SOLO - LET'S TALK (KEEP SPOILERS IN TAGS)

I did like the tease when you first see just part of him. From the back, his metal legs and cape look a lot like Vader's costume.

Finally got to see this last night. I thought it was the weakest of the new SW films but quite enjoyable. However I was enjoying this and having fun and then Darth Maul appears and the film completely loses me. Darth Maul reappearences belong in extended media and not canon films. It was so important that he was killed by ObiWan in terms of the long running plot so he shouldn't be brought back. This one fact took me from rating it from a 7 or 8 out of 10 to a 5 and for hours after I had to keep reminding myself how much I was enjoying it before the reveal.

I just walked out of the theater and I’ll sound off later, but the Darth Maul thing was an AWESOME reference to the Clone Wars animated show. There is a major story arc where Maul is found half-alive and insane by his brother. They proceed to basically take over all of the gangster underworld and become crime lords.

Han would be like 50 in ANH

The reference to Dathomir is also interesting- it is where Maul and his brother (Savage Opress) are from, and it’s where the Nightsisters are- kind of like dark side force witches that brought Maul back from near-death/insanity. There is also a reference to the Pyke Syndicate controlling the Kessel refineries, which is one of the groups that allies with Maul and his brother once they start running things. Maul and Opress actually come to power by partnering with Deathwatch, who are a kind of Mandalorian terrorist group.

Ok, so overall, Solo was pretty good. Not as good as Rogue One or either of the main films. Better than the prequels. It kind of felt like one of the old barely canonical (and now definitely not canonical) Marvel Comics Star Wars stories...which I liked.

The bad up front. Ehrenreich sucks. You can practically taste that guy’s hammy mugging and his desperate attempt to be a star. I think he confused Han’s likable arrogance with his own personal arrogance, which just blazes through his performance. He is the sole reason I think this movie had gotten mixed reactions.

The script was very wobbly, and it felt very, very overworked. You can almost see the pages that were rewritten post-Guardians of the Galaxy success and post-Miller/Lord exit. It strained itself to hit the VERY IMPORTANT LORE beats, which pretty hit or miss. The right path- and the path I think Lord and Miller were on- would have been to do this film as a rollicking caper film- very light, very irreverent, and with lots of fun character stuff. But I think Disney wanted the heavy LORE worship and more connectivity. They still could have hit moments like Han winning the Falcon and meeting Cherie, but it didn’t have it play like a stupid origin story.

The good stuff- I mostly liked everything else, especially the review about the marauders. The crime stuff was fun, and Paul Bettany was awesome. The big imperial battle...my god, that was PURE 40k. They may as well have been Astra Militarum. It looked like Warhammer, sounded like Warhammer, everything.

The design was mostly great but some stuff was way over-designed...like some of the aliens, they looked far more detailed than they should like the Rodians. The monkey thing (Rio?) was horrible.

L3 was great. But then she was destroyed. Sucks.

Of course, it goes without saying that Lando was the star of the show. Total victory. I don’t care if he was doing an impression, he sold it. And his material is where the film was the loosest and most fun- like how he had a cape room, how he had a freaking yellow tropics shirt at the end, how he interacted with Han...he was how the whole movie should have been.

Emilia Clarke...I don’t really know if she actually acted much in it. I kind of felt like Emilia Clarke was the character.

Woody Harrelson is always good, but man, that haircut.

Lady Proxima was pretty great...and a puppet.

I dunno, in sum I really liked it like I said, but I feel like it is the most problematic of the recent films. It works almost in spite of itself, and it shows that it was a troubled and uncertain production.

TERAS KASI???????

Did anyone notice how utterly shitty the other Wookiees looked? They were fucking TERRIBLE! Like, bad Bigfoot costume terrible. Like Ta, Sa and Chaka terrible. It’s very telling that we barely got to see them at all and never without smoke and dust obscuring them. I have a feeling they were a rush reshoot thing.