Tuesday, May 29, 2018

A Review and Criticism of Solo: A Star Wars Story


Hey, everyone

Last Thursday I went to the premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story, so I decided to write a criticism and review of it. If you're one of those types who doesn't want to read the whole review, I'll sum up my review right here: better than expected, but still doesn't meet its potential or the legacy of Star Wars. 4 out of 10.

But if you'd like to know more about the movie, what I liked and what I didn't, then let's go through it. I'm not going to do a synopsis or summary of the plot, but there will be spoilers. So let's begin by looking at the characters.

Characters

1. Han


Han Solo is played Alden Ehrenreich. Other than his name, I don't know much about him. So what was he like as Han? Well, he wasn't Han. Any time I was reminded of the fact that he was supposed to be Han, my dislike for the movie increased because he just isn't Han.

Harrison Ford's Han Solo is a laid-back and experienced character. He might be brash at times, displaying more balls than brains, but Ford's Han was never overcompensating, as if trying too hard to impress everyone. Ford was balanced and exact; Ehrenreich isn't.

Some may argue that the Han we see in Solo is supposed to be that way because this is a story of how Han became Han, but I just don't see the two characters aligning. The only times I liked Ehrenreich in this role was when I forgot he was Han, and that's not good.

2. Chewbacca


Chewie is Chewie. You can't really screw him up. I did however find it ridiculous that Han had to speak Wookie in order for Chewie to stop trying to kill him, which was something else that disturbed me: I don't know what planet they were on, but the Empire had captured Chewie and were keeping him prisoner in a pit, feeding him dissenters and deserters, which I don't believe Chewie or any Wookie would do. I don't believe sentient species would eat other sentients.

But getting back to the other point about Han speaking Wookie, it was pretty dumb since Chewie understands Basic. It was also played off as a joke despite the gravitas of the situation as Chewie tries to drown Han in mud. Not to mention, given Chewie's strength, there's no reason the Empire wouldn't have used him in a capacity to make use of it. And given how easily Chewie actually escaped his imprisonment after Han suggested it to him kind of paints Chewie in a negative light, like is he not intelligent enough to discern his own escape? There were a lot of things wrong with that scene.

3. Lando


Honestly, Donald Glover's Lando Calrissian is one of the better parts of Solo. He's not as smooth or as charming as Billy Dee Williams, but he's not far off. However, Lando is a bit of a dandy in this movie. There's one whole scene that takes place in his closet where his many capes and loud, colorful shirts are hung up. There are three whole racks. At one point, there's a fire on the Falcon, and Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) beats it out with his cape and Lando complains. So I think they went too far with that aspect. True, Lando did own a cape in periwinkle blue in Empire Strikes Back, but he was never a dandy. Fortunately, Jonathan Kasdan's claim that he's pansexual is never brought up by Lando himself or reflected in any of his behaviors.

4. Qi'ra


Qi'ra kind of sucks. Some people blame it on Clark's acting, calling the Queen of Dragons wooden and being the only thing she can do well, but for my siblings and I, we didn't like Qi'ra because there was too much of her in this movie.

It's not surprising that a movie about Han Solo would have a girlfriend for him, as he is a bit of ladies' man, but Qi'ra was so central to the plot of Solo. Her importance as a character was tiresomely overstated, and it wasn't until a terrible eleventh hour plot twist did we find out why. Seriously, everything she did or that revolved around her was "because of plot." Let me explain why.

Solo opens up on Corellia somewhere in the slums where Han has just got his hands on a substance called "coaxium," which is basically spaceship fuel, specifically for hyperspace travel, and it's a controlled substance because the Empire is hoarding it. Han intends to use it as his means to barter for transport off Corellia with his girlfriend Qi'ra. Long story short, Han makes it through the checkpoint and she doesn't. So he joins the Imperial Navy so he can become a pilot and get back to Corellia to save her.

Three years pass and Han is a part of an invading army on another planet. He manages to escape the planet by joining a shyster, Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and his heist crew. They go to the heist, they blow it, and then Han, Chewie, and Beckett go to smooth everything over with the gangster, Dryden Voss (Paul Bettany) who hired them to do the heist. While waiting to see him on his yacht, Han "just so happens" to bump into Qi'ra. This pissed me off because Han is two planets and three years removed from Corellia--what are the chances that he'd meet Qi'ra while she's working for Dryden Voss while Han is working for a space pirate who is working for Dryden?

