f13.net

Yes that really is the title.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RealRonHoward/status/920320502320771073

Oh thank goodness, finally a year where I won't feel the urge to see a Star Wars movie.

NOTE: It's also reportedly a quasi-comedy, which is why they went with Howard once whats-his-name was fired.

So it'll be... interesting.

That is a terrible name for this movie.

star wars, as a series, is known for being good with words

Only thing it makes me think of:

(https://solocup.com/media/1308/squared31.png)

It makes me think of something else...

Solo: a Self Love Story.

I don't get the reference.

Huh.  Google image search has that showing up on some... interesting sites.  That I would probably rather not visit while at work.

Probably of no concern though, I haven't been fired for visiting here yet!   :awesome_for_real:

I just feel like the title is calculated to turn me off from the film.

It's Hope Solo, an American Soccer player, who was momentarily famous for something a few years back, iirc.  She also took some selfies of her nethers, and shared them online.  I advise against looking for them.

Rebellions are built on Hope.

This film has a neat trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPEYpryMp2s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPEYpryMp2s)

I agree.

Of course, the quality of the final film will depend entirely on how much money it takes in.

Also how many tomatoes it has. Tomatoes are important apparently.

Looks great. Looking forward to the epic f13 thread dedicated to the desecration of the Holy Solo or whatever.

I like the new trailer. I have a sneaky suspicion that this film, like Rogue One, will be better than both VII and VIII.

I look forward to the further Marvelization of Star Wars. So far we have a war movie (in Star Wars) and a heist movie (in Star Wars).  Now we need an action-packed buddy comedy (in Star Wars), a Shakespearean family drama (in Star Wars), a western (in Star Wars) and how about an espionage thriller (in Star Wars)?

I thought we already had the espionage thriller with the "teal the plans of the Death star" thingie whose name I cant remember.

I would have gone with Hope Solo?

A New Hope Solo?

I dunno, need more coffee.

Edit:  And of course we've already done the Hope Solo thing.  Ah well, I'll leave it as a monument of my failure to re-read the thread.

Hey, you guys beat The Onion (https://entertainment.theonion.com/fans-excited-as-solo-trailer-sheds-light-on-specifica-1825112914#_ga=2.179925805.849691666.1523334811-1305908078.1522991608).

Sort of.  It really didn't feel like a spy movie, though. 

And you thought the fans who disliked TLJ were the sour ones.

It was The Dirty Dozen.

I'm thinking we'll get Kely's Star Wars Heroes where a bunch of deserting rebel's liberate a planet while just trying to steal the stargold vs 3 AT-AT's.

I got some serious Western vibes from this trailer. I mean, they're robbing a train for god's sake...

I think I would be more excited if this wasn't a Star Wars movie (especially with such iconic characters that have their "future set")

Are you saying Han doesn't die in this movie?  :ye_gods:

Hmm, looks like it could be fun.  I'm tentatively on board with it.

This really isn't much of an issue for me.  In like, 95% of movies like this, you already know the main character is going to live.  They never kill him.  So doesn't really ruin much.

If sonething like who lives and who dies can spoil a movie - it probably wasn't a good movie anyway.

Always with the negative waves, Moriarty!  I’d totally watch what you’ve just described.

That would indeed be the best take possible for this.  Alas, I highly doubt thats how it will go.

Put this in context of Game of Thrones and Walking Dead and you realized how shitty both of those shows are at their core. Both thrive on that exact point.

I digress, good sirs. This movie appears as if it will be fun.

As regards Game of Thrones up to and including season 3 episode 9, I disagree with you entirely. In fact I think it is a better show up to that point if you already know the twists.

But walking dead, yes obviously, and I don't think anyone argues it is still a good programme either way.

A 2-3 hour movie with the death of a character is a whole different kettle of fish to a TV series where you are meant to build empathy with the characters weekly over many a season. The surprises can still be impactful enough that spoiling such a death can be detrimental to watching it, and it doesn't make it a bad show.

I mean, you all know that the dad is going to die on This is Us but you don't know how and apparently (I don't watch the show) the fact that you got spoiled on the death and it might ruin the experience doesn't detract from the show being well made.

None of that has to do with whether or not Solo will be any good. I'm sure it'll be entertaining but I don't think it'll be as good as Rogue One.

I'll concede that not knowing can add something to one viewing.

But it can't ruin a film or a show. If a film or a show is bad once you know, it was also bad when you didn't know.

The problem will be if they make a huge deal about the card came where Solo wins the Falcon. We know he is going to win it but you know damn well they will try to amp that up to the nines pod-race style. And if they try to build it into a huge tension filled moment in the movie it just wont work.

Completely agree, but not because we know he is going to win.

A scene like that is easy to overwrite and underedit. If it isn't good on a rewatch, it isn't good.

The trailer ran before Black Panther when I saw it last friday.

The person playing Han Solo looks and acts weird and has a very weird delivery. My first feeling was that I really don't like him. It's too neat and too clean which clashes with the Star Wars Universe aesthetics. It has a "well, Guardians was successful so lets do that" vibe and everyone involved is entirely acting too cool and too put together. Han Solo is not Star Lord or Rocket Racoon though, he's self confident and cocky but prone to legendary fuck ups and the character in the trailer is to much Ocean's Eleven.

It felt very underwhelming to me.

I'll probably wait until the hype has subsided and people had a chance to make up their minds about it before I decide if I go and see it.

It depends how they handle it, they could show him losing the card game at the beginning but winning another at the end.  Or they could show him losing the card game, stealing the ship, and dropping a line to Chewie at the end “If anyone asks I won it in a card game”.

That wouldn't work.  Lando and Han clearly agree on the backstory of the Falcon in the movies.  Sure, there's banter and rivalry, but there's no animosity that it belongs to Solo.

Or something.  Who cares.  Not me.  Nope.

Hmm, I think that's a fair take.  Han Solo is basically just space Indiana Jones.  Sure he's a cool bad ass in general, but both of their plans often screw up half way through, leading to them trying to get out of their own fuck ups in hilarious/awesome manners.  Suave Han Solo (especially a young/green Han Solo) doesn't really work.  But hey, just a trailer, willing to give it a chance (though the production difficulties the movie had are not good signs).

Rogue One had those and it was the best SW film since RotJ (fuck off ESB nerds). I think I'll try and forget that this character is meant to be exactly harrison ford and it might be ok. Also Donald Glover!

Cool train tho

Apparently, Lando is now pansexual. :oh_i_see:  I don't have a problem with LGBTQ people as characters in movies, I just feel that some of this is being done not for the story being presented on screen but as part of a message driven agenda.  I go to see movies like Star Wars to get away from the real world for 2 hours or so not to have political and social messages thrown at me.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/entertainment/donald-glover-lando-solo/index.html

A character being aggressively heterosexual is in that sense just as "political", if you're going to insist on focusing on this kind of stuff.

It's not like you saw Lando doing anything sexual in the original films other than trying to pick up Princess Leia. Although who knows with the dude with the earphones on, maybe they're lovers too.

I do feel like it's kind of shoehorning that in there but at the same time, I doubt we'll see anything about it in the movie that's even remotely more than two seconds worth of flirting anyway so who gives a fuck?

If there was a character that was implied to be LGBTQ in the earlier movies but was now being presented as heterosexual, you'd never hear the end of it.  It's the same thing with "white washing" or changing a character from female to male.  I just think it's better to create new characters with their own, new stories than to retcon existing, established characters just to show how diverse and progressive you are.  Look at the last Ghostbusters and compare it to the upcoming Ocean's 8.  Both use known franchises but only one of them has, new original characters.  Ocean's 8 looks pretty interesting while we all knew that Ghostbusters was going to suck, and it did.

Yeah, I don't think we're going to see Lando rolling around with a Bothan or anything but I just kind roll my eyes when I see this sort of thing happening.  I'm not going to boycott the movie (which apparently is a thing that's happening) and I'll probably enjoy it a bit but the last 2 of the 3 SW movies (really enjoyed Rogue One) have kind of dampened my interest in the franchise. 

Thanks for the visual. There goes part of my childhood, fully ruined.  :awesome_for_real:

For some really weird reason, he (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lobot (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lobot)) was one of my favorite characters when playing with the toys as a kid. So many Star Wars figures are buried in my parents backyard, the Sarlacc claimed many lives. Lobot always made it through though.

I sold all of my SW toys for $50 around 1985. :heartbreak:  I had a lot of cool stuff, like the Death Star, Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, Hoth base and a lot of other vehicles and action figures.

DO people have high hopes for this one?  I'm feeling like it will disappoint - the Iron Man II of the Star Wars universe..

Can't be disappointed if you don't have expectations, my man.

Yeah, I have zero expectations for this.  Trailer was by the books, but the Disney/Marvel borg has done some great stuff over the last few years, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Also, I actually enjoyed all three Ironman movies (though first was obviously the best), so I guess by popular opinion, my opinion is suspect.

Ah the Lloyd Dobler approach - I know it well.

I'm just surprised that people have sex lives in mind for a character who was a relatively small part of two movies, has no stated lover or relationship and no real back story beyond "Han's acquaintance who used to own the Millennium Falcon, maybe", and who represents himself as a guy who went legit after being kind of scoundrel/shady, such that they're willing to say "OH THEY CHANGED THE CHARACTER, HE WAS TOTALLY BONING EVERY FEMALE IN CLOUD CITY I JUST KNOW IT".

I mean, think about it. In the original Star Wars in present canon, here's what you know:

Leia and Han are heterosexual.
Luke appears notionally heterosexual but actually only displays modest, relatively chaste interest in his sister.
Darth Vader was heterosexual.

