An Appreciation for Solo: A Star Wars Story

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Who doesn't love Han Solo, the rootin'-est tootin'-est gun-slinging smuggler in the Outer Rim? Harrison Ford gave a definitive performance in the three original Star Wars films (and heck, I didn't mind him in The Force Awakens either). Like a modernized John Wayne in space, he embodied a certain swagger and ruthlessness that defined the character as roguish, but charming and good-hearted in the end. One can't help but to speculate on where such a character came from and what his previous adventures might have been like. In 2018, Disney obliged all of us with their second anthology film--Solo.

Please shoot first. Please shoot first. Please...YES!

The film didn't quite perform as well as everybody hoped, and I've seen many folks point to The Last Jedi as the cause for the audience's lack of enthusiasm or hype. I went into the film feeling like it's business as usual, so perhaps I felt some post-TLJ apathy myself. Me and my dad came out of the film satisfied, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. The film seemed...fine...nothing more and nothing less.

After a couple of viewings, I find the film somewhat forgettable, if not flat-out unnecessary and bland. I could chalk it up to quite a few issues, but the biggest thing is that I never really wanted or asked for a Han Solo prequel movie. In fact, many viewers didn't.

Keep a Little Optimism

The film is hardly a total wash for me. There are things I like about the film, like...

• The focus on the Star Wars underworld. We always see glimpses of it throughout all the other movies, but this is the first (and currently only) film where the story is completely devoted to shady characters, crime syndicates, and the criminal activities they engage in. Han is an anti-hero and it's easy to see how his character is molded from this environment. The film winds up rolling up a few genres (adventure, westerns, heist films, crime drama) in a way that feels organic. I feel like the film hits up all these marks spot-on.
• I generally like the villains in this movie. Beckett fits the story like a glove, serving as both a mentor and an antagonist for Han. The two mirror each other aptly, and it's clear that Han learns much of his ways from Beckett. I also find Dryden Vos to be a a good "love to hate" villain, and the final fight between him, Han, and Qi'Ra is quite exciting.
• The cast is dang near perfect. 
• I had no problems with Alden Ehrenreich as the lead, I felt he captured the personality and traits of Han Solo quite well. It's not like Harrison Ford levels of greatness, but I found myself liking the character through Alden's performance, so I think that makes it a success. 
• Woody Harrelson is basically playing Woody Harrelson. And the role of Beckett calls for Woody Harrelson. Woody Harrelson delivered this admirably.
• Donald Glover offers the most pleasing surprise of the film by providing the most perfect performance of Lando Calrissian since Billy Dee Williams. I might even prefer Glover over Williams, since I feel that Glover relays a bit more range between the grit and swagger. He just comes off as one cool cat, and I love watching the guy.
• No complaints about Emilia Clarke, Thandie Newton, or Paul Bettany. Or Jon Fravreau or Ray Park or Linda Hunt or...anybody really. They all pulled their weight admirably.
• Despite my gripes about the film's color grading and lighting, it does look pretty sharp and impressive at times. Biggest standouts are the stuff in the beginning with the train heist, the scenes in the middle during the mine heist and the Kessel run, and at the end with the western-inspired standoff.
• For all that goes, those are all the scenes I enjoy the most. The film didn't really hook me with its first thirty or so minutes, but once the Kessel mission started I dug it a lot more. I suspect this is because from that point on the film relied far less on exposition and "telling" and more on consistent action beats with character personalities sprinkled in. Just as any film should be.
• The whole Kessel run sequence seems to be the best and most exciting thing about the movie. It boasts striking imagery (including a Star Destroyer shrouded in a vortex of space clouds, a myriad of Lovecraftian monsters, and an escape from a black-hole-like anomaly). It's also remains thrilling thanks to the time constraints put on the story (via the coaxium), the escalation of stakes, and the way each problem cuts things so close to the wire. Each problem winds up causing or revealing certain prequel checkboxes to become checked (which includes showing exactly what Han meant by completing the run in 12 parsecs, installing L3 as a sentient AI in the Millennium Falcon, and even showing how the Falcon became so beat-up. Not that any of this needed that much explanation, but it is pretty smooth how all these aspects aligned throughout the single event).
• I am also fond of the scene where Han first meets Chewbacca. It echoes a similar scene in Return of the Jedi when Luke is dropped into the Rancor pit. In both cases, this is a story problem that the hero overcomes--in Solo, Han escapes from the pit by befriending the monster instead of defeating him. It's nothing surprising, since we go into the movie knowing that the two become life-long friends, but I still enjoy the scene all the same (more than likely because of the way it's staged, built-up, and written).
• When Han and Beckett face off for the last time, Han shoots him in mid-sentence. After all these years of hearing the controversy over how the shootout between Han and Greedo was changed, this scene practically screams at us that Han always shoots first. Hell yeah.
• Designs for the ships, vehicles, costumes, helmets, weapons are all top-notch and look awesome.
• Sound design is good.