Going on from there, Qi'ra and Han's relationship is rekindled, and it kind of sucks because she seems more compatible with Han than Leia. That sucks because Han has a kid with Leia and a relationship that spanned 20+ years--if Qi'ra is as actually compatible with Han as she appears to be, why doesn't she end up with Han? I mean, I know why Qi'ra doesn't, but again though, that's "because of plot."

Add to these problems, Qi'ra knew the martial arts Teras Kasi so she could take out Dryden Voss at the end of the movie. And then before the Kessel Run, while they're on Kessel stealing raw coaxium, they cause a scene where they accidentally liberate the mine's droids and slaves. During this scene, the workers who aren't slaves try to re-establish order by shooting the slaves and droids. At one point, Qi'ra comes running out of the Falcon, screaming, and lobs two gigantic grenades in exactly the right places, blowing up men and gun turrets alike. Not only is her timing highly suspect, the combat yell she did came off as awkward and funny, and where did she get those grenades to begin with? Were they just on the Falcon somewhere? And why didn't Lando or anybody else have them when they got off the Falcon?

Basically, everything that Qi'ra is and everything she did was "because plot." She had no agency or free will of her own, which is made abundantly clear when after she kills Dryden, she reports in to the head of the Crimson Dawn, the crime syndicate that Voss is a part of, as the new boss in charge of Dryden's operations.

5. L3-37


Oh, boy; L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). Or should I say, "Leet," as in the hacker language? L3 is easily the worst character in Solo. Her big characteristic is that she champions droid rights. Yes, you read that correctly. Droid rights and equality are her bag. It's actually L3 who starts the diversion on Kessel by removing a restraining bolt from an astromech so she can access a computer terminal. Then at her suggestion, the astromech begins freeing all of its compatriots.

The other problem with L3 is that she's the one to suggest that Lando has a romantic interest in her. Obviously preposterous, or at least, it would be if script writer, Jonathan Kasdan hadn't come out with a tweet a few weeks claiming Lando is a pansexual. Now, because of that, when Qi'ra asks "How would that work?" when L3 says she's considered being in a relationship with Lando, some of us take that to mean "How would he be able to have sex with you?" as opposed to "How would a droid and a human date?" which is what the original joke probably was until Kasdan ruined it.

Add to that, L3 has a long drawn out death scene where Lando nearly gets killed to salvage what's left of her, and then Han nearly gets killed saving him. There are a few problems with this scene:

1. Since L3-37 is a droid, her death is inconsequential. I was rolling my eyes vehemently during the scene because I would've simply ripped her CPU and memory out of her head, installed them in a new droid and--bam!--she's back. After all, when we get new computers, all we do is transfer over our old files and don't blink an eye when throwing away the older model.
2. L3-37 doesn't have the build up nor is she sympathetic enough of a character for us to care about when she gets killed. She's here, she's queer, then she dies, and nobody cares because she hasn't done anything worth liking or praising her for.
3. Those of us who found her extremely annoying and a representation of everything that's wrong with social justice warriors were beyond pleased to see her shot, so her death didn't mean anything to us.

But the problems with L3 don't end there. One thing that you must keep in mind about Star Wars is its timeline. Solo is a prequel to A New Hope, but a sequel to Revenge of the Sith and there's a major galaxy wide event that takes place in Revenge of the Sith. That is the Clone Wars: the war in which the Republic fought the Separatists. For that war the Republic used cloned soldiers whereas the Separatists used... droid soldiers!

To put that into perspective, Solo probably takes place about ten to fifteen years after Revenge of the Sith. If that's true, then most of the galaxy, specifically the civilized parts or the systems that were apart of the old Republic, probably have a deep, ingrained fear or even loathing of droids. The idea that they could be free and equal to sentient species is therefore absolutely terrifying, and makes L3 look worse.

Not to mention, I can't help but wonder what would happen if L3 actually had the time to discuss her political beliefs with the two most popular droids in SW: C-3PO and R2-D2. What do you suppose those two would say to her? I don't think either of them would be hip to her message, especially since neither one is really treated all that unfairly or poorly. True, Han does get a little irritated with 3PO a few times, but Leia and Luke treat him just fine. And then with R2, Luke's practically his best friend. Why, even Poe Dameron calls BB-8 "buddy." I don't think droids are as badly off in Star Wars as L3 thinks.