That's it. Obi-Wan sort of displayed a courtly interest in a woman in Clone Wars. Chewbacca, unless you're counting the Holiday Special as canon, is an unknown. Boba Fett is a clone, who knows what he is. Palpatine shows no interest in anyone in that way. Jabba is kind of sexual but I don't even know what he really counts as in terms of gender. No other Jedi is shown having strong romantic ties or interests besides Anakin in the series. Grand Moff Tarkin is an unknown plus he's blown up. No Imperial officer is known. Wedge Antilles is not known.

Almost nothing they would choose to do now with any of those characters in backstory could be said to be "shoehorned in" if they characterized them romantically. And of them, making Lando out to be a kind of Jack Harkness willing to make it with anything seems pretty consistent with the character's whole attitude in the originals.

The choice of actor has something to do with the perceived sexuality, here.  Billy Dee had a reputation before, and after, he was in Star Wars that influenced the perception of the character. 

That's not what Vader's therapist says.

Again, reverse the scenario and have Lando originally being perceived as homosexual and then change that to him being heterosexual in the new movie and see how that would have been taken.  As jgsugden said, having Billy Dee Williams playing the character first also left the impression that he was a sort of ladies man.  In the end, it's not a huge deal.  I'll see the movie anyway and highly doubt this is going to matter in the end in terms of whether or not the movie is any good.  It's part of a pattern, though.  You have the producers trumpeting the fact that the main droid is the first "female" droid in a SW movie (she's not, btw) and that she's fighting for "droid rights" or saying shit like "the force is female".  I hate agenda driven crap like this in movies that don't require it.  This isn't some Oscar bait high cinema we're talking about here.  Is it too much to ask for just fucking lasers and light sabers in a SW movie so I can turn my brain off for 2 hours?

Does sexuality somehow prevent you from turning your brain off?

Also, if you're just looking for 2 hours of escapism maybe stop reading all the marketing.

It's not a huge deal.  I just roll my eyes when I see this sort of thing these days.  I don't have an issue, at all, with LGBTQ people being represented in movies.  I've mentioned before that I support same sex marriage.  We've had it here in Canada for almost 13 years and it's worked out pretty well.  I just don't like changing the sexuality, gender or race of established characters for stuff like SW just for the sake of diversity, esp. when it's blatantly obvious what they're trying to do.  I don't like it when they do the reverse, either, when characters are changed to be straight, white or men.  I want more movies like Black Panther and Rogue One where they used original characters and stories instead.  I LOVED Black Panther.  I saw it 3 times and enjoyed it more than Infinity War (everything Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan are in is something I have to see now).  Same with Rogue One.  It was much, much better than TFA or TLJ.  Neither Black Panther or Rogue One had any of the main characters played by white men.  When a character was a white man, they were usually a minor character or a villain.  It didn't matter because the rest of the cast were great and the stories were engaging.  

Anyway, enough sidetracking.  I don't have high hopes for this movie, not because of Lando's sexuality, but because it just doesn't look very good, mostly because the actor playing Han Solo doesn't do anything for me from the previews I've seen.  I have no expectations that this will be any good but I hope I'm wrong.  We'll see.

To netflix this shit goes.

I always got the feeling Lando was boning everyone, Han included, old buddy. Colt 45 is a hell of a drink.

Look at this jealous bitch:

(https://heavyarmor.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/choked.jpg)

Lando had a Casanova style swagger in the movies, so yeah it was easy to think he would have been a bike. But yeah, this is just retconning for buzz and PCness, and its pretty fucking blatant. Its not like they couldn't just slot in a whatever character considering theres only going to be 3 characters we actually know in the entire movie.

Also if the film tanks they can blame prejudice against whatevers like they did with Godawfulbusters. You will know you have recieved acceptance when people suggest shit like this and people feel free to just say its a stupid idea.

Lando Calrissian being pansexual is not even remotely out of the realm of possibility. He's the original Captain Jack Harkness, IMO. His sexuality wasn't important to the original trilogy and it's not important now, but, you know, marketing.

That we are even having this discussion makes me weep for my youth.

Your youth was asking for it.  :why_so_serious:

Lando's asking if your youth is single.

I am surprised how many people are able to pass judgement on a pretty unremarkable character decisions without having seen the film.

You have no idea. Just from watching a few SW videos on Youtube I've become constantly inundated with suggestion after suggestion for slight variations of "how SJWs ruined Star Wars". The amounts of hate shit like this gets makes me wish they did a lot more of it. It sure as fuck has zero effect at the box office no matter how many idiots bitch about it.

Hello new internet user! Welcome! Have you taken our crash course on proper internet etiquette, known colloquially as 'netiquette'? Please direct your browser to any one of our fabulous social media websites for further details! (we suggest starting with Tumblr. We advise to begin by just reading a few threads to get familiar with the lay of the land, so to speak. We'll meet back up soon and discuss our opinions (no judgements!). 

I disagree. The amount of free advertising the film gets via bitching is IMMENSE!! They want to make this movie the most talked about film of the period where it's in the theaters, so what better way to do it? And if it shows signs of dying down they dispatch a few professional trolls to fan the flames on both sides and away we go again.

Lets face it, they are going to get a few more pages on this thread out of this alone.

Are you new to the Internet?

I'd watch this on Netflix because Donald Glover is Lando. But nothing from the trailers or reviews are convincing me this is worth 15 dollars when you can just watch deadpool 2 again.

Shrug, it's Star Wars that's good enough for me until it ain't.

Well that was an entertaining couple hours. Alden Erheinrich never gave me a Harrison Ford vibe though.

There is a huge middle finger to Marvel in here.

Agreed, on both counts. Good fun with relatively limited fan pandering.

Erheinrich's Han comes across as less a scoundrel than a scamp. None of Ford's snarling very little of his swagger. The original series character (and most of Harrison's acting) has a darkness and sarcastic menace that Elden doesn't capture.  He's only six years younger than Ford was in New Hope, so he hasn't got a lot of time to pick up all the bitter apathy he'd need to become that man. Still: fine plotting, snappy lines and two and a half great set pieces.

Die hard fans will grouse, but it's quality popcorn fare.

Lando and the secondary characters really carried this. Loved Becket, L3-37, Rio and Enfys Nest specially.

Wait.  The drioid is called Leet?  Really?  I mean, come on......

It's Star Wars, one of the aliens playing cards with Lando is called Therm Scissorpunch. They only ever call her "L3" though.

If you ignore the two primaries in this flick and focus on the Star Wars, it’s not bad. Still better than the prequels.

This deserves to become a meme a la "Epic Fail" or "There, fixed it".

--Dave

Or "still a better love story than Twilight"

Over the years I've found your tastes pretty spot on.  Would another way of saying the above, "OK film, not worth an argument, not worth getting worked up about"?  I can get into a SW film for the SW. 

That's a good description. Anyone not expecting a Star Wars movie to change their lives is going to be entertained.

Ironically, for me, the opinions here on the movie are the opposite of everyone I know that has seen it (I haven't, and won't; I saw Episode 7 and Rogue One and decided that I had no real interest in the new era of Star Wars -- not a huge surprise to me given I had little interest in the prequels or original trilogy either -- just never been a Star Wars fan, but given the relative importance of the brand, I find it interesting to follow). The hardcore Star Wars fans and non-Star Wars people I know that have seen it have all had the same opinion; Han and Chewie are the best part of the movie and everything else was either "meh" or, in the case of the Droid and Enfys, terrible. Some have gone so far as to say Jar Jar > L3, and that the movie is just barely above the prequels in terms of quality/enjoyment, and there's some debate there for them.

More interesting to me, personally, is what the sluggish box office for it means going forward.

I saw this today I was thinking the same thing about the droid, L3-37 (come on, LEET, really??? :facepalm:).  She's there for one reason and one reason only, just like Jar Jar was.  Jar Jar was meant to be the funny character that appealed to children while LEET is there as some sort of nod to the progressive social justice agenda of the film makers.  I mean she is kind of comical but I'm sure she wasn't meant to be.  I rolled my eyes every time she went on about "droid rights".  As for Han, I'm going to have to say he was the biggest weak point of the entire movie.  He wasn't cringe worthy bad like the actors they got to play young and older Anakin, but I just never bought him as Han Solo.  I feel bad for the actor playing him because if he had been playing anyone else other than Han Solo he would have been good.  He just didn't look, sound or act like the Han Solo we've grown use to with Harrison Ford.  The rest of the cast were fine.  I'd probably rate it better than Last Jedi but far below Rogue One.

It seems to not be doing well at the box office.  I went in today at around 1pm and the theater was more than half empty.  Compare that to last weekend when I went to see Deadpool 2 at around the same time and I had to sit way up front because it was almost a full house.  I guess just slapping the name "Star Wars" on a generic sci-fi movie isn't going to be good enough anymore.  So, yeah, it's about what I expected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ftdu8yrKOw

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/box-office-solo-a-star-wars-story-numbers-struggle-1114854

Social Justice Agenda?

Fuuuuuuuuuck off. And take that white male victim bullshit with you.

As for the droid, I didn’t know she was l33t ‘til someone here pointed it out. She was funny and a solid foil to Lando’s lothario. This was a decent heist flick set in the Star Wars universe and I dug it for that and for the lore references, which were everywhere.

I walked out of the movie yesterday with a somewhat meh attatuide. Ok, but not great. They missed some of the shots they were trying to land as the Western Movie that's a Heist in space.

It's grown on my today. I'd like to see LANDO the movie and Qi'ra (? it that how you spell it?) the bad guy in someone else's movie.

