I could see an Obi-Wan Kenobi origin movie, as most people are familiar with the character (although didn’t the preview movies cover the same territory?). But Boba Fett? I doubt the casual viewer is familiar with the character. On the other hand, Marvel manages to make movies about obscure, unfamiliar characters and they’ve had a very long winning streak.
The thing is there are a lot more possibilities with a mostly blank character like Boba than someone like Obi Wan. We already know the entirety of Obi Wan’s story, what he was up to for 17 years in the desert is really not necessary.
I suppose it’s a matter of degree/interpretation. This went up four hours ago:
I disagree. We don’t know anything canon about him, really, before he was Qui-Gon’s padawan, do we? His discovery of his Force powers and the journey which brought him to Coruscant could be quite interesting.
Apparently, I’m a Star Wars FanBoi!1!1!
Would not have thought so, but I finally saw Solo (with reduced expectations), and was giggling and fist pumping right along with the MegaNerds in my row. So many little details, and I know I missed most of them, having only seen the movies.
I thought directing and acting were damn good, esp.Lando, and the dialog was snappier than Lucas ever dreamed of.
If it is “normal” Jedi procedure, he was brought in as a small child.
If Han Solo wore a T-shirt…: http://www.sportys.com/wrightbros/i-m-gonna-be-a-pilot-t-shirt-22127.html
Finally saw the movie today. Took my brother and me ages to get around to it!
I definitely didn’t hate it but I did find it a bit “meh.” I totally agree that Glover did an amazing job as Lando. He was really channeling Billy Dee.
My favorite line(s) was “I really hate you.” “I know.” 
Somehow I didn’t have any problems with Woody Harrelson’s final line. I remembered when Solo first hooked up with Woody and Thandie they said they were going to retire and Woody was going to learn to play the whatever. When he died he said “I really was going to learn to play…”
I also agree that the loss of Thandie Newton’s character and the loss of L3 and Rio all sucked. They all seemed great and characters I’d like to see more of!
Really the whole point of this movie was to establish that they knew a parsec was a measure of distance all along.
Just to ask about a bit that’s been touched on upthread: yes, near as I can tell this is so big a box-office disappointment that planned future-of-the-franchise films are now maybe falling apart. And, yes, I know that how much money a movie makes means nothing; how much it makes, compared to how much it cost, is the point.
But.
This debuted at #1 in May, and was there for weeks; and it’s been in the Top 10 on through to the 4th of July — which is why, on the one hand, that means it just now passed CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (and, for that matter, that it’s just about to pass BATMAN BEGINS); but, again, that’s uninteresting; the interesting bit, to me, is the other hand: what other flicks, if any, got hailed as disappointments after spending that long at #1 and that long in the Top 10?
Saw it the other day. Several thoughts come to mind.
1. Couldn’t they find someone who looked more like a younger version of Harrison Ford?
If you’re going to have a prequel or a flashback of an actor whose face is really iconic, and it’s pretty damn hard to get more “really iconic” than Harrison Ford, you should really try as hard as possible to find someone who actually looks believably like the younger version of that person. I feel the same way about the dude on Westworld who we as the audience are supposed to believe grows up to look like Ed Harris, when even a cursory comparison of the facial features shows that to be impossible.
**2. Han Solo started off as an Imperial Infantryman? Since when? **
He’s like, not even a Stormtrooper, he’s one of the guys they send in to literally fight outside, on the ground, on foot, which in a world where there is ubiquitous technology to enhance and improve everything and every kind of efficient mobile combat vehicle that you could possibly conceive of, is essentially the shittiest job ever. For some reason I thought Han Solo started off as an Imperial pilot, like of a TIE Fighter, which still seems to be a shitty job but at least involves flying and being sort of dashing.
**3. That’s how he got his last name? Seriously? **
It’s almost like the writers of the movie are just messing with us.
**4. Woody Harrellson’s character was super jarring, because he’s Woody Harrellson and as soon as you see his face you think “that’s not a character in a Star Wars movie, it’s Woody Harrellson”. **
5. Several good actors/actresses were wasted in dumb roles.
Paul Bettany and Thandie Newton come to mind.
