Solo: A Star Wars Story REVIEW - Signs of Life in the Star Wars Galaxy

Not a bad poster, eh? Cool Millennium Falcon motif!

First, a spoiler-free short review: 

Solo: A Star Wars Story is great modern western with vibrant and interesting characters and a rich atmosphere. It shows that there is a lot left in Star Wars beyond rehashing and remixing the original trilogy to make sequels. 

I particularly enjoyed the way Han, Lando, and Chewie all feel like their original characters, but are still unique enough in this story to be exciting new characters without requiring the audience to already know or like the Han, Lando, and Chewie from the original trilogy. This isn't one of those movies where it ends too soon, doesn't accomplish much, and leaves you wanting more in all the wrong ways, Solo works well as a standalone film while also creating intrigue for this new corner of the Star Wars galaxy, which I for one hope will be explored in future films. I definitely recommend that anyone and particularly Star Wars or western fans see Solo: A Star Wars Story.  

And now, a full review:

Boy these writers sure are interested in fleshing out how fuel works in the Star Wars universe, huh? In The Last Jedi, the plot revolves around the last Resistance warship slowly running out of fuel as it flees the First Order, which is a painfully boring plot point in the actual movie and also the first time in the saga that these starships, which can fly all over the galaxy, suddenly and conveniently for the film's writers are shown to be able to run out of fuel like a ship at sea.

I'm not saying this is a dumb plot point. I actually think it makes a lot of sense and could have been handled a lot better in The Last Jedi. In fact, I'm sure it could have, because the plot of Solo: A Star Wars Story also revolves around starship fuel, this time as a way to get rich and pay off some debts.

The Last Jedi introduces starship fuel as a new sci-fi concept blankly and bores the viewer by dragging the pacing of the movie to a crawl whenever the need to save the Resistance because Princess Leia forgot to fill up their cruiser at the nearest space-gas-station is brought up. Solo, on the other hand, handles fuel much more like a Star Wars movie should, with a sense of mystery and wonder befitting a sci-fi-fantasy story, like the way the hyperdrives of the ships in Star Wars aren't explained as they would be in an episode of Star Trek; they're simply a part of the magic of the world.

I'm waxing on about this fuel thing because it's a clear point of comparison between the new sequel trilogy and Solo. Whereas the sequel trilogy all but fails to capture the magic of the original Star Wars movies, and only BARELY manages to by having some of the original cast play undead versions of their characters, Solo captures the magic of Star Wars in the same way George Lucas' films did in the first place: by being a great movie on its own while paying homage to the genres Star Wars grew out of.

I really enjoyed Solo. I thought there was a great balance of fan service and actual movie meat. For example, Han gets the "Solo" part of his name early in the film. A lot of people are pointing to this as an example of unnecessary fan service. I saw it as clever writing that narratively tied the title of the film to a moment that both acts as a nod to fans recognition of the character, Han Solo, and serves the plot in at least a small way. Most of the minor references to other Star Wars things were handled in the same way, like how the Millennium Falcon loses its escape pod and gets the iconic silhouette fans recognize.

Those same naysayer fans that are cynical about the Solo name origin seem to also be the ones saying Rogue One was terrible, so clearly we won't agree on a lot of things. I thought Rogue One was great, and Solo executes the idea of an anthology or Star Wars Story film at least as well if not better. Both Solo and Rogue One feel like new original Star Wars movies without borrowing massive storytelling chunks from previous films (*cough* all of The Force Awakens *cough*). However, while Rogue One felt like it had the same epic space opera tone of the other Star Wars films, Solo is more constrained and told a smaller story.

One last point of comparison between the two Star Wars Story films is their soundtracks. Solo's soundtrack certainly fit the movie, but I haven't found myself lost in thought as I listen to the memory of it in my mind, unlike Rogue One and all the other Star Wars films, where music is such a large part of the storytelling.

The whole sequence at the end of Rogue One, like a lot of great moments in the Star Wars movies, plays out like an opera (it is a "space opera" after all) with the music being as central to the progression of the plot's emotional arc as the dialogue or acting. Still, I think Solo's soundtrack might grow on me upon further viewings.

The aspect of Solo I most enjoyed, however, was the exploration of the crime world of the Star Wars universe. There have always been bits in Star Wars movies involving assassins, bounty hunters, and crime bosses, but never has an entire story been told within the realm of the sort of "space wild west" that exists in this galaxy.

Woody Harrelson's character, Beckett, with his accent and clear western-inspired everything does a lot of the work making the movie feel like it could be a sci-fi remake of a spaghetti western. There are even a couple of good old fashioned standoffs, a couple of which involve the film's weakest character, Enfys Nest.