Well they were obviously setting up another movie, but if this does mediocre at the box office as it seems to be doing then we can probably forget about it.

Haha, holy shit its always weird to run into one of you people out in the wild.

To be fair, a lot of those I know who saw the movie had a simlar reaction, regardless of their personal stance on SJW stuff or where they themselves sit on the scale. A lot of them had the take-away that the droid was very much the SJW Droid and that was a big reason the character was an issue for them. Hell, one of these people is a moderate SJW crusader type (by which I mean they sit on the edge of the JSW-types that few people can tolerate with their stupid, extreme SJW bullshit) and even they cringed at the Droid. Again, I personally haven't a clue, but it isn't an uncommon opinion out there from what I've seen, even from SJW types themselves.

Comparatively, the issues I've seen regarding Enfys is similar to Phasma. With Lando it seems to be more of a 'well, that's disappointing.. he could have been so much better had they let Glover be more charismatic and less muted'. As for Han.. most I know liked him, saying they could see what Ford's Han was near the end of the movie and that the movie was about how he became like that.

I just find the wide-range of takes on the movie interesting. Very split reception. A lot of out-right 'fuck this shit', a bunch of 'meh..' and then a bunch of 'decent, but not great Star Wars movie.. could have been worse', with a few 'best SW movie ever!' thrown in. Now, I generally regard Star Wars as the single most over-hype franchise in the history of, well, franchises. It tends to top out at 'meh.. decent?' at best for me. I'm just not the target audience and just don't get the fan reactions to any of the movies (except the prequels; which while not as bad as most make them out to be.. are pretty close).

Went into this with the thought of ignoring the star wars bit and enjoying it as a generic sci fi movie. Overall I thought it was decent although I found the supporting characters were more interesting than the main. Since I went in with incredibly low expectations I was presently surprised. So I give it a 3 out of 5.  I kind of hope they make a standalone Lando movie with Glover.

Oh and while I noticed the SJW stuff I ignored it for the most part.

Ok, then.  The droid is totally not there for that reason.  Guess I was the only one who saw that.  My bad. :oh_i_see:

"Throughout Solo: A Star Wars Story L3 serves up reminders to her non-droid friends to check their privilege."
"Solo: A Star Wars Story does not shy away from overt political opinions, even if they're couched in droids versus everybody else."
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/965242/Solo-A-Star-Wars-Story-Who-is-Pheobe-Waller-Bridge-character-L3-37-fleabag

"“She has a social conscience, which is really great to play,” says Waller-Bridge"
“That’s what’s so genius about (Star Wars) films. They speak about and create situations that are so relevant and so poignant today,”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/05/15/meet-phoebe-waller-bridge-revolutionary-new-solo-star-wars-droid/608557002/

"Then L3 enters the story line with a jolt and redefines a female robot for our era. Of course, you can't compare her on-screen presence to the work that’s been done by real women through the Time's Up and #metoo movements. Their courage and dedication are helping to topple powerful sexual harassers and putting a spotlight on  gender inequality in the workplace.  That progress is happening now, not in a galaxy far, far away."
"Deep inside, she wants to be treated decently, just like any other thinking being.  Instead, she’s viewed by strangers as little more than space junk. And, sadly, that resonates in 2018, when too many people –- and one person alone would be too many –- are feeling emboldened to treat others as lesser-than, whether it's because of their gender, race, ethnicity or immigrant status."
"For women, sexism has been a problem since, oh, the beginning of recorded time. But now, female voices are getting attention in ways that honestly seems revolutionary. And during L3's big scene, when – spoiler alert – she yells out “Rebellion!,” something clicks that relates strongly to 2018."
"In short, her feminist credentials are impeccable, as are her humanitarian ones. So when’s her spin-off movie?"
https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/2018/05/20/star-wars-l-3-l-7-solo-droid-female/624376002/

"L3 will grow on you as the story progresses, and that’s because of the way Phoebe brings her to life.  “It’s so cool that she’s (L3) got a cause, you know, says the 32-year-old actress. “She’s like a social justice warrior, and she’s a droid with an agenda that goes beyond her own existence, and that’s very unique. It’s good to have a message.”
http://www.craftychica.com/2018/05/l3-37-phoebe-waller-bridge/

It wasn't a huge deal I'm not one of those people that get worked up about this sort of thing and calling for boycotts and all that nonsense.  When I saw it I just kind of rolled my eyes and carried on watching the rest of the movie.  The movie didn't up being mediocre because of the droid but it didn't help it out any, either. 

All this rampant sjw talk aside, this....


Made me laugh way too hard. 

That's what they used to say about Star Trek, that it tackled and discussed social topics in a sci fi setting. They never said it about Star Wars. While the mistreatment of Droid was a minor plot point in the first movie ("we don't serve their kind in here," and the droid slave auction) it certainly was not talked about as such. Looks like they are shoehorning stuff into it and retroactively saying it always was there.

So far this movie is projected to make 40 million less than what Disney hoped for with international sales at about 11 million in the UK and 11 million in China.

It’s a shame this movie is paying for the sins of The Last Jedi.  I went to it and really did enjoy it .  The dialogue and the story was in my opinion no where near as bad as people said it was and the guy who played a young Harrison Ford was nowhere near as bad as people have been saying.  I honestly don’t get the hate this film has garnered at all.  

I didn't think the guy was bad, i just never thought "that's totally a young harrison ford" like i did with Donald Glover.

Donald Glover nailed his role.  I'd like to see a Lando movie now.

Saw it today, loved it. Great fun summer romp, and easily the most fun I've had any of these new Star Wars movies. There's too much dark weird brooding about shit in the other ones. This was like HELL YEAH WE'RE STEALING SOME SHIT, and then cut it loose into crazy town.

Highly recommend, and I don't get why people get up their butt about anything in this movie. It's only political if you're actively looking for it. Hell, half the crap you're talking about earlier with sexuality went completely unnoticed to me. I walked out thinking anybody that has a social problem with this movie is either looking for trouble or doesn't touch women regularly.

Lando's sexuality thing was pretty much a non-issue.  I don't know why Donald Glover even mentioned anything about it at all since I got the feeling his  The movie wasn't just ok for me because of any of that stuff.  The droid was more annoying than anything else.  You could have cut her character out completely and I still would have had the same opinion.  It was ok, better than Last Jedi but worse than Rogue one, but I just didn't buy that guy as a young Han Solo because he was too different than what we were use to with Harrison Ford.  The actor playing Han would have been good if he been playing someone else as he's not bad at all.  Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and if you're not going to try and at least emulate him and his take on the character, why bother other than $$$?  

I agree with Paelos; this was a 100% fun scifi pulp fun movie and I want to watch it again. So many easter eggs, like the Mandalorian armor in Vos's ship or the Rancor Keeper's mask on Beckett.

It reminded me a lot of being a kid and having the fun backyard stories I would make up with the toy figures. Even more than the other new movies, this one took me back a bit. And frankly, nobody was going to replace Ford as Solo. If he didn't seem as grizzled as the Solo we see in IV, well, he wasn't yet. He was still a bit of a kid and has 10-20 more years of smuggling to become Ford's Solo.

It all just worked for me.

I also enjoyed the shit out of this movie.

I think its the best of any of the non original trilogy movies. It was just a fun heist movie set in the Star Wars universe.
One of the things I liked vs all of the other recent movies was the cheese level was so much less.

As for the people complaining about the actor playing Han I totally agree with what Hawkbit said.  "If he didn't seem as grizzled as the Solo we see in IV, well, he wasn't yet. He was still a bit of a kid and has 10-20 more years of smuggling to become Ford's Solo." Also he did copy some of Harrison Ford's mannerism for example the pose he does as he fires his blaster was totally reminiscent of Harrison Ford's Solo.

As an aside, they are tossing rumors out that a Boba Fett Movie is in the works. Does not deserve its own thread but for what its worth.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-boba-fett-movie-is-happening-james-mangold-direct-1113273

Seems a few Star Wars Galaxies references made it into the film, the AV-21 speeder and the valahorn musical instrument.  There was also a reference to Qi’ra being proficient in the Teras Kasi fighting style, though Teras Kasi appeared somewhere in the EU years before SWG.

http://massivelyop.com/2018/05/28/solo-has-a-couple-blink-and-youll-miss-it-references-to-star-wars-galaxies/

This was good.  Thank fuck.

I thought Teras Kasi was from KOTOR

There was a PSX SW fighting game called Masters of Teras Kasi; that's the first place I'd heard of it.

"Teräs Käsi first appeared in the 1996 novel Shadows of the Empire."  I think I read that one but don't remember anything about Teras Kasi but that doesn't mean anything because it's been over 20 years.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ter%C3%A4s_K%C3%A4si

Not a great movie, not bad.  If it was not Star Wars it would not have been noteworthy.  

Han and Lando were about 25% recognizable.  I'd like to have seen a bit more that was recognizable in each.  The argument that this is a younger an more naive Han Solo ignores ...  

Qi'ra (Mother of Dragons) was a thin character.  They needed to give us more of her motivation.  She felt too random.  

L3 was a noble idea, but it felt half hearted, cliche and a bit too pandering to me.  The analogy was clear, but when that journey is carried forward by the comic relief that ...
Woody Harrelson did well with the role, but he needed more room.  I'd have liked to seen him be a darker mirror to future Han.  Instead, he just seemed tired.

The best acting in the film was too short.  
It feels like it is set up for a sequel... but I'm not sure it will get it given the numbers.

The most enjoyable movie of all the Disney SW movies for me.  Although Rogue One was probably a better movie.

Lots of fanboys seem to be downgrading the movie to punish Disney for TLJ.

