDI for the third time. Now that's cinema!

[Dead & Messed Up]

What was this movie?

Was it anything?

I don't think it was anything, but I'm not sure.

This is so confusing.

But I really don't think this movie was anything. I think it was one thing, and then another thing happened, and then another thing happened, but also nothing happened, and then it was over.

[Pop Trash]

But I really don't think this movie was anything. I think it was one thing, and then another thing happened, and then another thing happened, but also nothing happened, and then it was over.

It seems specifically made for people to fall asleep to when it winds-up as a programmer for TNT to play on Saturdays at 2PM.

[Dead & Messed Up]

More like NOLO: A STAR WARS BOREY amirite?!

Almost everything about this doesn't work. Bradford Young's cinematography is murky and has a post-apocalyptic brown sheen across everything. All the faces are dimly lit, but not in any interesting Gordon Willis chiaroscuro way, just in an ugly off-kilter way. Ron Howard films everything in uninteresting handheld medium close-ups. The screenplay is heavy on exposition and jargon with very little wit or memorable lines. Ehrenreich and Clarke are mostly bland.

I will say the movie picks-up when Glover as Lando shows up at the halfway point. I also really liked the Robot Justice Warrior that is L3-37. Her describing the relationship with Lando is the only time I laughed in this laborious movie. Oh and the cameo of a certain fan-fave character towards the end was cool and unexpected.

Mostly, I sat there wishing I was watching THE LAST JEDI for the third time. Now that's cinema!

I agree with all of this. I also think it's super-weird that now it's canon that

[

Show Spoiler

the Millennium Falcon's navigational system consists of the leftover brain of Lando's former robot lover; he loved enough to risk death in the battlefield to save her life, but with enough distance that pulling out her robot innards was emotionally possible two minutes later.

]

Like... what?!

[Scar]

A one letter change to the title could have made this movie more interesting.

[Ivan Drago]

What was this movie?

Was it anything?

I don't think it was anything, but I'm not sure.

This is so confusing.

It was the 'Pan' and 'Fantastic Beasts' of the Star Wars franchise.

As much as I loved the cinematography of the space battles, Donald Glover as Lando and a select few callbacks to the original trilogy, the rest of it was just a boring slog. It goes to interesting places but is full of flat dialogue and unengaging characters. It even tries to replicate the bare minimum of Lord/Miller style banter but failed miserably. Why couldn't this have been a one-off about Solo and Chewie on a straightforward mission rather than another ensemble to follow?

That said, I will admit I was one of those people that marked out for the cameo at the end.

[transmogrifier]

Better than TLJ (not difficult) but still not very good. It is just a series of generic heists and Solo proving he is a good guy in the end that only serves to weaken his eventual arc in the OT. The very definition of a film made purely to cash in on nostalgia with no compelling reason to exist otherwise.

[transmogrifier]

Ehrenreich would have been fine if he was playing an original character, but his voice is just too reedy to be Han Solo - even time he opens his mouth, my brain was just yelling at the screen “That’s not Han!”

[TGM]

Did they shoehorn in an R2 and 3PO cameo like they did in Rogue One? Or is this officially the first movie where those two don't appear at all?

[Dukefrukem]

Did they shoehorn in an R2 and 3PO cameo like they did in Rogue One? Or is this officially the first movie where those two don't appear at all?

No thank God. It wouldn't have made any sense.

[Morris Schæffer]

I was ready to say this movie was easier to swallow than The Last Jedi, which I thought was good, not great, but I'm coming around to this. TLJ may have bothered me more since it is the continuation of the main saga, but there's no way Solo is better, more engaging.

[Neclord]

Eh, I kinda liked it. It had a little more pop than Rogue One.

[Dukefrukem]

I probably would have YAYed this if I didn't YAY Rogue One. So I needed to balance out the universe and make up for my mistake.

[transmogrifier]

This is the “best” of the new gen. SW films, but that is a very relative term:

Solo - 58
Rogue One - 56
TFA - 55
TLJ - 45

[Dead & Messed Up]

This is the “best” of the new gen. SW films, but that is a very relative term:

Solo - 58
Rogue One - 56
TFA - 55
TLJ - 45

Your rating system always makes me smile.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Something about this film that's really been weirding me out on reflection, and I'm not sure how to make sense of it:

[

Show Spoiler

The whole subplot with Lando's droid freaks me out the more I think about it. Like, it's straight-up horrifying and thematically whack. First off, let's ignore the idea of romance between the two of them and admit that L3 and Lando are close friends - Lando feels enough affection for L3 to race out into the middle of a battlefield to try and save her "life" (such as it is). And then about 30 seconds after she dies in his arms, pitiably, the emotion played as legitimate drama and sadness, Lando agrees that they have to rip out her machine brain and plug it into the Falcon's computer.

