Discuss Solo: A Star Wars Story
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My list of positives and negatives
posted by sati_84STAFFMOD on June 5, 2018 at 4:17 AM
Just saw this over the weekend, and here are my thouhgts in PRO-CON format:
Pros:
Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke and Donald Glover were awesome. They did their best with the material given, and created competent and well fleshed out characters
There were some good moments and pieces of dialogue, although they were few and far between. For example the "I hate you... I know" scene was great, and the 30 soldiers scene as well... but I can only name maybe 2 or 3 more, and that's not much...
Umm... huhh... I don't really have anything else...
Cons:
The crime lord played by the Vision actor was laughable. Not menacing at all.
The first meeting between Chewie and Han was just stupid. Am I really supposed to believe that Chewie (at 190) can't figure out something as simple as smashing a pole? They didn't even try to make it interesting, and that deeply disrespects the legacy of these characters
The plot itself was not interesting at all. There was nothing Star Wars-y about it, just a standard crime movie. I expected much more.
The visuals of the movie were awful! The mud trooper scene overdid the "dis is serious, hurr-durr" vibe, and visually it was just dull: characters dressed in brown against a brown and black background... war was never depicted like this in SW, which is in itself not a problem, but visually the scene was very unappealing. The dark mines of Kessel were also awful. Even the space scenes looked off...
One of the main setpieces of the movie was when people dressed in grey tried to rob a grey train using a grey ship on a planet where due to the overcast weather the background was grey, and then some grey troopers appeared, and then a rival faction showed up on grey hoverbikes... Seeing these sequences, you realize how colorful the previous movies really were (yes, even R1)
The Darth Maul reveal was stupid for 2 reasons: 1. Idc about Rebels or CW, he flat out died in EP1, end of story. 2. He was not a good character to begin with. Hell, he wasn't even a character, no need for bringing him back.
The Empire was barely featured in this movie, and every time they were, they were really inept, no threat at all.
There was no interesting world building. No interesting backdrops, no interesting venues, no interesting new droids, new ships, nothing.
There was nothing creative in the scenes themselves. There was no interesting action scene to remember in the next few years. I immediately forgot the train heist, the Kessel action scene, the brawl with the crime lord, etc. Nothing stood out.
The tone of the movie was all over the place. The mud trooper scene was like a serious war movie, but then the train heist was your standard plot armor bull____t, most of the jokes were ill-timed, the crime lord was supposed to be frightening, but came across as laughable, the self-sacrifice of the Westworld lady was rushed, the betrayal of Woody Harrelson was supposed to be heartbreaking, but instead was meh... The movie couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
Lando and the droid... serously??? I mean it was weird for the sake of weird, and it didn't go anywhere. Also, the cape thing was really contrived.
This is all from the top of my head.
After TLJ, I was sure that I will not watch IX in the movies. I did not like R1 either, but hey, I had some faith in Solo, so I watched it. I'm not sure if I'll see any other SW movies upon release. I just got bored of SW now - something I never ever considered happening. Ever.
Reply by The_Foxcatcher
on June 6, 2018 at 7:19 AM
Pros: L3 (I really liked her character. And I felt for her when she died). The Train robbery scene Enfys Nest reveal Donald Glover Good outlook on how the Empire conquer & rule various planets and maintain order
Cons: Uni-dimensional cheesy story which adds absolutely nothing to the depth/back-story of Han Solo Useless crappy space monster scene and the entire sequence where Solo steers through the gas & asteroid cloud with that silly 'trying-hard-to-create-tension' whirlpool at the end. Even kids yawned at this. Chewbacca not able to figure out to bring down the pole Forgettable
Reply by Don Jon
on June 7, 2018 at 10:52 PM
could the most important con be that the FORCE was not presented in the movie in any way?
like wasnt it destiny for Han to meet Chewbacca for ex. and for him to attain the millenium falcon
like even though it happened in the movie, there was never that magic of the force that made it happen. ykwim?
Reply by sati_84
on June 8, 2018 at 3:20 AM
I don't really miss the Force as this universal driving force (or fate), I think it's perfectly fine for things to happen without the involvement of the Force in the SW universe. After all, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando, etc. they are characters who are able to do things on their own, they have abilities, personalities, etc. So in a way if the Force secretly influences the events that happen to them, it would weaken their characters. That wouldn't be the intended effect of the screenwriters. So for this reason I don't consider this a con.
Reply by sati_84
on June 8, 2018 at 3:40 AM
Let me pick apart your pro list a bit :-)
L3 was... ehh, ok, I guess? Nothing special. Also, it's a bit of a problem if we accept that all droids are secretly wanting to be free... It really brings all droids ever featured in any SW film (or game, book, etc.) under a different light. I'm not sure this was a wise move.
As I said, it was not a great or even good idea at all, was not new, it was ripped from countless westerns and from Firefly. Visually, it was not impressive as it was full of grey (as I mentioned in my OP).
Umm... in 2018 it's a shocking thing that a fighter is a girl? This should count as a pro because of that? I don't think so. Also, in the SW universe, it shouldn't be that surprising that a girl is capable of fighting, since only in this movie we had Quira and the Westworld lady as competent female fighters. It shouldn't surprise Han Solo et al that Enfys Nest is a girl. When I saw it in the movie, I was like - ehh, whatever.
Agreed, 100%. He was really enjoying this part - although the writers didn't do a good job of characterizing Lando.
Umm... WHEN? I mean the only thing we saw the Empire doing was to have insane airport security around Corelia, and then we saw them deploying some troops onto a mud-world. And... that's it. The Empire was barely featured apart from these things, and these happened early in the movie. Did I miss someting? Because I did not get the impression from this movie that the Empire was a real threat or even an effective group.
I absolutely agree with your con list :-)
Reply by Philippe LeMarchand
on June 8, 2018 at 6:24 AM
They're blaming poor projection standards for this: http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/solo-star-a-wars-story-theatre-projection-problems-bradford-young-1201969989/
However, all the publicity stills look pretty murky to me, as did the trailer on my TV...
Reply by sati_84
on June 8, 2018 at 7:39 AM
I agree somewhat - the movie was def projected darker than intended in my theatre as well, but even if I (mentally ofc) crank the brighntess up several notches, the overall color pallette and in-scene lighting leaves much to be desired. Most apparently the space scenes were too dark, space was not this dark in previous SW movies that's for sure.
EDIT: this is meant as a reply to Philippe above, but my brain was distracted by the fact that I just had root canal and I misclicked.