I think it was more bad press from a troubled production and going up against Deadpool 2 and Infinity War, which took something like 60 million combined between them. Word of mouth should be good at least.

I think it absolutely will get a sequel. The movie has already grossed over $168M worldwide in a weekend, which no matter how you slice it isn't a bad return for an opener unless you have absurd expectations. It would make it one of the top 10 openings of 2017 if I'm reading numbers right.

The movie won't lose money with all the streaming rights, and the remainder if the time in the theaters, even though it cost close to $250M, and the only reason it cost that much is because they completely fucked up the production schedule and everybody knows it.

Let Howard do the sequel and set a reasonable budget of probably HALF what it cost? Oh and don't release it 5 months after the last movie and in the middle of summer blockbuster season? It'll print cash.

Supposedly it cost around $300 million to make before advertisement costs. Given the general percentage of what Disney likely gets after the theaters get their cut? Could take as much as $500-$600 million (possibly a bit more) to break even -- and there is no way it is getting those kinds of numbers. Disney's original expectations were that it would get $150-$170 million domestic for the 4 day opening and it fell quite short of that and the international numbers have been down-right abysmal, with (I believe) only Japan left to open in.

The next weekend will show, I think, whether or not it has any kind of legs. It needs Jumanji levels of legs to have any hope of breaking even (meaning it needs 25-35% week to week drops, which is rare). 

I still think that it gets a shot because the budget was insane and caused by complete meltdowns in production. I think given a normal budget it would have been a winner. Rogue One was around 220M after incentives and that was a much more difficult movie to shoot in my opinion.

Oh this movie a bombed. I'd blame the last jedi but Disney had it coming.

It's a funny world where we can say an $84 million opening weekend is a bomb.

Budget: 250 million USD

Still not understanding either how this is a bomb though.  Where does it say that movies have to make their budget back plus on opening weekend?  Sure, the biggest blockbusters seem to do that along with even more $$$ but why has that become the determiner of whether a movie is a success or not?

I mean, come on... it got Yegolev to buy plastic cups!  Marketing the toys/product tie-ins is where it's all at, after all!  :why_so_serious:

Successful movies do about 10% of their total gross on the opening weekend, bombs do about 30%.

Also gross is what the box office gets not what the studio gets.

Taken together if opening < budget it is at least possible the film won't be a financial success. In this particular case it is stupid analysis because the film will sell star wars junk, and Disney will expect a drop as they have used this release to switch Star Wars month from December to May, which they've been trying to do with every prior Star Wars release.

What it doesn't mean of course is that the movie is any good. But for some reason star wars films reflexively make f13 talk about economics.

Another thing to consider is opportunity cost.  A film that makes money, but not as much as expected, means that financial projections by the studio are off... and investors get ticked when the company makes less money than anticipated.  That forces the studio to make changes to try to get confidence back.  Accordingly, if people thought this movie would make a huge amount of money, even if it still makes some money, it can be a huge failure that has heavy impacts.

The character woody plays just 100% nails the look feel of smugglers in SWTOR as well.

We don’t know if this movie will have any legs yet.  I’m thinking it will because it’s better than the disaster people were expecting.  It might be able to ground out some real money.

It's a good movie. It's not a great movie, but it's a fun movie and way better than Rogue One in my mind which I didn't care for with the exception of everything Vader.

Well, I guess this is officially a "flop".  It made just under $30 million in NA this weekend with no new competition opening.  That's a drop of about 65% from last weekend, with revenue of $264 million globally to date.  With the few weeks seeing major releases (Ocean's 8, Incredibles 2 and Jurassic World 2) it's not going to get much better.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/03/media/solo-a-star-wars-story-box-office/index.html

 

I watched it yesterday, and I have to agree that the core problem is that there's no way this Han Solo becomes the Han Solo we see in ANH. The right pieces were there
 But there was no sign they were actually creating the bitter cynicism that Ford's Solo had to overcome. Instead, this Solo just has a Pollyanna can-do Dudley Do-right thing from beginning to end.

Glover clearly channeled Billy D's mannerisms and speech patterns, but absolutely nothing about Ehrenrich felt like Ford to me. Everything around him was clearly intended as an origin story for Han Solo, but it felt like he never actually arrived.

--Dave

Yeah, there's no way the movie breaks even at this rate. Production costs of $250-$300 million (and as time passes, more sources are moving to the $300 million number), plus apparently higher than normal ad costs (they did a lot of last minute buy ins and stuff, instead of advance purchases, leading to a higher than normal cost per slot) that could be anywhere from $100-150 million, means the movie cost anywhere from $350 - $500 million total. Given the average percentage studios get from movie theatres they need the movie to hit a minimum of $500 million to break even -- at the low end! If it's closer to the higher number it could mean they need as much as $700 million to break even. At this rate it isn't going to hit even the lower of the two. There is no way to describe the movie other than 'flop' when you're talking a loss of hundreds of millions.

Combine this with Star Wars toy sales declining over the past year and there's not a lot of silver lining for the franchise at the moment, which is amazing considering Star Wars is the franchise of franchises.

For comparison; Infinity War cost around $300 million to produce and they spent around $150 million in advertising (much of that with early purchasing, too -- supposedly more than half that budget was spent a year in advance letting them get more bang for the buck). Now, a lot of Solo's budget problems stem fro two sources; extensive re-shoots and a very late ad buy-in date, but the mere thought that these two movies cost roughly the same to produce and advertise? It really tells the tale of how badly they fucked up on Solo.

The side-story stuff is, by itself, not a bad idea for Star Wars, but they can't let the budgets get out of control. There is no way they should be more $100-$125 million maximum budget wise. If you bring it down closer to that number you're more likely to hit profitability regardless of how split the hardcore fan base is (and Star Wars is one of the few places where you generally need the hardcore fan base on side; they are the ones gobbling up a lot of the toys and seeing the movies 5+ times each in theatres, and then going out and buying every version of disc release). However, they are split. Some for idiotic reasons.. some for good reason.

Donald Glover was perfect as Lando.  Loved him and it made me want him to have his own movie.  The guy playing Han Solo just didn't ring true to me as the Han Solo we've known all these years.  

I’m a SW fan but I’m not excited for this film.  I didn’t enjoy TLJ and it’s taken a lot of my enthusiasm for the franchise.

Question:  I have a chance to go tonight but need babysitter and effort.  Is it worth seeing in a cinema or wait for streaming in a few months?  Never thought I would skip a SW film in a theater but here we are.

I think you've already answered your own question.

Yeah but.... 😑

Avoid it. You won't like it.

If you go into it expecting Theatrical Star Wars, you'll be disappointed.  However, it is like pretty good animated Star Wars stories (Clone Wars, Rebels).

I liked Solo almost as much as Rogue 1.  Definitely see it if you ever loved the old EU or West End Games RPG.  However, some theaters are showing it on outdated projectors causing it to look dark and murky, so make sure you go to a theater that you trust for quality.

It's the same reason he isn't ANH solo yet, because they wanted sequels to this.

Looks like Kathleen Kennedy, who is in charge of the Star Wars movies, is stepping down after the failure of Solo and the mixed reaction to TLJ.

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/971073/Star-Wars-Han-Solo-FLOP-Kathleen-Kennedy-QUIT-fire-Lucasfilm-fan-boycott-Dave-Filoni

I think she's over it at this point. In terms of box office numbers, Force Awakens and Rogue One was amazing, and they've been consistently getting worse since then. They've lost control of the direction, the budgets, and the management of the movies themselves. It needs a new path. Frankly it needs a slower path and a more consistent plan.

Almost all of this is Disney's fault for trying to cram as much product down our throats as possible, and because of that ridiculous schedule it's also the fault of the producers to have completely different directors in every movie, and completely different writers in every movie with the exception of Lawrence Kasdan who is predictably on the only two movies I've liked so far (Force Awakens and Solo).

I wouldn't blame her for leaving if she came out and said, "Fuck Star Wars fans." Because I'd agree with her. People are fucking awful, I'm tired of them, and I don't create content. Buncha goddamn awful people.

Yeah. I've been looking at a few fan videos lately, and she really has been getting it in the neck for stuff that she wasn't in any way responsible for. Granted I know nothing about the woman but pro and anti-SJW shit was getting dragged into the criticism so the stupid level was mounting.

The story directions do put more women in the fore of the movies. They also do have a tone I think completely missed the mark of their mostly male demographic. I think in many cases they took unnecessary risks to try to hit a broader appeal and ended up infuriating their base. Honestly if Star Wars fans are giant man children you make movies for giant man children. This is a business not a political rally.

This Universe Bloat idea needs to be ut to bed.  Black Panther, Infinity War and Deadpool all did well - even with Deadpool and Infinity War being released weeks apart.  If the movies are good, distinctive and marketed well they'll succeed.  If they get lazy with any of those elements, they'll fail.  Solo failed at the BO because people lacked faith in it, it was one of the weaker SW films, and the marketing was weak.  Not because TLJ was release 6 months earlier.

This is rubbish and the people complaining about women and black people in their star wars, firstly aren't relevant to the continued success of the ip and secondly can fuck right off.

There are issues in new star wars but most positive thing Disney have done with them is fix the somewhat understandable diversity issues the OT had.

It really wasn't. I liked it more than TLJ and I've been defending that movie since it came out.  I think too soon after DP2 and Infinity War are real factors, as well as the bad marketing and bad word of mouth throughout the entire production, and i really don't know why there was any reason to release it in may rather than November like every single other movie they've released.

