Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - Review
Originally published May 2019The acquisition and assimilation of Star Wars into the amorphous blob that pulses with money, otherwise known as the "Disney franchise catalog," has seen rapid growth in the extended Star Wars universe. We've seen the story continue past the original trilogy with episodes VII and VIII. We've also seen a side story that filled in some gaps that no one really felt was necessary to fill. Surprisingly, I found the completely unnecessary side story of Rogue One to be more interesting, ambitious, and entertaining than the introduction of the next generation in Force Awakens, or the baffling disaster of Last Jedi. Solo is the latest attempt at expanding the Star Wars universe without going further down the timeline and interfering with the events of the so-called "main canon." Being a side story certainly seemed to help make Solo more interesting and unique than VII and VIII, but that's a low bar to step over, as far as I'm concerned.
Considering the fact that this movie went through a number of rewrites and directors before still managing to come out, I suppose it deserves some recognition for not being a complete mess. Then again, it also probably needed to come out in order to keep the love and adoration of Han Solo alive in the general public before everyone in this woke #MeToo world realizes that the character was a womanizing dick who used a princess to get his reward money and kind of forced himself on her in Episode V. I imagine some executive at Disney yelling: "Better come out with an origin story about him and how he's really a good guy, quick! It doesn't matter if the movie ends up mediocre! We just need to make sure Han Solo stays cool and can be re-marketed to children who approve of our politics!"
Image: Disney/Lucasfilm
Pros
Acting is good with a few caveats
Cool creature effects in certain spots
Certain character dynamics are good ideas
The prospect of a Star Wars movie centered around heists is good
Cons
An origin story that doesn't really tell us much or develop the character on whom the origin is based
Script/dialogue is poor
Heists are painfully simple and relatively unexciting
Lots of needless fan service; this even includes a reference to a terrible fighting video game
Too many conveniences
Plot & Thoughts
Han Solo is an orphan with a dream to become the greatest pilot in the galaxy. After escaping a Soviet-style planet and then joining the navy, he becomes one. However, he left his girlfriend behind and wants to get her back. Lucky for him, he doesn't have to, because he runs into her anyway. But now, he's gotten himself into an endless cycle of doing dirty work for criminals. Good thing he enjoys the hustle of it all. But then, maybe he has a conscience about his self-centered nature and whether or not he should help others in need. Good thing that character arc was already resolved in Episode IV so he can just be a good guy here in his origin story!
I know my sardonic synopsis may seem a little unfair to the movie, but that's really what happens. Note all the somewhat awkward and rapid conclusions to problems that Han Solo encounters. These are signs of a script that was written and rewritten and rewritten. Someone came up with a plot and they started filming right away because these movies are working on a strict release schedule of a new Star Wars movie every year. Then, that script and its conflicts for the characters had to change, but there was already work done on the old story that couldn't just be thrown away. So, by the time this movie came out, Solo became of a script held together by band-aids and conveniences. Had the main plot of Solo been the real idea from the beginning, I bet it would have turned out a very different movie than what it is.
Image: Disney/Lucasfilm
With a movie title like Solo, set in the Star Wars universe, you kind of have the expectation that this is a movie that centers around one of the most popular characters from that universe. I can say that it does this, sort of. The problem with Solo is that, while it presents itself as an origin story for Han Solo (that no one ever asked for), it doesn't justify its existence with any meaningful information about the titular character. We learn how he gets his iconic gun, how he gets involved in the outlaw business, how he gets his last name because he didn't have one already for some reason (it's really dumb), how he first meets Lando and the Millenium Falcon, and how he meets the love of his life, Chewbacca. Aside from maybe the way he met Chewbacca—which still isn't that interesting, everything else about the character that actually would be interesting is neglected: How did he become such a skilled pilot? How did he become so good at shooting? What sort of terrible events led him to become the scruffy-looking ruffian with a cynical view of the world?
This stuff—also known as "character growth"; something extremely important in an origin story—is discarded, set in stone, or just resolved before we even hit the end of the first act:
Han wants to become a great pilot when he leaves his home planet. Fast forward three years and apparently he already is, but is still just infantry in the Imperial Army. When he gets out of that situation within 10 minutes, he's with some outlaws and gets to show how good of a pilot he is, so I guess his "becoming a pilot" arc is done.