But there may be a saving grace to L3. A YouTuber called Boofire191 made a video where he theorized that L3 is actually supposed to be a parody of Kathleen Kennedy. He argues that since Lord and Miller were taken off Solo so late in production that they may have actually been removed because they were making fun of Kennedy and the liberal politics she has forced into this current generation of SW movies.

Personally, I don't buy it. If that were true that would mean Kennedy would've seen herself in the droid and made Ron Howard change her character when he took over production. Seeing as how he didn't, I'm going to guess Kennedy had other reasons for firing Lord and Miller.

6. Tobias Beckett, Dryden Voss, and Enfys Nest

The rest of the major players are Tobias Beckett, Dryden Voss, and Enfys Nest. I don't have much to say about Enfys (Erin Kellyman) despite the fact she is the center of a rather unusual eleventh hour plot twist, most specifically that she is actually a teenage girl and that she isn't a gangster, but is actually stealing materials for the fledgling Rebellion. Dryden Voss meanwhile is just your typical slimy bad guy. There's nothing much to say on him.

But Beckett does bother me. Acting as Han's mentor for most of the movie, at one point he tells Han "If you think everyone's going to betray you, you'll never be disappointed," and that ends being true for him. When it's revealed that Nest is actually a good guy, Han cooks up a plan to help her so that she can take the refined coaxium to the Rebellion rather than give it to Dryden. Han tells Beckett what he's planning, and Beckett goes and betrays him to Dryden.

However, Han thought Beckett might betray him, so he fed him some misinformation. One bit is that Han was going to take Dryden fake coaxium while the real stuff left with Enfys Nest. What actually ends up happening is that Han does take the real stuff to Dryden while a decoy Enfys Nest lures away Dryden's men before being ambushed by the real Enfys. This then creates a stand-off between Han, Dryden, Qi'ra, and Beckett. Beckett draws his blaster and Dryden's guards, and rather than killing Dryden and siding with Han, he lets Dryden live and takes the coaxium for himself.

While I could definitely predict that Beckett was going to betray Han, I'm still bothered by it because regardless of who wins the stand-off between Han and Dryden, the victor is of course going to go after Beckett next. And with the sort of mentor-protégé/buddy-buddy relationship that Beckett has with Han, it makes no sense for him to ultimately betray Han. I mean, why would he want to burn that bridge when by this point in the movie, Han has proven himself as a pilot, a decent shot, and at least cunning enough to fool even him? It's more in his best interests to try to smooth everything over with Han and kill Dryden than it is to let the stand-off to follow its course.

By betraying Han, Beckett guaranteed his death either way. Dryden would've hunted him down ruthlessly, and Han, learning from his mistakes, wouldn't make the same mistake twice and do exactly what he ended up doing which was shooting first. Not to mention, how the hell did Han get ahead of Beckett if he left Dryden's yacht after him? Beckett should've taken the route Han did.

Things I Liked

So, with the characters out of the way, was there anything I liked? Well, there were two cool things.

1. The Train Heist

Early in the movie, Han and Chewie join Beckett's heist crew. Their target is a train car containing millions of credits of coaxium. Besides being quite rare and very dangerous, even in its refined form, but especially in its raw form, it's heavily regulated by the Empire, making it quite valuable on the black market. Beckett's team is hired by Dryden Voss to steal it, but Enfys Nest and her crew crash the party. In the end, however, no one gets it and the train car blows up a mountain.

The train heist is visibly spectacular, taking place in ice-covered mountains and on a suspended, twisting track. There was something about it that was reminiscent of the prisoner train from the Nintendo 64 game Rogue Squadron. However, the heist just didn't feel Star Wars-y to me. It was a cool piece of cinema, but it honestly reminded me more of the movie The Chronicles of Riddick. I think the idea of a "train heist" is too mundane of an idea for an epic and operatic piece of fiction like Star Wars. Or maybe I had issues with how it was executed: separate the rear of the train from the desired car, attach 4 tow cables to the desired car, detach the front of the train, blow up the bridge and just carry the car away with the ship. It didn't really have that Star Wars flare. It was too practical and not fantastical enough.

2. The Kessel Run

Despite the mundaneness of the train heist, there was nothing mundane about the Kessel Run. This is also where most of the special effects budget went.