I dunno. I'm still (above) just not up for the film.  I'm a SW fan and TLJ just left me bleh -- not ragey or butthurt, just unenthused for this film.  Like, "I'll add it to my Netflix or Amazon queue one day" unenthused. 

Argument: SW films just aren't "special" or particularly unique events anymore.  MCU at least has the framework of an evolving story, so you kind of do want to see them all.  This?  It wants me to see it because of an early hero who doesn't have a future in the new films.  And arguably, he isn't that special anymore after TFA/TLJ.

Reserve that meh for episode 9.  Solo is fun and feels like Star Wars.  If that's not enough to interest you, then I guess don't bother.  I guess the franchise is in more dire straights than I had believed possible in so short a time.

I'm right there with him. This is more or less where I'm at. I'll still go see Episode 9 because I want to see how it all turns out but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for Solo. I really do think that their number one mistake was making the Episode movies somewhat rudderless. They should have had a trilogy more or less planned out in advance as opposed to letting Rian do whatever he wanted, which appears to have been basically discarding 75% of TFA. Combine that with "another prequel?" and "good lord this movie had a troubled production." and Solo just sort of paid the price for their mis-steps.

Also, I tend to find Ron Howard a very boring director, so that didn't help.

Is the Star Wars brand worth more now than when Disney bought it?

I've never been a "fan", but the outside view seems to be that Lucas's shitty films were still Star Wars films, and the recent Disney ones are on a cash grab schedule that will devalue the brand.

People hated the prequels, but they were still excited enough about Star Wars to see them in the theater.  Looks like Disney killed that enthusiasm.

TBF, Solo was a much better movie that any of the Lucas prequel stuff.  Was it a better Star Wars movie?  Debatable.

"Better than the Lucas Prequels" is a really, really low bar.

Honestly, My overall feeling on Solo was "Why?" I had no interest in seeing the life of Solo before the movies, it wasn't relevant to the overall story. Solo in TFA? Sure. Young Frankenstein Sherlock Homes Indiana Jones Solo? Uh... why?

Whats next? Barbie Leia in the Palace? Ewoks in... oh ya, Lucas did that...  :grin:

I mean "Rouge one" was a self contained story concurrent to the other events, so it actually had some interest behind it.

I'd guess they are closing in on breaking even on the deal, if they haven't already.

So probably not - but only because Disney have used it to make actual cash money, and produce star wars content.

This thread is massively overestimating the 'damage' these films have done.

Maybe it's true for younger, new fans but older fans are increasingly less interested in anything Star Wars related.  Maybe we're just growing out of it but I have almost no interest in the next Star Wars anything.  I'll watch it but it'll probably be a throw away experience.

The other indicator is that Nu Star wars merch isn't selling that much. Avengers crap is selling but nuWars is dying on the shelves. Mind you, Prequel crap didn't sell much either.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/-star-wars-toy-sales-fall-in-2017-as-movie-tie-fatigue-sets-in

https://www.cosmicbooknews.com/star-wars-last-jedi-toy-sales-tank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFqsiuPxfn8

There are problems with the Star Wars toys that go beyond the movies. Do you recognize this guy? (https://sep.yimg.com/ay/cmdstore/star-wars-the-force-awakens-3-75-inch-action-figure-snow-and-desert-wave-1-constable-zuvio-pre-order-ships-sept-2015-2.gif). He was one of the first figures released after TFA and didn't even appear in the movie. Rogue One had like three different versions of Jyn and Cassian while the other more interesting members were rare as fuck and they didn't even bother making a Bodhi. Every movie you get a new Rey, a new Kylo and a new Finn all of which are completely interchangeable with each other. There is just zero variety, just cranking out version after version of the same main characters after every movie is not what made Star Wars toys huge during the original trilogy.

I seem to remember that if you were a careful hunter, you could get the entire cantina crew from Mos Eisley. They just don't do the variety, you're right. OTOH, the Lego shit is badass.

Sure, legit to buy the rights and then try and get that money back asap, but doesn't mean you have to trash it in the process.

If you think it's been handled as well as it could have? Well that is clearly wrong.

That probably has more to do with Lego, than with Disney.

That being said, 100% agree.  If I had $1000 bucks to burn, I would SOOOO have a gigantic Millennium Falcon sitting on my dresser.  That thing will probably sit on my some day wish list for the rest of my life.

Probably not, but people have unreasonable expectations for what 'as well as it could have' means and are overstating the gap between that and reality. TFA was an understandable safety-first project, not great but didn't screw up; R1 is unambiguously good - something that only be said about 2 other SW films; TLJ has mixed reviews - but I like it so fuck everyone else; Solo everyone here seems to basically agree is good. Nothing seems 'ruined' by anyone.

Worst case, at some point Disney might have to countenance going 1 full calendar year without a star wars film.

Just as a reminder, a rival space related franchise has survived voyager, first contact, and into darkness. Not even the star wars prequels were that bad.

While I agree with you that they can fuck off, what happens when they actually do fuck off and leave you short of budget by $200M? Is that what happened here? Was it simple overburdening of the product? Is it bland production?

Honestly, the movie is better than people give it credit for and people still didn't show up. It's a fun movie, so what caused the flop in your mind?

You should have bought one anyways, Lego sets are like rock solid investments.

In some ways I regret I didn't keep my son's Star Wars sets together. A friend of mine's kid did and sold them when he was 14, made a mint.

I really don't think people who hate that there was a black jedi on the tfa poster and a lady jedi in the film had any material impact on the takings of any of these films. But I think it does make a difference to anyone observant enough to notice that the best you can say of diversity in the OT and prequels is that their approach was typical of 1976.

As for the flop, first off flop is massively overstating it, this was a 110M opening weekend - which is roughly the MCU median after inflation, and that seems a reasonable comparator, especially for an anthology film. Secondly, poor marketing with little build up is probably the main issue. If it was anything to do with the film itself then it wouldn't have had a poor opening.

I don't think the problem was being too close to TLJ so much as not having a strategy that got them coverage for solo alongside coverage for TLJ. TLJ being 5 months ago certainly made it harder - but the sort of harder that well paid people ought to be able to deal with.

People who went to see Solo early did not come out telling other people "You need to see this movie." They bought their gross, with no significant word of mouth bounce, and what they bought was less than what they spent. Parse nits over what is a "flop" all you want, it was not a success.

--Dav4

There is nothing you can call it except a flop. What makes it a flop is the budget, not the take, though, imo. Had they made the movie for a reasonable amount of money (and been able to buy ad-space well ahead of release, instead of having to wait until the last minute due to massive re-shoots, thus keeping the advertising budget down). It hasn't even come close to breaking even yet. At the rate it is slowing down it will be lucky to break $400 million world wide gross. Considering even the most flattering estimates having at a $250 million production budget and $100 million advertising budget (both are likely to be higher), and given the percent the theatres keep it needs to make a minimum of $450-$525 (large variance due to how many markets have the theatres keeping different percentages of the box office) to merely break even. That means it is looking like $80-$150 million, minimum, loss on the movie. It may be able to make that back via the streaming and disc sales, but it might not; and this is the best case scenario.

As for why it flopped, I don't think it really comes down to even just a couple things, but a large number of things that just added up;

1) The racist/sexist morons boycotting the movie do impact it a bit, as they also tended to be of the hard-core Star Wars fan base, and thus likely to see a SW movie they weren't offended by (due to being pieces of shit) multiple times in theatre, irregardless of the film's quality.

2) The non-racist/sexist fans boycotting the movie due to being lumped in with the above crowd by members of Disney/LucasFilms/media/etc., and being routinely insulted by them, or because of disdain towards how Disney has treated the property of Star Wars (i.e.; being complete fucking idiots by not planning out at least the major plot points, but letting directors do whatever the hell they feel like irregardless of prior instalments/expectations). These are largely, again, hard-core SW fans who'd otherwise see any SW movie multiple times in theatres.. like they did the prequels (despite those being horrible and Solo being, by and large, seen as below average to above average by people who've actually seen the movie).

3) Management. From Kennedy down there's been massive mis-management of the franchise as a whole and Solo in particular, leading to inflated budgets, bad PR and a general erosion of the brand's attractiveness. SW used to be 'the' franchise. Now it isn't.

4) Crap marketing and placement in the schedule. I don't believe the movie was placed too close to Episode 8, in that I don't believe fatigue is the issue. The divisiveness of Episode 8 didn't help in the slightest, of course, and it should have been pushed further from that movie if only to give people more time to get over it, or at least lessen the impact. More importanly, however, it came out in a period of time loaded with block-buster movies despite being a non-block-buster movie in terms of tone and perception. It should have been nowhere near Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Incredibles 2, and even Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, especially given the erosion of trust in the brand.

5) SJW crap. Like it or not; true or not, the perception of SW of being too ham-fisted in embracing SJW stuff did hurt it. Some of the most dedicated SW fans I know are angry at the franchise because of how the new characters are being elevated not because they're awesome, but at the expense of the older characters (I.e.; Luke in Episode 8 and the Droid in Solo being too on-the-nose). I can't really speak to how true this stuff is (I tend to avoid pro/anti SJW discussions because the entire thing makes me want humanity removed from existence) but it was a major talking point prior to the film's release and further impacted the willingness of people to go see it, or see it multiple times.

6) It just wasn't good enough. While many here liked it.. the people who did go see the movie didn't like it enough to go see it multiple times, which was standard for all other SW movies, albeit primarily the trilogies. It just didn't get enough repeat viewings. To be fair, the release date played a part in this as well, imo. See Solo again, or see a new block-buster release? Or see one of those block-busters again?

