Last night I got a chance to see a pre-screening of Solo. I’m not going to post any spoilers in the OP, but feel free after.
I thought it was ok, nothing special really. The movie was fun, but it didn’t totally feel like a Star Wars movie to me. There was no scroll at the beginning, which I found odd.
I wasn’t too taken by Han, he didn’t really feel like a younger version of him, he was cocky, but it felt off. I wish they had the actor at least try and give some of Ford’s mannerisms a try. The one that was really missing for me was the half laugh and smirk.
I did like Lando, he felt like a younger version of the character. Chewie was pretty good as well. Han and Chewie felt like they did in the other movies.
I felt there could have been some changes and made it better. It is a Star Wars movie and it wasn’t bad and at least it was fun.
I think I liked it a bit more than you did. I thought Ehrenreich did a very good job - I totally bought him as a younger, less confident, less worldly Han. In a way, he was a mix between Han in Episode IV, and Luke in Episode IV, which is how he should be. After all, Han always saw a bit of himself in Luke. I also like that they didn’t fridge Qira or make her adamsel in distress, but instead put her in charge of her own life.
Other than that, it was a good, exciting film, if not a masterpiece. A solid 8 or 8.5 out of 10. Considering the mess involved in its production, it could have been a lot worse. And the callbacks were particularly good, especially “I hate you” “I know”, and the fact that the last shot Han fired in the movie, he shot first.
I liked it a lot. As a stand alone movie it wasn’t at Rogue one’s level but very, very good. The reveal of Darth Maul made me pop big! I admit to being worried about the film but to me it delivered!
I absolutely loved it! I had my doubts going in, but it totally won me over really quickly, which surprised me. It felt exactly like a Star Wars movie to me, but then I have been part of the fan-film community and this kind of story-telling is central to that. These are just fan-films with a budget and made canon.
And the story was fun, the action was great, and the nerdy references* made me smile.
*Aurra Sing! Bossk! Darth Maul! Dathomir! Everything in the Kessel Run was what had been established in the novels and comics! As was how Chewie met Han! And that Han joined the Imperial Academy! It basically fixed some of the character wobbles that didn’t ring true by showing the characters flaws of their youth.
I would’ve liked Darth Maul to have been more than a cameo. Like show him earlier as the guy pulling the strings of Crimson Dawn, or secretly working with Quira, or something…
I loved all those too, also the ship model Han gives when betting Lando is the model of the Ghost from Rebels. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but I also thought the guy playing Han never gave a me Harrison Ford vibe at all. The first time you hear Lando before they even show his face I thought “holy shit, that’s pure Billy Dee Williams”. I loved all the secondary characters, Bennet, L3-37, Rio and Enfys Nest specially.
I haven’t seen the movie, but first reports were that he was wooden as hell. Of course, Opie Taylor completely reshot something like 70% of the movie in less time than was originally spent on those scenes, so I’m going to go with the original director being shit at pulling good performances out of people.
I liked it. I thought it was good but not great. Maybe about a 7.5 out of 10.
I felt a lot of the comedy fell flat. I laughed but I didn’t laugh at the majority of the jokes.
I felt that the biggest problem is they tried to answer too many question about Han instead of just making a good movie and maybe focussing on one aspect. For example, I think a focussed movie on how Han met Chewie could have been good. A movie that focussed on how Han got the MF could have been good. But this movie tries to answer too much and so the nods become distractions that ruin the cohesiveness of the movie.
L3 is flat-out the best thing in the movie. L3 gets a 12 out of 10. When I buy a Funko Pop for the movie it will be L3.
I had posted in the past that I was pretty sure this movie would be bad. I was wrong! I enjoyed it. I was convinced it would be nothing but fan service ("And that’s the origin of that!) and there was a little of that but it wasn’t over done. It was a fun adventure.
I will say I had heard so much about Donald Glover as Lando that I expected him to have a bigger part. It felt like he was hardly in it.