After leaving Kessel with raw coaxium, Han, Chewie, Qi'ra, Lando, and Beckett are on borrowed time to make it to a planet where they can refine the coaxium before it gets too warm and destabilizes. Unfortunately, Lando is injured, so Han takes his place as pilot. But it's not that easy. In order to make it to refining planet, they have to make the Kessel Run, which is a particularly dangerous hyperspace route. In the original EU, the Kessel Run contained something known as the "Maw black hole cluster." It was this series of black holes that made the Kessel Run so dangerous. As a result, ships had to navigate around them which gave the Kessel Run a length of 18-parsecs. Han Solo's famous boast that he did it in less than 12 comes from the fact that he skirted much closer to the black holes than other ships and used their gravitational pulls to slingshot the Falcon across the run.

In Solo, while the Kessel Run is still a space route, it now however travels directly through a thick nebula full of billions of tons of gas and planet-sized asteroids that constantly collide into each other. The only way through the nebula is a well-navigated and maintained "tunnel" lit with space lamps--spamps. When the crew escapes Kessel with their stolen cargo, they run into an Imperial Star Destroyer within the tunnel that was contacted by the mine to prevent their escape. The Empire of course launches TIE fighters to go after the Falcon, and Han is forced to take evasive action. How? By plunging right into the nebula.

Dodging asteroids and incoming fire from TIE fighters, Han and the crew manage to navigate the Kessel nebula thanks to L3's navigation computer which Lando rips from her body and plugs directly into the Falcon. But things don't remain rosy as they run into a gigantic, space squid--a spuid--that's straight out of Lovecraft's literary universe. They escape it by tricking it into going into the Maw's central black hole by jettisoning the escape pods, but as a result, they get too close to the Maw and can't escape its gravitational pull.

Suddenly, someone, I don't remember who, gets the idea of putting just a drop of raw coaxium into the Falcon's engines hoping the temporary boost of power will let them escape the Maw. It does, but not until the Falcon's engines short out for a second before switching back on and speeding them out. Han and Chewie then make the jump into hyperspace just before they can be crushed between two planet-sized asteroids crashing into each other.

Honestly, it was a pretty cool scene. But I did think it was a little too dramatic seeing as how this is a prequel, so we all already know that Han, Chewie, the Falcon, and everybody else survives. The other problem I have with this scene is that it's far cooler than anything Han does in the original trilogy. I'm sorry, but I really think the greatest and coolest moments of Han's life should be when he's a part of the Rebellion and fighting against the Empire. After all, after you narrowly escape a black hole, a Lovecraftian monster, and being smashed between two asteroids, what fear does a person have left of facing the Empire?

Things I Didn't Like

So then, now that I've covered the good things, what was wrong with it? Pretty much everything. I've already covered what was wrong with the characters, so I won't really touch on them, but I will try to break down further what Solo did wrong, however, it was pretty much everything.

1. Conditions on Corellia

Starting with the beginning of the movie, Corellia is in a right state, and I didn't like it. I mean, I'm not saying that Corellia can't experience poverty or have slums, but as the planet that cracked the code on hyperspace and has the best ship yards and builders in the galaxy, Corellia shouldn't look like Haiti. Not to mention, it's also a core world like Coruscant, and it's been mentioned in the EU before that citizens of the core worlds generally had positive opinions toward the Empire as their galactic reach stabilized every system they controlled which included boosting their economies and increasing the standard of living.

For the young Solo, who joins the Imperial Navy in the movie with the sole purpose of becoming a pilot so he can return and rescue Qi'ra, Han should've actually joined the Empire out a sense of admiration, duty, and gratuity as the Empire improved the living conditions of his home planet. Then, as he goes through training and gets deeper and deeper into the Empire, that's when he starts to become jaded as he learns the awful truth behind its machinations. That makes more sense.

2. Drifitng Landspeeders

I don't know why the landspeeders drifted in this movie. We've never seen that before. In A New Hope, Luke never put the pedal to the metal, cranked the wheel to one side, and pulled up on the e-break to see how sideways he could get his speeder, so why are landspeeders suddenly drifting like this is The Fast and the Furious?

To some extent, it makes sense from the perspective of physics as the speeders don't have any tires. Without tires, the speeders don't have any grip or friction with the ground, so why wouldn't they slide? But seeing as how Luke was able to pilot his speeder without sliding it, and seeing as how this is Star Wars and not Tokyo Drift, landspeeders should not be drifting.