So... fuck me, this is emotionally weird.

So I'll now not only ignore the romance and even the friendship between them, and let's unpack the following: L3 is a droid that considers herself liberated, imagines equal relationships with humans (she daydreams about getting it from Lando), and creates a "diversion" that quickly escalates into L3 patterning herself as a heroic liberator of droid slaves. This ties into the overall character theme of the story: searches for freedom. Han, Qira, Chewie, and L3 all yearn for freedom, chase it down, try to give it to others whenever they can. (You can even say that Han's repeatedly stated desire to be a pilot is really just a different way of expressing this yearning.)

And then Lando and Han decide that they need to take what remains of L3's sentience and plug it into an immobile object (a spaceship she cannot control, only provide navigational direction to), where she will now be stuck for the rest of the saga and presumably the rest of her "life," again, such as it is.

This is giving L3 the EXACT OPPOSITE of what she wanted, which is coincidentally THE SAME THING THE HEROES WANT. Their lack of empathy for L3 is mind-boggling. This all could've been avoided if L3 had a duplicate of her coding or something, like a final gift. Maybe there would've been a savvy way for her to express this gift on those dramatic terms - giving the characters the freedom they want in a sense. And hell, fusing the earlier idea about being a pilot / being free in a more concrete way. By making their spaceship the best possible one in the galaxy, she's giving them the greatest opportunity for freedom. But she has no say in it. And she never will, and she can't. On the bright side, now we know why 3PO has issues with the Falcon's computer in EMPIRE. Thanks, SOLO. We now know it's because the Falcon is imprisoning a dispossessed robot revolutionary WHAT THE FUCK.

]

[Morris Schæffer]

Are you overthinking it? [

Show Spoiler

L3 was a goner, scrapheap-material, but thanks to Lando she now has a new lease of life, living as part of the Millenium Falcon. That's not bad either is it? And if she really loved Lando, then it's thanks to her they made it out alive. Would she have objected to the events after her demise? Maybe, but I can just as easily see that she would agree it was the best solution.

]

[Dead & Messed Up]

Are you overthinking it? [

Show Spoiler

L3 was a goner, scrapheap-material, but thanks to Lando she now has a new lease of life, living as part of the Millenium Falcon. That's not bad either is it? And if she really loved Lando, then it's thanks to her they made it out alive. Would she have objected to the events after her demise? Maybe, but I can just as easily see that she would agree it was the best solution.

]

"I can just as easily see that she would agree it was the best solution."

The fact that she didn't make that choice, though, sorta sums up the problem to me. She's denied that autonomy. And the story could've given her that choice, and it would've meant everything to her.

[Morris Schæffer]

Ok, gotcha. I will say that would have made for a powerful moment indeed.

[Gizmo]

I'll give this the same review I gave to the guys at work when they found out I saw it already: It's as average as the other movies I've seen in theaters recently (Deadpool 2, Infinity Wars, A Quiet Place). Entertaining enough to keep me engaged, but nothing to write home about.

[Milky Joe]

Better than TLJ

bwahaha

[transmogrifier]

bwahaha

Well, TLJ is a piece of crap, so it's not something Solo can necessarily brag about....

[Ezee E]

I had low expectations after Last Jedi, and came out liking it. Definitely didn't have any eye-roll moments like Last Jedi, and that includes the cameo. The cameo works, even as fan service, because it's a position of power that influences Kira. I may not understand it, but I don't need to either.

I like the ragtag team here, and Glover as Lando really makes it step up. His voice almost sounds like Lando at times.

If anything, the character creation is a little boring, and the cinematography doesn't seem like Star Wars, but that's picking it apart.

Heist and chase scenes all worked for me, and I believed in the Kira/Solo love story far more than anything we had from Last Jedi.

By the way, I figured Lando just had a Chewbacca/Solo relationship with that droid. In no way do I think he was actually in love with it, despite what the droid said.

Really figured the "cameo" would've been Boba Fett wrecking hell at the end.

[Milky Joe]

Glover's Lando impression was more distracting than anything. Alden's Solo impression was amateurish. Thandie Newton was utterly wasted.

Dopey shoehorned cameo at the end.

Really ugly cinematography.

Kira's character was also obviously expanded into a more 'important' (and unbelievable) role after the original scripts had her as a 2D femme fatale. Surprised the anti-SJW crowd aren't going after this movie like they did with TLJ.

Pure mediocrity through and through - what's not to love?

Chewie was the best part. Now I want a movie about Chewie's upbringing.