I liked it a lot, borderline loved it. I’m a huge Star Wars fan, to the point that I understood nearly every reference in the movie since, in the 80s and 90s, I read virtually every bit of the trickle of Star Wars material that came out in the RPGs, novels, and video games. If I weren’t such a big fan I probably would have just thought it was pretty good. But as a fan, I really, really liked it. Performances were very good, action was very good, and the story was decent. My biggest criticism is that they didn’t need to pack so many key points of Han’s story into a single movie – they could have saved the Kessel Run, or even Han’s acquisition of the Falcon, for another story.
I thought this movie was awesome :). Other than the original trilogy movies this is my favorite Star Wars movie, and I think it’s close to being better than Empire Strikes Back. Han and Lando are exactly how I pictured them being in their young days. Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover did great jobs. I really like the way they ended it as well, with the nods to Han going to Tatooine, helping indirectly in starting the rebellion, and of course the appearance of Darth Maul. When I saw the hooded figure I was naturally expecting to see Palpatine. Now that Maul is shown to still be alive, I assume that they’re going to be making an Obi-Wan stand alone movie at some point. As far as I know Obi-Wan is the only one capable of defeating Darth Maul before A New Hope, so I’m guessing we get to see another duel between the two of them :).
ETA. I wish Ron Howard had directed Episode VIII, he did an awesome job with this movie!
I enjoyed it, but like a lot of movies these days it holds no rewatch value for me.
I had trouble with Han working so hard to get money to get Qi’ra out of slavery. When he finally found her, Han’s emotions seemed… flat. I would have gone nuts discovering my lost love, for him, it was like bumping into his girlfriend unexpectedly at the mall. And despite the opportunities, he never pressed to find out how she got off-world in the hands of Dryden Vos. That aspect of the movie really didn’t work for me.
While watching Alden Ehrenreich it struck me that he reminded me of Andrew Robinson from Dirty Harry (Scorpio). After that I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Just got back. Enjoyed it. My theater was really empty on an opening Friday, I suspect this movie will be underwhelming at the box office.
Was that really Darth Maul? How did he survive Phantom Menace? That was years before this, wasn’t it?
We’re they implying that Val and Enfys were mother-daughter?
Didn’t love the actor doing Han. Wasn’t terrible and that’s a really hard role to fill, but I needed more Harrison Ford. I’m glad he wasn’t trying to do an impersonation, but there was just something missing. Charisma I guess.
I was also bumped by the heights of the actors. Both Ford and Williams are over six foot. Glove and Ehrenreich… aren’t.
This felt like a heist movie and not a Star Wars movie which is okay and was the intent, but the melodrama was missing at the end. The end of Rogue One was amazing, this just sort of finished.
The fan service was kinda obvious and they didn’t really leave anything for a sequel. I enjoyed all the obvious hat tips but they were also predictable. Then again if he didn’t have the Falcon at the end I probably would have been frustrated. Go figure.
I was actually a little caught off guard at the end. I really thought Beckett was part of the trick, it would have frankly made more sense if he was. I suspect that was a late change in order to avoid a cliche. I also don’t really get what was going on with Qi’ra and if it was her plan all along to eventually go back to Crimson Dawn, or if she had some epiphany.
I wanted more space battles I think. I also missed Jedis and lightsabers. I really liked Rio… wish he had lived longer.
The details of Maul’s survival were first detailed in the Expanded Universe, a comics series I believe. That was rendered moot by the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm, but was slowly teased back into canon via the animated TV series’ Clone Wars and Rebels. He basically held his body together using the Force and then was rescued by his brother Savage Opress. I don’t think it’s too important to know this stuff, because I believe* other movies slated to come out, such as the recently announced Boba Fett movie, the oft-rumoured Kenobi movie, and hey maybe even a Princess Leia movie, who knows, might flesh out this storyline. There may also be a Solo sequel, or Han and Lando might appear in these other movies too, tying them together in a crossover Marvel-type way.
As a casual Star Wars fan, I’d like to know where Darth Maul even came from. Cause last time I saw him, both halves of Darth Maul were falling down one of those bottomless Star Wars shafts decades before Han was born.
That’s what confused me, all of a sudden here’s Darth Maul, out of no where. That made me think, until I looked it up the he lived, was that Han was around 30 years older then Leia. I’m glad that’s not the case, but it can be very confusing for someone who’s only seen the movies.
