401: Solo: A Star Wars Story

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[00:01:00] 109. Let's get to the second Star Wars spin-off, standalone film, whatever you want to call it,

[00:01:07] which is Solo, A Star Wars Story.

[00:01:09] Came out in 2018.

[00:01:11] Stars Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover,

[00:01:17] Junius Suatomo, Fanny Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau, and a few others.

[00:01:24] And the synopsis is,

[00:01:25] During an adventure in the criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his future co-pilot Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian years before joining the Rebel Alliance.

[00:01:34] So when this one was announced, I think there was a lot of hesitation, a lot of questions as to just why?

[00:01:42] Why of all the stories you could tell in Star Wars, why are we getting this one?

[00:01:47] Because the biggest issue with the movie and the overall concept is,

[00:01:51] while I love Han Solo, and hate to say it, it's not big news, but Harrison Ford is the defining Han Solo.

[00:01:59] Not to say you can't do prequels or whatever, but he's such a foundational part of that character since the beginning.

[00:02:08] And not only that, but just his charisma as that character,

[00:02:12] that casting somebody else is 99.9% of the time going to be an issue because they're not going to be able to match.

[00:02:21] Which I understand it's a younger version, so he may not have all of the things worked out, or he may not be his true confident charismatic self.

[00:02:30] But not only that, I mean I think that's still an issue in this, sorry, but it is.

[00:02:35] And then more than that even, it's that Han Solo is a very, very, intentionally so, a very broad archetype character.

[00:02:45] We know who he is.

[00:02:47] He's a sort of rebellious, reluctant hero.

[00:02:51] Leading man kind of thing.

[00:02:53] Where he marches to the beat of his own drum, he's a ladies man, he can fight, you know, he can get himself out of situations,

[00:03:00] he's got some wisdom and some cleverness.

[00:03:03] We don't need any sort of backstory as to understand where he came from.

[00:03:08] That's the point of an archetype is they're very easy to understand.

[00:03:12] And that's why all the characters in the originals are so easy to understand is because they're all basically like that.

[00:03:17] And so having this movie try to lead us to the point of where we would first meet him is so unnecessary.

[00:03:28] The whole plot, the whole drive of the movie feels not inert, but feels so unnecessary.

[00:03:34] And of all the stories you could tell, you know, I think you could have found something like Rogue One

[00:03:40] where it really does feed into, alright, how did we get here?

[00:03:43] We don't need to know how Han Solo got to where he is in the first movie.

[00:03:48] We get it. We can put the pieces together.

[00:03:51] So I think that's the biggest problem of all.

[00:03:54] And Ron Howard, I know he was hired after, you know, he was replacing someone else, which I think is a mistake.

[00:04:01] I don't hate Ron Howard, but he's sort of like J.J. Abrams where his direction is very vanilla.

[00:04:07] If you need someone to come in and fix things to make an accessible, average movie, he's your guy.

[00:04:13] I'm not saying he doesn't have good movies.

[00:04:15] I think Rush, In the Heart of the Sea, and some others are very good movies.

[00:04:20] But for the most part his direction is very, it's lacking an identity in my opinion most of the time.

[00:04:27] And there's not much, there aren't many memorable moments for the most part in his career.

[00:04:33] Hate to say it, but that's how I feel.

[00:04:35] But even putting that aside though, I think it's still decently directed.

[00:04:40] The script is alright.

[00:04:41] I don't mind Alden Ehrenreich.

[00:04:43] I like him in general, and I really like Emilia Clarke in this.

[00:04:47] And Donald Glover, like him a lot as Lando, I think he works as that character.

[00:04:52] Love Woody Harrelson.

[00:04:54] So overall the casting is good.

[00:04:57] There aren't any real big flaws.

[00:04:59] Phoebe Waller-Bridge, love her in general.

[00:05:02] So no issues with that.

[00:05:04] And I do think though, actually one thing I do really like is, I think it looks great.

[00:05:08] I love the brownish, golden, copper, sort of rugged, hazy cinematography.

[00:05:16] I think the movie looks really good.

[00:05:18] Some people maybe call it too murky.

[00:05:20] I don't really mind that.

[00:05:22] I think it looks refreshingly unglossy.

[00:05:25] Similar to Rogue One, I think Rogue One still looks better, but I still really, every time I watch them I'm like,

[00:05:31] dang this movie looks really good.

[00:05:33] I don't know if that's direction, cinematography, or both,

[00:05:35] but very good looking movie in my opinion.

[00:05:38] The train action sequence, very strong.

[00:05:42] And also the look of the droids in this.

[00:05:46] I'm a sucker for good droid design, especially like in the prequels.

[00:05:49] Big fan of those.

[00:05:51] So design-wise, production-wise, costume, good.

[00:05:55] But it is just still suffering from that lack of purpose.

[00:05:59] And so while there are parts of the movie that I'm engaged and I'm not really into,

[00:06:03] there are parts of the movie that I'm engaged and I'm caring about.

[00:06:06] There's still more than the same amount, if not more, me saying,

[00:06:11] this does not need to exist.

[00:06:13] And so I don't think it's horrible.

[00:06:16] It's still watchable, it's entertaining, it's not too long.

[00:06:19] It's sort of an old school action film, action hero.

[00:06:24] I like that.

[00:06:26] But it is my, let's see, of the five, would be my second to least favorite of all five movies

[00:06:31] with Rise of Skywalker being at the bottom and then this right above it.

[00:06:37] So it's one I can go back to every so often, and I do.

[00:06:40] I've seen it two, three times at this point, and it does the job.

[00:06:43] You know, it's not offensively bad.

[00:06:45] It's just a little vanilla, too vanilla, a little Ron Howard vanilla.

[00:06:49] Sorry if that's mean.

[00:06:51] So anyway, that is a light three out of five.

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