Solo being a May release was a really bad idea, no matter how many other things you pile on to the reasons for it being a flop. Audiences may be dumb, but they aren't so dumb they don't feel the cash grab happening, especially when TLJ has barely been out of theaters long enough for a Blu-Ray/Streaming release. Rogue One had both the positive-ish buzz from TFA (which even for its flaws, has been credited with saving the franchise from the stank of the prequels) and a full year from the release of TFA to make people want another Star Wars movie. Plus at least Rogue One felt like a story that was "new-ish." It didn't use any existing characters and its entire tone was clear from the marketing. This is a war movie in the Star Wars universe.

Solo was... a heist movie in the SW universe? An examination of an existing character's past? Its entire existence didn't really have a good reason for being, at least not a marketable one.

They may have been trying to capitalize on that stupid "May the Fouth be with you" shit.

If the budget was too big for a film more successful than GotG or Captain America, then the budget was too big.


These would both be perfectly good reasons for a film - but I'm not sure it was exactly marketed as either one.

It came across more as just OT nostalgia. And that, is not enough.

On the subject of a may release, remember every Disney star wars film previous to solo has been delayed from May to December.

Whether one month or the other is better I have no idea, but seems important to Disney and I assume we're on the 12 month cadence now.

The thing about December is that if you stick to that release schedule, you can claim it as your own. The Lord of the Rings films were similar, not summer tentpoles but December regularities. Putting TFA and TLJ and R1 in December I thought was a great idea, because you get the marketing for your merch and toys right before Christmas, you don't have a lot of competition for that type of movie and you don't interfere with the cash cow of the Marvel movies. Making the main SW movies into a summer tent pole release would be a good idea. Making one of the side movies like R1 or Solo into that? Not nearly as good an idea.

Except it isn't more successful than either of those (yet, at least). GotG got over $773 million world wide. Captain America got $370 million world wide. It is likely, but not guaranteed, that Solo will surpass Captain America before its theatrical run is complete (as Solo is just shy of $341 million at the moment).

Now, if you're focusing just on opening weekend numbers (dumb, imo, as those are only relevant to a degree, and not as comparable across years as people like to think; see Ocean's 8 headlines of topping the opening weekend numbers of the prior franchise installments as the perfect example of this). Even if you don't account for inflation you do have to take into account the number of screens it opened across. Solo opened in 301 theatres more than GotG and still made less money opening weekend by $10 million (domestic), as GotG averaged a larger amount per theatre ($23,118 to $19,270). Captain American opened on almost 800 fewer screens, but did average lower per screen ($17,512 to $19,270).

Hell, if you look at opening weekend openings per screen average the only MCU movies Solo did better than are; Captain America, Thor, and Ant-Man, with Thor being the most expensive to produce at $150 million and Captain America being the least successful over its entire run ($370 million box office take compared to a ~$220 million production/advertising budget, meaning the film made Disney anywhere from $30 - $60 million in profit).

In short; yes, the budget is the main culprit, financially, in terms of why Solo is a flop. Had the movie been made for what it should have cost (~$150 million production budget, ~$100 million advertisement budget), it would have a shot at breaking even just on its theatrical release; but even that wouldn't be a guarantee (although, had it only cost that much to make, the movie likely would have done better due to fewer PR issues stemming from the production issues).

I was generally entertained with it as a caper flick, but what bugs me is that Han is one of the greatest characters in the franchise, has the single best character arc in the original trilogy, and Ford is iconic in the role. Every single thing they have done to the character since Jedi has made the character worse. From Lucas' CGI tinkering, to a denouement that is too abrupt and not well-enough developed, to a prequel with a middling lead whose arc actually undercuts where we find him in ANH and what happens in that film.

I don't know what compels these studios to grind up their best characters and shove them into stupid cul-de-sacs. Money I guess. Marvel has avoided it so far, but we'll see when Phase 4 ends what they do to them.

 

I think it was red letter media where i heard this but the biggest sin in solo is that it ruins original triology han.  Han’s arc in the first movie if you already know he has a heart of gold going into it.

It's because characters aren't characters to studio heads, they are ASSETS with BRAND RECOGNITION that have to be exploited until every last micro penny is squeezed from the fruit. Kevin Feige is one of the few studio heads who seems to get that (and to a lesser earlier extent, Avi Arad) there is more to a character than just its name.

I agree with Ceryse's take for the most part. I think it's several things that came together to take a fun movie and turn it into a loser for a studio that's trying to squeeze as much out of their newly bought assets as fast as they can.

This is the Disney problem in a nutshell, they over saturate everything they own until they have to take it off the market for a while, and then reintroduce it to fanfare.

Can't fault them really, it's working just fine with their Marvel movies and they crank those out 3-4 times a year. They are actually getting better and more profitable ten years on.

While I have trouble putting my finger on why Solo was not something I was excited to see (despite feeling like it was fine, but not great, once I did see it), I don't think I'm ruined for Star Wars.  I want to see episode 9.  I want to see a live action Star Wars in 2019 on Disney Streaming.  I want more animated series to hit the air and continue what lone Wars and Rebels have contributed.  I think I might be a bit unenthused for a Kenobi movie, and more enthused for Boba Fett.  However, rather than a film focused on any of these characters, I'd rather see a KotR film, or a film that focuses on something brand new in the SW Universe. 

I wonder if something as simple as a name change for the Solo movie might have changed my enthusiasm.  I wonder if people would have been more interested in Star Wars: The Kessel Run Gambit (or a less shitty version of a name that feels like a Star Wars title). 

I definitely agree having Han Solo at the centre of this is a negative for anyone posting here.

Not convinced it makes the film harder to sell to the wider public.

I vaguely remember this forum having dismissed Solo as a ridiculous project before Rogue 1 won some trust back.

I don't know if ridiculous is the right word so much as totally unnecessary.

Unnecessary is an odd word for a movie. They are all unnecessary.

What do we really mean by that?

It's a fairly common way to describe a movie. Like when we get sequels to movies that worked perfectly well as stand-alone stories like Highlander or The Matrix.

While corporate people who run studios generally make movies in order to make money, many of the people involved on the creative side are often passionate about the story they're trying to tell. Sure Disney needs to release 2-3 Marvel movies a year, but you get the feeling that the reason they choose Guardians of the Galaxy as one of those products is because James Gunn probably had a great pitch for it that everyone got excited about. On the other hand, Solo feels like something that exists because it was mandated by the studio (in this specific case because a Solo screenplay had already been worked on when Disney bought Lucasfilm).

That's not to say that all passion projects turn out good, or that a story commissioned by studio execs has to be bad, but when a movie clearly feels like it's being made just for the paycheck, then yes, it comes across as unnecessary.

Sounds like we're just saying the story simply wasn't interesting enough?

Certainly agree it feels like they said 'do Han Solo' and pushed too far down the development process without much more than a bunch of arbitrary scenes that reference lines of dialog in the OT.

To say that the story wasn't interesting enough implies that a lot of people saw the movie and just didn't like it. Really, the idea of a Solo movie wasn't interesting enough, and the marketing didn't convince enough people otherwise (I say all this of course in comparison to the attendance of previous SW movies).

Hiring Lord and Miller was probably the most inspired move Disney has made with SW and it's a shame that didn't pan out because they really need to find some directors who can bring their own voice to the franchise. If they had pulled off a SW movie with the humor of the Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street that would have been worth seeing for me. I'm sure Ron Howard did the best he could under the circumstances but it's clear that things got to a point were Disney just needed to get the movie out and that didn't help the marketing at all.

I'd actually like to see Disney tackle the Hundred Year Darkness and the split of the first Jedi Order to form the Sith Lords. But that's likely going to be impossible because it's hard and nobody outside of the nerds know about it.

I'd be interested in seeing a brand new story in a brand new time untouched by prior materials, so long as it is made by people that are trying to tell a great story, rather than people trying to find a good story amongst the backdrops of what we know.

Can a Solo sequel work?  The first Wolverine disappointed, but the sequel was much better.  The third solo movie was the best.  However, all three were disappointments at the box office.  Adjusted for inflation, none of them are top 25 Marvel derived movies.  Is Solo the Wolverine of the Star Wars universe... maybe not a perfect analogy, but passable.  I think they'd be better off looking for a Dr. Strange or Black Panther new direction than try to squeeze more from another Solo.

Anything not connected to the original series in any way would be welcome. Tell a different story, this one ends with the next movie please.

Agree with that. The better MCU movies all follow the same model.

Same universe, new characters, new story, late production easter egg insert to keep certain people happy that they spotted an obtuse reference to other movies.

I'm saying that as a writer. The character's narrative arc didn't really need any further explanation. His past didn't matter much because he was fairly well fleshed out in the original trilogy as a character even without knowing his past. The fact that he was such an endearing character is the only reason people cared about his past. I've rarely heard any clamoring for a Leia prequel from Star Wars fans.

Boba Fett, on the other hand, is not only a fan favorite but almost a complete blank as a character, even after the awful prequels. His story could use a fleshing out in a prequel - it's maybe not necessary for the importance he had to the story, but a prequel about him would certainly be more necessary from a writing/creative/narrative standpoint than Han Solo in a heist movie.

The story was more interesting than TFA or TLJ.  We also got to see more of the Star Wars universe, especially the criminal underground which is often held up as one of the more interesting facets of the setting.  The characters were better drawn, more compelling, and had more agency than the sequel protagonists as well.  But there were no Skywalkers and nearly no lightsabers, so I guess it couldn't have been that good.

Yeah, that's totally what people are saying.