6. Donald Glover was the best part of the movie.
I would have rather just watched a Lando Calrissian movie than this one. That was the one character that they really nailed. His shirts were maybe the coolest outfits of any character in any Star Wars movie.
According to Box Office Mojo, it was only #1 for two weeks.
I thought I phrased that pretty carefully: I said it was at #1 for weeks, plural, since, y’know, two; and those two weeks, plus what’s happened since, adds up to 41 days in the top ten (and if it hits 42, then, well, that’ll be six weeks).
And I got to wondering: what else was at #1 for weeks, plural (as in “at least two”) and wound up spending at least that long in the top ten, and yet still got hailed as something of a disappointment such that planned movies got scrapped?
My 2cents: Disney’s official plan for future movies may change, but I don’t think they’ll scrap the stories and characters that have been teed up from Solo. They just re-introduced Maul to the masses (even though he’s been around for years for us who watch the cartoons), they introduced Qi’ra and the Crimson Dawn, they showed us a young Lando played by an amazing Donald Glover. I think we’ll see these characters and stories fleshed out in new movies (and maybe TV series, and very likely comics and novels), even if we don’t see Solo II or Boba Fett’s movie or Obi-Wan’s movie on the big screen.
I think we’re also at a point in time where Disney could do movies that go straight to their streaming service or Netflix or whatever. Why set themselves up for scenarios like Solo-- people like it and are going out to see it, but yet it’s still a “bomb” because it didn’t meet box office expectations. I’d love to see one or two straight-to-streaming movies come out every year. Who cares if they’re not in the theaters? If they announced tomorrow that they were going to have a Knights of Ren movie and/or an Obi-Wan movie with Ewan McGregor and/or a Crimson Dawn movie all set at the launch of the Disney streaming service, that would sell subscriptions up the wazoo.
Good idea, Happy.
Great question. I too would be curious to know the answer.
Not digging around for the answer, but here is a good place to start.
The simplest answer is that the film was unprofitable. And even just breaking even or a small profit really isn’t enough. These big tentpole blockbusters are expected to make a lot of money.
And “breaking even” means passing production costs plus advertizing costs minus theater cut. Pay $200 million to make a movie, pay $50 million to advertise it, movie makes $300 million, theaters take $100 million, studio loses $50 million on a $200 million movie that made $300 million.
“profitable” in this instance means a whole lot more than that. It means brand extension, toys, shirts, licensing arrangements with other firms. Denny’s isn’t asking for their money back because Solo didn’t make a billion dollars box office.
I’d be very VERY surprised - though we’ll never likely know - if Solo as a holistic effort didn’t end up being very profitable. The issue is, is it profitable like Disney wanted? Maybe it nets $250 million when Disney hoped for $750 million.
Even so, what does the weak performance indicate about the franchise as a whole? They’ve made something like 10-20 Marvel movies and I think all have been profitable, indicating that franchise has momentum. But this is one of the first of the Disney Star Wars movies, and it failed. So is this franchise out of gas?
I think there’s been a misinterpretation about the future of the Star Wars movies. I’m sure they had some long difficult meetings analysing what went wrong, but they aren’t stupid. The budget ballooning was a known issue, the casting was known to be contentious, there was never a guarantee of any of these one-offs being successful. Disney and Lucasfilm were prepared that one of them could be a failure, and this one was the most likely of them all.
I doubt they quite expected this poor a showing, but it’s not a disaster compared to other movies of its ilk, only compared to Star Wars as a hitherto bulletproof phenomenon.
If they’ve made any changes at all for future releases, it will be choosing a rock-solid director, choosing a better release date (Christmas), and not releasing anymore than one a year (I am sure they planned for two per year by 2020). The rumour of change is based only on one potential idea being removed from their schedule, and it wasn’t a big one like Kenobi or Fett (it was apparently a Mos Eisley Cantina story that no civilian knew anything about). Having said that, neither of those have been officially announced either, and there was probably a good reason for that, one of which was caution from potential failure of Solo. Another might be that any plot details given required Solo to be released first.
My guesses are: I think budgets may lower. I think writing and directing will be more carefully handled. I think some of the weirder ideas may be scrapped. But new Star Wars movies will still be released annually for the foreseeable future, on schedule.