The Smuggler's Checkboxes

Lando challenges Han to a friendly game of Go Fish.

Solo is a prequel for a character who's already introduced with his own load of baggage. In A New Hope, we meet Han (and Chewie) as a man looking out for himself, but with a bounty on his head. He has no love of the Empire, but he has the fastest ship in the galaxy and a history with Lando Calrissian. Solo manages to encapsulate all of these points and support them with specific scenes.

• Han has to win the Falcon in a card game. That's always been a thing. It doesn't actually happen in the course of Solo's story, but it does happen by its end.
• Han and Lando become frenemies. All the stuff they go through in the film pretty much speaks for itself, and a few throwback moments reinforces their eventual reunion in The Empire Strikes Back (most especially the sudden hug Han gives Lando, and that moment where they're all like "I hate you," "I know.")
• Han and Chewie meet, and Chewie becomes indebted to Han for life. As mentioned above, I do like how this plays out, but it's hardly surprising.
• Han completes the Kessel Run in an amazing 12 parsecs. Did that mean in time? Or distance? For years nobody really knew. Now we know it's distance, because Han took a shortcut. Okay, sure, why not?
• Han's surname remains unknown, so the name Solo is given to him on the spot by an Imperial officer. Many viewers have been irked by this, and even I'll admit that it's excessive. I liked the name Solo as a kind of made-up nonsense, no different than Obi-Wan Kenobi and countless other Star Wars names. I always saw the name Solo as an alien name. Now it's revealed that it's not and Han is literally solo. The more I think about it, the more frustrating it actually is. It really wasn't necessary to put this in the film.
• Also not necessary: the gold dice that Han likes to hang on all his vehicles. This was a thing passed around The Last Jedi like it's some kind of family heirloom, but in the original trilogy I hardly ever noticed the dice in the Falcon in any scene. I feel as though the Disney-led films have been pushing the dice as a physical trinket to instantly connect audiences to memories of the Falcon, Han, and the adventures they had.
• Maybe not necessary, but strangely welcome: sticking L3 in the Falcon's computer, which explains why C-3PO is able to talk to the ship in The Empire Strikes Back and comment on its strange dialect.
• Few other throwbacks. Han says "I have a good feeling about this."

Checking off all these points amounts to very little tension or surprise in the film, and it might be some of the reason why the film never fully blew me away. What hurts the film even more is knowing that most of the characters (largely Han, Chewie, Lando) and the Falcon must survive by the end, since they all reappear in future stories. So when there are moments where Lando is shot or Chewie almost has his head knocked off, there is no real tension--we know that they'll all avoid death one way or another.

Adventure Begins (So We're Told)

I absolutely do not love the opening acts of this film.

The film opens with title cards. Not just the classic "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away" line--it continues with the following cards:

It is a lawless time. Crime Syndicates compete for resources - food, medicine, and hyperfuel. 

On the shipbuilding planet of Corellia, the foul Lady Proxima forces runaways into a life of crime in exchange for shelter and protection. 

On these mean streets, a young man fights for survival, but yearns to fly among the stars...

None of this is necessary. NONE. All these cards accomplish is telling us the scene we're about to see. The only added context is the background information behind the syndicates and Lady Proxima, who exists in the film for all of five minutes. All of this information, including the background, could have easily been shown to us instead, either through action, scenery, or dialogue. The last card, which explicitly tells us Han's character, is something that's shown through the entirety of the film. As it is, these cards spoon-feed us information and it kind of ticks me off (not as much as the god-awful Prince of Persia title cards, but hot dang this comes close).