Yes, BobtheSomething, that's absolutely exactly what I meant. Don't be a fucking moron. I haven't even seen the movie, I'm only commenting on my perception of what I thought the movie might be and why I didn't think it was absolutely necessary I go see the movie. A Boba Fett prequel would likely have plenty of the seedy criminal underbelly of the setting and not have lightsabers, and I said that'd be a more interesting story than young Han Solo.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/report-the-star-wars-story-films-are-being-put-on-hold-1826992769

Clickbait gonna clickbait.

Killing the Obi-Wan movie is going to piss off some of the die-hard fans even more.

*Insert Ewan McGregor meme*

I'm really not sure there is an Obi Wan movie. In fact, as far as I know nobody seems properly signed on to do anything for 2020 and beyond.

They've got names exec producing trilogies left right and centre but nothing beyond people having development meetings.

I was not even replying to you.  I agree with you that Solo was unnecessary for the story.  I was against the very idea of Solo right up until I saw it.  (Have a child, must see Star Wars.).  It was good enough to be worth seeing for enjoyment even if it isn't necessary to the narrative .And you weren't the only person not to see Solo.  Most people didn't, and for even sadder reasons.  Not seeing Solo because TLJ sucked is like not seeing Black Panther because Ultron sucked.

Saying it lacked Skywalker and lightsabers is just another way of saying it isn't one of the main saga, not one of the "important" films in the franchise, even though it was better than five or six of them. If you would rather wait for the garbage JJ will share out next year's, by all means do that.

And now Disney appears to be doubling down on the garbage.

You guys don't get it. Some things can suck without taking a franchise with it. The pre-quels sucked. Badly directed, bad acting, bad dialogue. But they didn't for the most part get people less excited to see the "extra" bits of star wars. The unnecessary parts you really don't need to see to enjoy starwars movies. You had a Renaissance of games, books, and animated tv shows based off 3 bad sify B-movies. What you have with TFA and TLJ is bad movies because who fucking cares how the nerds feel about these characters or lore? Who cares what happens to han solo? or luke skywalker? or chewy? No we have new characters, with better "morally grey but no not really grey at all" plots and their bigger and more grown up than your old star wars.

Who exactly gets excited to see a movie about han solo? New fans who saw a tired old man get killed by his emo son? Or old fans who grew up with han solo? The problem is SOLO didn't need to be made but if any good will was bought from the last 2 movies, good will bought by saying "hey we actually care about star wars and its characters" than people would have rolled out of bed to see this because hey its star wars. But lacking that good will? Lacking that respect for the source material? Than the unnecessary movie that didn't need to be made gets watched on netflix by the mildly curious. And its going to be the same for all their stand alones until they un-fuck the franchise for the nerds who pay money for the extra shit.

I have no idea what you're actually trying to say here. However, the prequels got released at a time when there weren't so many toxic Internet cultures. Had they been released today, the only thing that might stop them from receiving the same reaction as TFA and TLJ is that the prequel cast was still mostly white and male.

Jesus, if the prequels had been released today Star Wars was over with the Phantom Menace.

If the Prequels were released today - the first Star Wars in 30 years - people would have ridiculed PM, but been eagerly looking for them to fix it in the next film.  

In other news - the nigh end for Standalones may not be so nigh: Star Wars Stand-Alones clipping is apparently misinformation (https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/multiple-films-star-wars-pipeline-sources/story?id=56057987)

And then followed up by clone wars? Yeah it would have wrecked the ip in todays culture.

I mean I'm not a major fan of the posting style but he's saying Solo's audience didn't exist because the new fans (kids) don't care because Han had been reduced to a shit character in TFA/TLJ and the old fans don't care because Han was reduced to a shit character and to many of them TFA/TLJ shit on them in the first place so generally fuck Star Wars.

Combine that with the worst release date, bad word of mouth, lukewarm reviews and stories about production trouble....   and it didn't make bongo bucks, it still made tons of money though given all that but supposedly Disney is reacting to the feedback? I'm unclear if the tweet or whatever is real that they aren't going to do any non-mainline movies.

Bullshit. How many transformers movies have there been?

The Transformers movies have been pretty consistent in how bad they were though. Anyone who thought the second one was entertaining doesn't get to complain about the fifth one.

The transformer movies are also quite a bit better than the prequels.

Characters; like stories have beginnings, middles, and endings. These define their “character arc”.

Some serials can avoid this. Because their characters are new each episode; the main cast is the setting rather than the characters.

But most shows/movies cannot avoid it. Once the character has run its course Adding more material doesn’t enhance the overall narrative; it is unnecessary.

I saw this today, my thoughts:

1- it was fun, i enjoyed it.
2- TLJ or this didn't ruin sw for me.
3- lando was great.
4- I thought the dude played a decent han. Good guy trying to emulate bad guys. I didn't need him to be young Ford. Young lando was amazingly accurate though.

People read too much into these things.

Solo made about $380 million worldwide so far. The movie hasn’t even recouped it’s production and marketing budget.

Deadpool 2 already made three times that in one third of the time.

For a Star Wars franchise movie Solo is performing disastrously.

What do you mean one third of the time? Deadpool 2 came out before Solo. It's also still in theaters while Solo is long gone.

You’re right. I somehow thought that Solo had been out since March/April

I liked Solo.  I thought young Han was fine.  Young Lando was great.  The story was decent, the action was decent, overall not a bad way to pass a couple hours.

Really that's all I ask of a movie these days.

Saw this and actually enjoyed it a lot as well.  Nothing ground breaking, but very Star Wars in feel, and a much better constructed movie than TLJ.

I will agree that the only odd flaw (But still minor over all) is that Han doesn't change as a character through this.  Everything was perfectly there in the writing for a good character arc. 


All of that should have taken him in a nice perfect arc of getting more and more cynical jaded, setting up the Han we know.  A rouge who is still mostly good at heart, but with a deeply cynical take on the world and very focused on himself rather than others anymore.  Yet he literally flies off laughing as the exact same 'heart of gold' naive youth he was at the start of the film, after every terrible thing that just happened to him.

Again, this didn't take away my enjoyment of the film, I just thought it was an unfortunate oversight considering the writers all did their parts perfectly in setting up everything.  The actor and/or director just didn't seem to get the memo....

Sorta my impression as well... I kept wondering why this doughy suburban dolt was wandering around the underworld.

Solo isn't a tent-pole movie because there's nothing interesting or compelling about Solo... I don't have a strong opinion on whether that's the fault of bad casting, bad writing, bad directing, bad acting or all of the above... just that a movie about Solo has to nail the Solo character.  They didn't do that on any level.  What I do see is a lot of people filling in gaps with what they like about Han and trying to salvage something to like about Solo.

The rumors I heard about changing directors because the movie was too funny/light make me wonder either how bad the original was, or how stupid they were to think that unfunny and not-dark would be better.  But I'll admit that my rumor mongering is third hand and half-hearted at best, so maybe the rumors are way off.

Personally I like the idea that Han has always been a good hearted person (even if he doesn't respect the law) and has always tried to act tough, villainous, scummy but the whole thing is an act just to survive. After he hooks up with the gang in ANH he is finally allowed to act a little like the person he really is hence why he comes back and shoots Vader's Tie Fighter at the end then eventually marries the Princess.

Finally watched this. If ever a movie showed it was written by two people this was it, felt disjointed? There were the bones of a good movie but they never could quite connect on it. Thought young Solo was just fine.

Rented this. It was very...bland. Which doesn't surprise me as I feel that way about every Ron Howard movie. My issues in no particular order:

-His last name wasn't his actual last name but given to him by some random Imperial recruiter?
-He did what to earn Chewie's loyalty again? Oh and he can speak Wookiee apparently but never does it ever again?
-Emelia Clark continues to show Danerys is the only character she's good at.
-Han Solo didn't act like Han Solo.
-Why was everything so dark and murky? Was this a DC movie masquerading as a Star Wars movie?

Good parts:
Train heist
Kessel run
Lando
Woody Harrelson
Thandie Newton

Saw somebody else complaining about dark and murky, but I have no idea what you guys saw. Wonder if my tv is just set differently, but I never had a moment where I thought it was too dark.

The beginning twenty or so minutes were incredibly dark and murky for me.  After that it cleared up.  This was in a theater so I don't know if anything has been changed with the home release, but I had a very hard time making out what was going on and that's rarely a problem for me.

Huh. Yeah, I got the DVD release. No issue here.

I saw this Sunday. It's not very good. I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater.

Amazon Prime had this for $2.99 as a rental if you have Prime.  I give it a hearty 'meh'.  Disney must have had a strangle hold on Ron Howard.  Not his best work.

He was just cleaning up after someone else's mess.  Disney brought him in because he knows how to get a job done and deliver a damn movie.  Disney just wanted to recoup some of their losses from the failure of Phil Lord and Chris Miller; Ron Howard was the most reliable director they could find.

That makes me feel better.  Thanks.

Ron Howard is an amazingly talented guy.  This must have been a complete shitshow when he showed up.

Yeah, he came in when production was 70% done and basically reshot most of the movie.  However, since it was a time crunch, he basically just reshot the scenes without much script/plot change.  Though he had to dial back the sets to smaller scale than original because it was faster to shoot.  I remember an article saying that the two guys directing before him would do 30 takes per scene, driving everybody insane.  They all seemed to not really have any idea how to do the film, and everything was a complete mess.

The ending was also pretty clearly a setup for a sequel where something happens with Qi'ra and the Hutt contract, I'd imagine.

Well, supposedly there was some talk of this being the first of 2 or even 3 movies, in the original plan. Which is utterly baffling.

Probably the tenth time I've said this in regards to SW on this board alone, but I wish they would do serial TV live action with the franchise. Solo would have worked pretty well as a series - all the heists and character development.