3. The Movie is Self-Aware

The most cringe worthy thing about Solo is how self-aware it is. It knows it's a Star Wars movie, and therefore it doesn't take itself seriously. Any time it can make a joke, it does. And every time there is one, you get the feeling the actors want to break the fourth wall by looking into the camera and saying, "Did you get it?"

One such joke was when Han went to go join the Imperial Navy. Not only was there a recruitment booth like you might see at your local mall, but there was also one of those crappy recruitment posters above the booth--it was actually a hologram, but you know what I mean--with a pre-recorded message saying something to the effect of "Explore the galaxy in the Galactic Empire!" and a ringtone version of the Imperial March played along with it. I audibly sighed at this part.

4. Han Solo

Speaking of recruitment, this is also when Han gets his fabled surname of "Solo." When he goes to join the Navy, the recruitment officer asks for his family name, "who his people" were, and Han admits to only ever being by himself, hence the officer calls him "Solo." I hated this, not just because it was a bad joke, but also because after he befriends Chewie, he may as well call himself Han Duet or Duo. I've never speculated on the origin of Han's last name, but it never occurred to me that it was because he was the only person in his family. Why, in the Lucasian EU he had family members, like Thracken Sal-Solo. I much preferred it when Solo was just his family name, and not a cringy commentary on how alone in the galaxy he is.

5. Changes to the Falcon

As we all know, the Falcon's iconic design looks like a burger with a bite taken out of it.

Classic Falcon
But according to Solo, this isn't the original design of the Corellian YT-1300 freighter. No, apparently, it had a front end that jet out from it and that "bite" is filled in.

Solo Falcon
According to Lando, it's supposed to be an escape pod which is weird for two reasons:

1. The escape pods are supposed to be located on the sides of the Falcon at the end of its conical shaped bulges.
2. In Return of the Jedi, when Lando and Wedge blow up the second Death Star, there are some missiles that are fired out of the Falcon's "bite." This begs the question: were those missiles added later when Han decided he had no use for an additional escape pod, or did someone just plain forget that that was supposed to be a missile bay?

Either way, it just kind of sucks and new Falcon design, as short lived as it is, just looks dumb.

6. Hyperspace Fuel

Frickin' coaxium! Frickin' hyperspace fuel! Seriously, when has this ever been a concern for anybody in any of the Star Wars movies? Apologists of the sequel trilogy are quick to mention The Last Jedi, but honestly, The Last Jedi was terrible. To some extent, it feels like the whole low fuel crisis was shoehorned into TLJ so that the characters were working against a time limit--it was a forced plot point to increase the tension.

Meanwhile, fuel is never mentioned in the OT or the prequel trilogy except for in The Phantom Menace when after the Naboo ship runs the Trade Federation's blockade, we hear the captain say, "We're losing power." Notice that he says they're losing "power" and not "fuel." Also notice how when Qui-Gon went to find replacement parts on Tatooine, he never mentions needing fuel. Why is this?

Well, besides the idea that the Star Wars ships running on fuel seems like a really mundane detail that never needs to be brought up, it seems to me that according to many EU sources, all ships had their own power plants and reactors. Not to mention the way repulsion works in SW is via engines spitting out ionized particles, and you don't get ionized particles by burning fuel. But, hey, don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at the TIE fighter. What does "TIE" mean? Well, it's an acronym for "twin-ion engine." And guess what, it can only be an "ion engine" if it produces ions.

Thus, I'm forced to conclude that the pilot in Phantom Menace must have been referring to a power leak in the ship's reactor or its power plant. And thus, it seems doubly strange that the SW universe would go technologically backwards from self-contained ionization reactors to internal combustion engines. And as a quick aside, I'm forced to ask why is it that the Raddus from TLJ was so dangerously low on fuel, but none of the First Order fleet were? Oh, that's right. So we could have a forced chase scene. Look at that, you can see the plot working. (You should never be able to see the plot working.) So screw coaxium.

7. Good Guy Han

The character of Han Solo has gotten a bad wrap over the years. Many believe him to just be a scoundrel. Very few people have ever seen him as a hero despite the fact he had a redemption arc in A New Hope and it was he who pursued Leia in Empire Strikes Back, and he was the one who was upset with Leia when he thought she was in love with Luke instead of him in Return of the Jedi. Han is not a bad guy--he has a sweet, chocolatey center. Leia even says to him "I knew there was more to you than just money!" after he and Luke blow up the first Death Star.