Oh boy.

Just that name is sloppy. What the heck kind of name is Enfys Nest? There are plenty of names like it already in Star Wars cannon like Boba Fett, Obi-Wan, Boss Nass, etc. and that's probably why it feels so much like the kind of derivative name a 16-year-old would come up with for an original Star Wars character. Who knows, maybe it's direct from George Lucas, I'd change my tone if it were, but it still wouldn't help the character herself.

Enfys Nest represents everything that's wrong with modern Star Wars. She is the evil marauder fighting our heroes throughout the film. She's vaguely tribal, part of the downtrodden natives of somewhere of course, she's got a stupid bo staff of course, and of course she's a little girl... a regular little girl, not a jedi or anything, and she still can lead a band of cutthroat marauders. So of course when this is all revealed near the end of the movie it pulls you right out it. Everything leading up to that moment has been legit. The stakes felt real. The bad guys seemed menacing and deadly. The risks the heroes took and challenges they faced seemed outlandish but reasonable. And then this Boba Fett-looking marauder takes off her helmet to reveal that she's a literal Disney character talking about how her murderous marauders are actually part of the rebellion and are saving native people from the real evil gangsters. It comes completely out of nowhere, drags the movie to a halt, and is utterly stupid.

Her moment in the film near the end almost ruined the entire thing for me and I'm so glad there were three really well done bits after it before the end of the film so I could just try to forget that she was even a thing in the movie. I'm just way past skepticism and cynicism about the stereotypical badass with a bo staff is revealed to actually be a little girl trope. When her obviously shoehorned-in bit near the end of the film comes up where she talks about her oppressed people and the rebellion with a line that's more or less "hey idiot 6-year-olds in the audience, remember the REBELLION™!?" I basically cringed so hard I turned my face inside out and I actually audibly groaned in the theater. This bullshit needs to be relegated to the Disney channel where it belongs, not here in an otherwise good space-heist-western Star Wars movie.

The only other part of Solo that made me make any noises (though these were out of joy not revulsion) was the surprise reveal at the end that the boss of the big baddie of this film, Dryden Vos, is actual none other than Darth Maul! Actually, at this point he's formerly Darth, now just Maul, but HOLY CRAP! At the end, Qi'ra, played by Emilia Clarke, contacts someone via the ol' glitchy Star Wars hologram and I immediately recognized the hooded figure by his voice and unmistakable robot legs. Interestingly enough, Maul is actually being voiced by Sam Witwer, who voiced him in The Clone Wars and Rebels, but acted by Ray Park, who played Maul in The Phantom Menace.

I'm so glad they're integrating Maul and using both actors from both versions of the character. Not only is Maul a great character that definitely deserves some more screen time, but his inclusion and the promise of seeing more of him in the future films teased at the end of Solo give me hope that Disney might really make the most of more underused Star Wars characters and characters that deserve to be seen in another movie like Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.

Imagine how great a Star Wars film about Obi-Wan and Darth Vader would be. I'm imagining a story where Darth Vader is off killing jedi remnants and finds a hint that Obi-Wan survives so he's pursing leads to the end and sends a bounty hunter like Boba Fett to find Obi-Wan who is doing some cool space-cowboy-jedi-ronin-western stuff on Tatooine. In fact, at the end of Solo, Han and Chewie are headed to Tatooine for a job, so maybe my dream movie with Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, and Boba Fett will finally be made in some way. After all, the Boba Fett movie was just recently confirmed to be in development.

Overall, I really enjoyed Solo: A Star Wars Story. It has me excited to see more of young Han Solo and other Star Wars characters from this newly explored realm of the galaxy. Its success along with Rogue One make me wish that Disney had started off this new era of Star Wars films with some of these spin-off films before diving into making a new trilogy. Perhaps a new trilogy will be spawned from this film though, and you can bet I'll be there on opening night to see any of those movies.

You want a comprehensive score? I give Solo: A Star Wars Story an 8 out of 10. That's tied with Rogue One, definitely better than The Last Jedi (7.5), yet a long way off from the greatest Star Wars films, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Revenge of the Sith, all of which I say are 10 out of 10.

 Here's a trailer too:

actually i just rewatched the trailer for solo and oh my god, movie trailers are so bad these days. having seen the film, the trailer basically spoils the whole thing and is playing loud stupid epic trailer music the whole time. i kid you not, every trailer for every movie previewed before i saw solo today did the same thing, this is ridiculous. hopefully there's a resurgence of good trailers sometime soon. so, to convey some amount of my frustration, here's a really funny youtube video that has been ruined by being blocked by disney: