Third Row Center: Solo Makes Some Questionable Choices and Goes into Rocky Territory.

So I saw Solo, Directed by Ron Howard and written by Lawrence and John Kasden against the wishes of those who wanted to boycott the movie. Trolls and extremists aside, I found myself again empathizing with them a little, though I am not onboard with a boycott. See it or don't, it's up to you and let the market decide. Overall, my take is that once again, it’s been proven that it’s hard to write a Star Wars movie. By the way, spoilers abide, so don’t read on if you are sensitive to that sort of thing.

First what I liked.  I love the heist scenes. That was good fun. The movie centers on two different missions to get some very expensive and volatile fuel rods. The scenes, one involving a train, and another which  involved the famous “Kessel Run” mentioned in episode IV are when the movie is running on all thrusters. There is a lot of great moments in the initial train heist scene involving pirates, droids, and near-misses.

I also welcomed a lot of the actors in this movie that weren’t part of the previous Canon (as far as I know) like Woody Harrelson who plays Beckett, who does a great impersonation of the Nazi from Indiana Jones in the last Crusade who warns Jones/Solo no to trust anyone. Emelia Clarke is also a great addition as Qi’Ra who is one of Solo's first loves who grew up with him on mean streets of Corellia. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Paul Bettany as Dryden Voss who does a great job as the perceived villain of Crimson Dawn in the movie.  Crimson Dawn is a of crime syndicate in this movie and Bettany is the scarred leader of it. He also has a “flying palace” that would make Jabba The Hutt jealous.

Second, then there are the aliens, the bit players, and other atmosphere characters. They make the movie feel like it is a Star Wars movie. One of Beckett’s crew was an alien voiced by John Favreau who at times felt like the alien version of Rocket Raccoon.  A similar thing could be said about L3-37, who does a great job as Lando’s copilot and partner in crime.  Also, it almost should go without saying that L3-37 looks suspiciously like the word “Leet” in coder or gamer language. 

Third, It was interesting seeing the Falcon in pristine condition and I also liked the explanation for the Kessel run which runs counter to the fans that asserted was the gaff of the New Hope that the parsec was a misuse in Solo's bragging as it is not a unit of time.  While there is evidence both for and against on whether or not Lucas meant what he said or it was a mistake,  it was a great adventure showing the Kessel run in this movie as navigating through a particularly dangerous part of space known as The Maw.

What I didn’t quite like was the actors who played Han, Chewbacca, and Lando. I remember finding myself bored during parts of the movie seeing the interaction between Donald Glover, who played Lando, Alden Ehrenreich, who played Han Solo, and Joonas Duotamo as Chewbacca. But maybe these performances will resonate with me from another viewing. In some ways, it’s a no-win situation, you don’t want the actors doing straight-up imitations of the other actors like what happened in Superman Returns, but at the same time, you don’t want them creating a completely different version of a well-known character either. While I am not going to go all angry fanboy and add hashtags like #notmysolo, at the same time it felt like there was an uncertain quality to the characters. It was as if they weren't sure which direction to take with the characters.  This could have something to do with the firing of the directors and being replaced by Ron Howard. Of the three, Lando “seemed” the most likable.

Speaking of Lando, the hype machine that arose about a week before claiming that Lando was a pansexual was maybe started by people who just wanted to get butts in seats to see Lando make passes at everything that walked.  The truth is, Lando had feelings for his Robot copilot. This isn’t new though as there were similar sentiments exhibited for BB-8 in The Last Jedi by Poe Dameron. While many jump to the conclusion that there was a romance between Lando and L3, which could be supported through some dialogue by the eccentric L3 herself, I still think he saw her as a friend and someone he could trust in a galaxy where it is in short supply. Think of Tom Hanks feelings towards losing Wilson in Castaway and you will get the idea at what I'm driving at here.

It seems one of the things the latest Star Wars movies have gotten right is that the droids are interesting.  I liked the comedy factor of the droids and every time L3 is in the movie is a treat.  I even liked “her” unintentionally creating an uprising among the droids. The same can be said for the droid companion in the movie Rogue One, and BB-8 in the latest trilogy.

