Review: Solo

[jducoeur]

(No significant spoilers here, but there will be at least one or two in the comments, where I'll note a couple more details.)

My general take on Solo is that it was very well-executed, but a little less ambitious than I wish it had been.

Putting it simply: this was an origin story. Its purpose was to flesh out where Han Solo came from, and it generally does that quite nicely. We start out with a Han who is young and already roguish, but fairly idealistic -- not starry-eyed or terribly naive, but generally wanting to do the right thing. This is the story of how that kid winds up as the man we know from previous movies: still generally good, but more walled-off and cynical, and skeptical of idealism.

By the numbers, the movie does just about everything right. The acting ranges from good to excellent: in particular, both Han and Lando are nailed more perfectly than I would have considered plausible, and the gang that Han falls in with are all delicious. Mind, it's still Star Wars -- you're not going to see the deepest subtlety here -- but it all feels right. The script is clever, and of course the SFX are a delight as always.

My only real complaint is that the movie basically never surprised me. I could guess most of the major beats from the get-go, and was generally right. (And mind, I'm no great genius at this stuff: if you understand the tropes it is playing with, it follows them faithfully.)

Moreover, the movie is so completely about fan-service that it felt like it had little else to it. I mean, it's not a major spoiler to say that a good third of the movie is simply about making the "Kessel Run" line from Star Wars make sense. And for all that the fanboy in me was well-satisfied by the sheer number of details it explains and lays out, I kind of wanted more from it.

So: solidly good. Well worth seeing for any Star Wars fan, and self-contained enough that you don't have to be a SW geek to appreciate it. (Indeed, it might actually be a better film if you don't know quite as much -- many of the things I thought were completely obvious wouldn't be if you didn't have the background.) But there's nothing especially elevated about it: simply due to feeling like it wasn't trying as hard, I don't think it was anywhere near as interesting as either Rogue One or Last Jedi. If it's your sort of thing, get to a theater soon.

Comments

[jducoeur]

Okay -- let's talk a few details. Spoilers ahoy...

In terms of tropes: seriously, they were pushing the film noir a little too obviously. I mean, I knew simply from Qi'ra's *hairdo* that she was going to betray Han. She was a delightful femme fatale, mind, but like I said -- it wasn't surprising.

On the plus side, my very favorite fan-service bit was the fact that L3's core gets integrated into the *Falcon*. While they did *not* push on this, or even imply it in any obvious way, my personal head-canon now says that every time the ship glitches on Han, that's her being pissed-off at him.

Also on the plus side: okay, for a good deal of the movie I was taking the marauders at face value. I figured out (again, simply on the basis of the tropes) that they were likely good-guy rebels before that was revealed, but not *much* before. So that counts as at least a well-executed half-surprise.

On the minus side -- please check me, but does anyone else find the timeline problematic? The one thing that was *different* from my expectation was the reveal of the Big Bad at the end. I was figuring it would be Palpatine -- of course it would be Palpatine -- but instead it appeared to be Darth Maul. But that implies that this comes before *Phantom Menace*, which seems to have at least two problems:

(a) It makes Han considerably older than I read him in the previous movies -- at least 25 years older than Luke and Leia, probably more. Small detail, but it was jarring.

(b) More seriously -- the Empire doesn't exist yet, right? The Republic is still up and running until after Darth Maul is killed. But IIRC the Empire gets referred to repeatedly in the film, doesn't it?

Am I missing something? It's a stupid, geeky little detail (and I'm *not* a *Star Wars* expert, so I may be making a mistake), but it's been bugging me ever since he appeared on-screen...

[herooftheage]

So in the animated canon, Maul survives Phantom Menace.

Characters from Rogue One appear in Rebels, as does Maul. So I think this is a few years before A New Hope.

[jducoeur]

So in the animated canon, Maul survives Phantom Menace.

... ah. Okay, that's *very* unobvious from *Phantom Menace* itself (even by my usual comic-book standards), but does help clear up my confusion there. Thanks!

[herooftheage]

Unobvious enough that a lot of people find it unbelievable. :)

[etherial]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoOneCouldSurviveThat

Also his clanky legs were supposed to indicate that he was a Cyborg.

[hungrytiger]

Maul - This confused me too but, as Tom said, he was shown as having survived in the SW Rebels TV series. Now this is still difficult in the film as most viewers won't have also seen Rebels, but OTOH, we never did see Maul's dead body. Yes, we saw him sliced in half and falling into a pit, but we've seen lots of people fall into lots of pits in SW and we've seen Vader survive lots of body parts sliced off and being dumped in lava. So don't think of this as messing with the timeline, but as a surprise reveal that Maul is still alive. I'll have to rewatch Solo, but I'm told that you can even tell in the hologram that Maul may have a robotic lower half.

Fan Service - Oh yeah, I was loving the Easter Eggs. When the Falcon stalled out in the middle of a high tension scene, I literally burst out laughing.

Qi'ra - As the audience, I think it's supposed to be obvious to us that Qi'ra will betray Han eventually. We're supposed to see it as part of his journey to cynicism. What surprised me was that she lived.

Depth - TNT was showing the original films this weekend and we've been watching bits of them. One thing that struck me afterwards that added some depth to Solo, is the whole storyline with L3 and the droid rebellion. It was well done in the film, both clever and really funny, but it adds a lot of resonance to how droids are treated in the other films.

[herooftheage]

I really liked Qi'ra's treatment - it isn't clear, nor is it supposed to be I think, whether she did what she did to save Han, by keeping him off Crimson Dawn's radar, or just decided to throw her fate in with them.

One thing I think the movie did correctly was to not have The Force appear at all - it gives Han the reason for thinking "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side". It means if he does end up facing off against Maul later, he's got to win, which will pose other problems for Maul's SW Rebels eventual fate.

And of course, Han shoots first!

[hungrytiger]

Yes. I loved that they put in a definitive Han Shot First moment.

As for Maul, if they are considering the SW Rebels and Clone Wars series canon (which they are as I understand it), then Maul's actual end was already seen there. As Obi-Wan defeats him to avenge then death of Qui-gon -- Of course, if they do eventually make a movie about Obi-wan's time in exile, then this could be part of it.

[herooftheage]

And I can't help but note, we haven't seen Solo's body either. Just sayin'.

[herooftheage]

Also, if the whole Rebels thing is a red herring, this Maul could always be a clone, of course.