You don't say...

After this light reading, the film immediately jumps into a scene with Han flying a speeder to meet Qi'Ra, they give Lady Proxima the slip, and they attempt to escape the planet. They wind up splitting ways, which gives Han his first major goal--to reunite with Qi'Ra. I can appreciate this set-up, but it falls a little short for me because just about every line given in these parts are expository. Little personality is relayed, lots of information continues to be spoon-fed to us.

This continues even into Han's years in the Imperial service, in scenes that I felt were far too short. I guess they had to have been to get to the next major plot point--Han meeting Beckett and his team. Still, I would have loved to have seen more of Han in the Imperial service. I could easily see him becoming sick and disenfranchised with it, which would give him more motivation to join Beckett. As it is, he only splits from the Empire because of Qi'Ra--I guess that's all he needs.

For the next part, we're given character introductions and exposition for a motley gang of rogues who ultimately die. Beckett is the only interesting one in the bunch and the only one on his team that survives the mountain heist. I really couldn't bring myself to like or care for all the side characters (except maybe Rio Durant). All of these scenes come off as procedural and a waste of time, really.

Han inevitably lands himself a new job with the Crimson Dawn, and more exposition leads him on the path to meet Lando, do the Kessel run, and go through with the rest of the movie's events. This stuff kinda writes itself, to the point where it's predictable. But I do think the amount of "telling" scenes are reduced throughout the last half, so the film becomes more palatable and fun. As it is, the opening acts come off as choppy, expositional, and garish.

Fastest Hunk of Junk in the Galaxy

Don't use the high beams in the fog.

Han Solo is not the sole star of the movie. The Millennium Falcon is an iconic ship, and in some respects it can be considered a character in its own right (at least as much as the Starship Enterprise could be, or the Titanic, or the Black Pearl, or other famous ships). It becomes a bit of a Macguffin for the film, but it is ultimately gratifying to see Han man the ship's controls towards the end. Not to mention the few beauty shots of the ship when it first appears, and the many external shots of the ship as it flies planet-to-planet. Seeing the ship in a pristine condition is nice--I do admire how clean and slick the ship is at its beginning, but it still bears familiar features.

It does remind me that the film does juggle something important: the iconography of its characters and their histories. I really can't fault the film for the way it dresses up Han and has him pose with his blaster--he looks cool in most scenes, just as he should. Same goes for Lando, who not only looks great holding a blaster but also holding cards. And his expressions--the smiles, the grimaces--echoes Billy Dee Williams' portrayal cleverly. The film never really strives for iconic scenes of its own, but I think it does fair justice to pre-existing icons.

I Don't Like It, I Don't Agree With It, But I Accept It

Few other interesting things about this film:

• Darth Maul returns, apparently in charge of the Crimson Dawn. It's a good scene and all, but I was left a little perplexed as to how and why this character returned this way after all the years that passed. Yeah, I know he came back in the cartoons, but I still find it hard to swallow after being cut in half in The Phantom Menace. All that being said, if a second Solo movie comes out, I will be looking forward to seeing Maul in action. Dude deserves more screentime.
• L3, despite coming off as a little annoying, is strangely funny to watch.
• It's a Ron Howard film. I'm usually quite ambivalent towards his films, but I do believe he's at his best with adventure fiction (as evidenced by Willow, which I believe shares a similar vibe and pace to Solo). As such, I think he did a fair job in directing (or rather, completing) Solo. I do kinda wonder how this project would have fared under the original directors--Phil Lord and Christpher Miller--but the decision to fire them is unsurprising given their established track record directing comedies. Solo has its funny moments, but it really needed to be an adventure with grit, and not a parody.

In general, I came out of the film pleased with its adventurous aspects. The amount of "tell don't show" writing bugs me, mostly in the opening acts. Much of the film is predictable, tension-less, and rather safe in nature, but it does kick into high gear eventually and become a thrilling experience all the same. It comes close to being my least-favorite of the Star Wars films (second only to Attack of the Clones), but I think its biggest failure is in how bland and procedural it seems, rather than its overall competency.

Fly, you fool!