There were a number of origin story hiccups or file them under choices that were never needed to be known, or were wrong. The origin of Han’s name, well, it’s stupid. I made a similar error in a novel I wrote and plan to change it. Keeping the name Solo a surname similar to Skywalker and not explaining it is perfectly fine. I would rather him have a rather long and hard-to-pronounce name that was shortened to Solo than what the writers came up with.

Second, Han speaking Wookeese, just no. I know Star Wars is campy, but not that campy. I would rather Chewie have said something to that effect when Han first attempted it. It was painful to watch. I looked around me this part of the movie hoping to share an “are you kidding me” moment.

Thanks to the internet the whole Qi’ra, Darth Maul alliance was revealed and really it wasn’t much of a reveal unless we are planning on seeing Solo movie in the future, which might not be out of the question. As the mother of Dragons, I know Emilia Clarke can act badass as anyone.  That scene where she walks out of the fire unscathed and naked in Game of Thrones is impressive as it is terrifying. I wish we would have seen more of that in the performance of Qi’Ra, but then again, she might be going for that Sith “less is more” exhibition that Palpatine played for many years before he became emperor.

Another problem: Disney or Lucasfilm screwed up on the Sabacc game. Lando wouldn’t cheat and unless he knew a computer hacker, most likely couldn’t cheat. The game itself, at least the better version of it, was in the Expanded Universe novels. The cool thing about Sabacc was it was a game of luck, as well as strategy.  The cards in the game I remember had the ability to transform.  So say you had a full house in poker, you knew there was a chance (because even the cards changing was random) that you could find yourself with nothing but trash.  So not only are you playing against other players but against chance itself.

Despite the unevenness of the film, there were some decent comedic moments between Chewie and Han.  It’s just that swagger of the Han Solo in this movie didn’t strike me as particularly believable. As other reviewers have said, he was “trying it on for size.” It didn’t flow through him like the force at this point.  Not sure if it was intentional or unintentional.

There was also a great scene when Chewie finally takes the copilot seat. It “felt” right.  I didn’t get choked up or anything like that.  There will probably be a fan out there that intercuts some of the parts of this origin story with the death scene of Han in The Force Awakens.

One of the things that makes a great movie is conflict, and I don’t recall a lot of conflict in this movie. Like the relationship between Qi’ra and Crimson Dawn. I didn’t feel like there were stakes in it. She worked for Crimson Dawn, voluntarily? There’s a lot of attempts to make these relationships complex like the relationships between Kylo Ren. Rey, and Snoke in The Last Jedi, when they don’t need to be. If the characters are fresh and interesting, then their relationships will be as well. But there was never any real relationship between Qi’ra and Dryden Voss.

I also was not cool with the “softening” of Han.  At one point in the movie Qi’ra says to Solo that despite all attempts to the contrary, she knows him and knows he is “the good guy.” The Han that we know is jaded and only in it for the money at the beginning of A New Hope, and it would have been great to see him like that. At least at a pivotal point in the movie Han acquits himself well in the whole “who shot first” question. But, I didn’t like this portrayal of him. I always figured Han was already jaded by the time he left the academy. I thought where he grew up on Corellia already hardened him to the fact that he could trust no one. He didn’t need to be told that.

Another part that disturbed me was at times it just felt like an anthology movie. I just felt there should have been something more. I think a much more ambitious film would have been Han and Chewie saving the Wookies and establishing the life debt because that to me is one of the central themes of Star Wars, is unlikely family. Maybe part of the "wrong" feel of the movie is the way it was shot, or just the odd artistic sensibility exhibited in the spaceships on how they kept them very square shaped and angular looking. The speeders in the last few movies have been very simple, slag-like, and rectangular in nature.

Finally, every time I saw the Thandie Newton character there was a part of me that wanted to yell “Don’t believe her, she’s an android!”

All in all, I think the movie is worth seeing. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. It could be that it just should have never been a Ron Howard movie. It could just be that the Kasdan’s shouldn’t have written it. It could be as another reviewer points out, the cinematographer is used to filming darker edgier movies. Whatever the reason is, it’s not working as intended.  It’s not firing on all thrusters.