However, the OT doesn't go out of its way to show that Han is a good guy. What the OT actually did was it gave him the chance to prove he was a good guy through realistic life decisions that we all struggle with and they were spread out across the OT. But in Solo, not only do we see Han make the right, moral choice time and time again despite his persistence that he's an outlaw and a rogue, Qi'ra even says straight to his face that he's the "good guy." And when it's revealed that Enfys Nest is working against Crimson Dawn and the Empire for the sake of the Rebellion and Han goes to tell his plan to Beckett in hopes he'll join him in doing the right thing, Enfys asks Qi'ra what Han is doing, and she responds with "I think he's going to help you."

Basically, Solo beats you over the head with the fact that Han is a good guy, not a bad guy. But for those of us who have seen the OT, we don't need to be told that--we know that already. And anyone who can read the between the lines of Han's actions can see that he's actually the good guy. And this gets especially annoying when you see Han's arc in A New Hope as a redemption arc. By bashing the audience over the head with the fact that Han is secretly a good guy, he has no need for a redemption arc because he doesn't need to be redeemed. He was always going to do the right thing, regardless of what he said, and that takes away all the tension of the Death Star trench run and ruins the surprise when Han saves Luke.

Thanks for that, Solo.

8. Soundtrack

Man, did the music suck in this movie. It wasn't Star Wars-y. One or two tracks were adapted from John Williams' original score, but the rest of the music was terrible. The scene in which Han first experiences hyperspace, which is weird because as a soldier in the Imperial Navy, I'd think he'd experienced hyperspace dozens of times during his service, the song that plays is strange. It wasn't really exciting, which is probably what it was trying to be, but instead it just fell flat. It was more joyous and soothing than anything else, which really doesn't match Han's personality.

9. Too Many 11th Hour Plot Twists/Too Long

My last major complaint about Solo is that there are too many eleventh hour plot twists, which as a result, made this movie about 15 to 30 minutes longer than it needed to be. We didn't need the twist that Enfys Nest was actually a survivor of Crimson Dawn's ravaging, we didn't need the twist that she's helping the Rebellion, we didn't need the twist where Beckett betrayed Han, we didn't need the twist where Qi'ra betrays Dryden, and we didn't need the twist that the head of Crimson Dawn is f*cking Darth Maul!

I seriously can't put into words how much I hated that twist. It's especially vexing for me because I think Darth Maul is super overrated and wish he had died at the end of The Phantom Menace. Seriously, he doesn't deserve to live after being styled on by Obi-Wan like that. Darth Maul: lived like a bawler, was styled on by a padawan, ergo, he deserves to die like a bitch.

Not to mention the fact the movie beats you over the head with the fact that this is Darth Maul you're looking at just in case you forgot who he was. At first, you see his robo-legs, then he lets down his hood revealing his face, he Force pulls his lightsaber to himself and then turns it on for all of ten seconds for no discernible reason, and the whole time, "Duel of Fates" is playing in the background. This movie is about as subtle as a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.

And finally, we didn't need the twist where Qi'ra betrays Han's feelings for her and her feelings for him, despite the fact she tells him a couple of times how much her fond memories of him is what got her through her darker moments. Seriously, she could've fallen out of love with him, but then there wouldn't be any awkward tension between them when they inevitably run into each other again in the sequel that will never be made.

Rating

So, now that I've picked the movie apart, what do I rate it? Well, I already said I give it a four out of ten. On Uncle Ethan's scale of soy to steak, I say Solo: A Star Wars Story is a vegetarian omelet. It has potential, but never quite meets up to it. It's not as bad as a full soy breakfast, but it would be a lot better if it had actual substance, some actual meat rather than a bunch of fiber, which is just filler and helps you defecate.

The biggest problem with Solo is that it isn't a Star Wars movie. Seriously, The Last Jedi, terrible though it may be, actually felt like a Star Wars movie. Solo however was merely inspired by SW. I would call Solo a Star Wars-inspired heist, crime thriller with elements of sci-fi action and adventure. It's definitely not worthy of the name Star Wars. It is neither a space opera nor a science fantasy movie. There's nothing more to it than what it is, and that's not Star Wars.

In the end, I do not recommend Solo: A Star Wars Story. Just spend your ticket money on a pizza and watch A New Hope again. You'll be far more satisfied.

***
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