In theory, serial would bring in less money than the major features, but would also cost less to produce. We have TWO different shitty zombie shows from the same franchise and nothing from SW? It's just an odd decision.

https://nerdist.com/jon-favreau-star-wars-tv-show-the-mandalorian-boba-jango-fett-disney-lucasfilm/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Nerdist&utm_content=Jon%20Favreau%27s%20STAR%20WARS%20TV%20Show%20is%20THE%20MANDALORIAN

Were they going to be called Duo and Trio next?

Maybe holdo and circlejo.

Next movie title would be ‘Hut’, obviously.   :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, I really struggle with the complaints about insufficiently cynical Han when plainly Qi'ra is the antagonist in the second act of Han's story and the obvious way he'd become a bit meaner.

I also think people give way too much of a shit about inter film continuity in general.

Similarly complaints about lack of Qi'ra / Han chemistry are weird when for 90% of the film Han has been friend zoned.

Yeah, I ignore the chemistry complaints because people are obviously ignoring the near slave mentality she has towards Voss. Oh well. Nitpicks gonna nitpick, yo.

Yeah, that is a pretty strange complaint.  Much of the story is centered around her ambivalence towards him after the reunion.

I had the same issue on bluray. It didn't stop enjoyment of the film because this is not a subtle or hard to follow movie and tbh you'd know exactly what was happening even if the screen was blank.

But it did rob the train heist of some impact.

Besides we KNOW they don't end up together, why should they be expected to have chemistry.

So that she can die in the sequels and that turns Han cynical and Solo, of course. Because a life of dealing with criminals and corrupt jerks wont do that.

Thats what's called a character arc these days.

Her betraying him is more likely to turn him cynical than her dying. Dying would just be sad if they were actually a good couple.

In this movie she manipulated Han to get an opportunity to kill Voss and take his position in the gang. At the same time as repeatedly telling Han not to trust her and that they aren't getting back together. She did not end this film with a sad prisoner face making some big damn sacrifice for her man.

Qi'ra's relationship with Han is explained clearly and completely in the first two minutes after they reunite. Fwiw I think they designed that relationship pretty well given the Leia issue.

She is obviously set up to make Han sad, but not by dying.

The only good thing about this movie is that Han shot first.  :why_so_serious:

Nah, there was plenty to like about this movie.

Solo is an excellent movie. It's nearly as good as R1 and I think it's better than 7 or 8.

I thought it was good and I would have watched the part 2 they were clearly setting up in theaters. It wasn't great but it was a fun time.

They really do need to grow some balls and just advance the timeline of the universe though if they actually want to make interesting movies.

Agreed, getting rid of Luke and Han has been the smartest decision of the new movies.

Luke should have been the only one they brought back for one of the movies.  Everybody else should have died off screen or something.  Ford and especially Fischer were painful to watch, and there was just no need to shoehorn them in anymore.  Maybe if these movies had happened only a decade or so after the originals, but everybody was just way to old at this point.

Han was painful because they wrote him in as a washed out has been old man who left the fight and his wife to take up smuggling and chasing credits. Luke's character was actually really interesting though.

But yes, whatever movies/trilogy/series they come up with next needs to be set up 1000 years in the future/past so we can wipe the slate clean and start over with new lore and stories.

Hasbro trying to sell geriatric Han Solo and Leia action figures was just the cherry on top.

I disagree that they need to advance the time line.

Part of why R1 and Solo work is that a well understood backdrop makes it easier to focus in on the story they want to tell. They don't have to overdo exposition and it helps ward off the temptation to make the universe revolve around the characters. It is like making a WW2 film, the one thing you don't have to explain is the war.

As a result nobody complained they don't know the origin story of Krennic, Tarkin, Voss, or the Crimson dudes - wheras holy crap Snoke and the First Order.

You advance the timeline and plot out 10 years of movies just like marvel. You have your main storyline movies like avengers, then others to flash things out. Start off with one offs to slowly build the world/Galaxy. This way you don't have to do it on a grandiose fashion like with a trilogy.

I think bringing in Solo was all in all good move. A little bit of nostalgia can go a long way in a new movie.

SUPERLEIA!!! should have been left on the cutting room floor.

I finally watched this. Holy shit. I see why it bombed.

It's not a bad movie. Let me just start with that. It's not BAD. It's just not good. The first criticism I had of the trailer was that the whole movie felt unnecessary and nothing I saw in the movie changed that. They overexplained some things that were completely unnecessary (why he's name Solo) and yet completely ignored explaining or showing things that might have been interesting, like Solo's time in the Imperial Academy. Half of the movie looked like utter, dark, drab shit, as if the director of photography used the worst expired film stock he could find. Lighting was awful. The character never had much of a complete story arc. I'm guessing by the ending that this was meant to show that Han always had a "heart of gold" mentality but the events of this movie made him cynical and jaded, and we would see more of the evolution of the character into the scoundrel we see at the beginning of A New Hope. Since we're only getting the one movie, however, his arc doesn't pay off at all. Lando was fine but the entire L3 droid made no sense. I think that Lando's crush on the droid and her whole "droid rights" schtick was meant to be a joke when the original directors were trying to make a comedy, and that Ron Howard was brought in to unfuck that part of the story and just didn't even bother, he just probably cut out some jokes. Either way, it was an utter mess, as "droid rights" makes no sense in the Star Wars universe unless you literally write an entire movie/trilogy around it. The escape from Cthulhu part in the middle felt padded and the entire heist on the mines really didn't make much sense either.

I know why this movie existed and it was because Disney thought they could drop any old turd with the Star Wars name on it and it would make tons of money. Luckily, people didn't buy it.

Yes.

Thanks for saving me the trouble. Saw this popped up on Netflix and put it on my never-ending list... now I can remove and not care.

It is definitely worth watching, I don't get the hate.

I'm weighing whether to watch this because it's available. This is useful.

My feeling has always been: the people making the movie need to tell me why I should. Han Solo is not a guy whose background I needed explained; any explanation is inevitably going to make him less, not more, interesting to me. Unless someone really imaginative takes a crack at it, I suppose. But a movie that's about the general underworld of Star Wars? That could be interesting; a heist movie set in Star Wars could be interesting. Sell it to me without the backstory hook and I bet I will see it. If it's good, sure, but still. Rogue One made them think everything still needed to have a hook into the Skywalker story, I guess.

It's not art. But it's fun.

It kinda isn't.  It's forgettable blarg.

Solo will just make you wish it had been 'Lando'.

It's not worth your time.

It's the only new Star Wars movie worth seeing besides Rogue One.  It's not epic, but it's got adventure and humor and a bit of fun.  If you can make it past the Corelia scenes, it's enjoyable.

As far as something to put on Netflix in the background while you do something else, I guess you could do worse.

Yeah, I actually think this is a far better Netflix film than going through all the hassle to see in a theater.  I'd recommend giving it a view.

For free via Netflix?  For sure.  Pew pew, space battles, Lando, etc.  Not very memorable, but an okay way to waste a couple hours.

What he said. I want solo 2 more than episode 9. And I liked the last Jedi.

Anyway, if you have near enough ten thousand posts on eff thirteen dot net, you should probably give it 2 hours of your life just so you can join in.

This website likes talking about star wars.

I am actually a little disappointed they won't follow it up.  The end reveal made me want to know more about a certain someone's something something.

This isn't a Han Solo backstory, this is a Han Solo's stuff backstory.

I think I heard that somewhere around the time it came out, and it's definitely true. It's like they decided to spend a movie telling us how he came to have all the stuff we see him with in A New Hope.

Combine that with a few too many ways this intersects with other Star Wars lore and it just felt like a series of things meant to make audiences go "I know that!" instead of an actual movie.

That's been a failing of the franchise since the prequel trilogy. Everything has to tie into stuff that's already in universe. I get that they want to have fan service, but when you find out that random Wookie #9879 is Chewie's grandparent in whichever of the prequel films had Wookies in, or all of the speculation about Rey being a secret Kenobi or something, it just makes the universe seem small. Obviously this film is going to have a lot of fan service in it because it's all about a character who's been central to the franchise since the beginning, but there's still room to make new things instead of reshuffling everything we already saw.

Yes.  The ideal way to watch this movie would be as a drinking game, so instead of rolling your eyes when that happens, you could take a shot.

"Grandparent?  Nah dude, what if it IS Chewbacca?" -Some producer

It's not really hate, so much as it is just puzzled disappointment. It's an inoffensive movie that just kind of lays there. It's not enjoying itself, and it doesn't make me enjoy myself. It feels like there could have been an interesting story about the past of an interesting character and instead we got weird overexplaining of silly minutiae and woefully little character development, with a plot that's barely coherent and utterly forgettable.

The movie is fun. It's worth watching when you get time.

I started watching it. I didn't hate it, but I found the need to explain stuff like his dice and his name really annoying--they knocked me out of the film. Like, don't explain a name like Solo as literal in a universe where people have names like Maul, Greedo, etc.

I mean, when your parents name you Maul, how can you grow up to be anything but a Dark Lord of the Sith?

The dice explanation I figured they would do. They're clearly important to him and part of his past. The name thing just made me roll my eyes. "So you used the name a military recruiter gave you for the rest of your life? Even when you took part in the fight against his government?"

I liked that part. Showed how he had nothing so he held on to everything, no matter how small.

Watched this, decent fun movie. Not great, not especially Star Wars. But fun enough.

I finally finished it on an airplane. It was ok. Didn't hate it, didn't especially enjoy it. It did not in the end feel all that clever to me in the heisting parts, and I just felt kind of meh about the need to explain the Kessel Run, etc. stuff.