Han wants to save up money so he can buy a ship and return home to rescue his girlfriend he left behind. Whoops, he ends up meeting her on a distant world after doing a botched job. I guess we don't need to waste our time going back for her and she's not even mad about it; she tells him to get over the guilt because it's fine.
Han wants his new mentor to teach him fancy gunslinger moves and how to shoot better. Too bad he never does, but I guess he didn't need to because Han is already shooting pretty well for the rest of the movie anyway.
Han's not a good guy. Except he is; even one of the other characters tells him that, and he clearly demonstrates his capacity for good throughout the entire movie. In fact, there was never a moment where I felt like he was conflicted about doing something bad. Even in the scene where he's infantry for the Empire, shooting at people we would assume to be the "good guys" in the Star Wars universe, his enemies are never personified in any way: we never see who he's fighting.
That last point is what I find to be the most frustrating. Any sort of opportunity to paint him as a complex or conflicted anti-hero—the thing that made Han Solo interesting in the first place—is brushed aside to make him the hero of this mediocre, white-bread origin story. It's not like there weren't opportunities either. In fact, there were multiple moments where things could have gotten more interesting. He's involved in multiple heists during the movie. None are explained very well beforehand and end up being extremely simple jobs that aren't interesting at all, but there was an opportunity to make the heists more meaningful. In his first heist, he steals from the Empire (bad guys). After the second heist, he's told he's been doing work for bad people the whole time and should stop. Guess what he does?
Image: Disney/Lucasfilm
In stark contrast to the lack of complexity of the main character, is Han's girlfriend, Q'ira (Emilia Clarke). Upon conveniently crossing paths with her, it's revealed that she is working for the antagonist of the movie, has done some terrible things in the past three years since he saw her last, and may have changed for the worse since they parted ways on their homeworld. Just like that, she suddenly becomes the most interesting character in Han Solo's movie for being a femme fatale, a possible double agent. Too bad that doesn't really build to anything meaningful, or even damage Han in a way to explain his cynicism of "later" films that he suddenly gets at some point to replace the overwhelming optimism he seems to have the whole time here.
Essentially, one of the biggest problems that Solo has is that it's a movie about Han Solo. Had this been a completely separate movie about characters with whom we had no previous associations, it still would have been a dull adventure, but it wouldn't have been held back by the fact that this was supposed to be a movie about a character who was already well-established in the Star Wars universe. If it had been about Dan Bolo, or Stan Yolo, it would have been a fun little romp of an adventure and my criticisms around how they didn't bother to develop the character wouldn't be so pointed, because who case about Ran Polo? Ban Rolo seems like a pretty nice guy who's willing to help people out of a jam, skilled at flying ships (at least that's what everyone tells me), and seems to have a thing for confident women who might be plotting to kill him. Hope it all works out for him. Oh good it does. Neat.
Image: Disney/Lucasfilm
It's a shame there are so many missed opportunities because there are some good qualities to Solo. The heists are woefully simple, but the action is still fun in some ways. The character dynamics are interesting and loaded with potential because it sets up a lot of backstabbing espionage. Not to mention, there's a cool Lovecraftian alien in the middle of the movie.
The acting is also perfectly fine across the board. Donald Glover does a terrific job channeling Billie Dee Williams' Lando. Woody Harrelson is fun as the mentor, Beckett. Emilia Clarke is great as Q'ira, the love interest with a dark past. And even Alden Ehrenreich is okay as Han Solo. I felt like his portrayal was more like Jack Black doing an impression of Harrison Ford as a young Han Solo, but I also think that a lot of the faults of his performance lie with the bad script and its poor attempts at humor or characterization. It's as though the writers only knew Han Solo from Return of the Jedi, after he had become a joke of a character and figured, "If we make him say 'I want to be a pilot' and 'I'm not the good guy' 10 more times, maybe the audience will understand what we're going for."
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Solo has the ingredients of a good movie but is held back by certain details. Essentially, it's a wonderful steak dinner with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables, which have all been cooked a little too much, were seasoned with too much salt, and had gravy that has been sitting out for several days poured all over everything. You can see how the meal would have been delicious or just a little more satisfying if some of f these other particular circumstances hadn't come to pass. Solo has some things going for it, but I also was frequently bored watching it or just irritated by the failures to add any depth to the character this origin story belonged to.
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