. . . Solo

What's wrong with:

STAR WARS

Solo

Not having enough perspective from the first viewing, I paid money to see it a second time. As I had seen all of the others at least three times apiece, and a few of them as many as 30 times, the regression testing I did, was necessary. Regression testing, in software development, is when the functionality is moved to a different environment and reviewed again to see if you can uncover any other issues. In this case, I watched it with one fewer person, in a different theater and city, and not in a leather recliner.

High
1) This is going to come off as pretty pot calling the kettle black, but there is too much explanation on the screen to begin the movie. Not sure if those deciding to describe in words rather than in actions, and interactions, between characters, were influenced by Terminator or Blade Runner, but it is needless (and less necessary than in either of those movies). In fact, the treatment of the subject matter in Solo is more conducive to showing the world; we can get the idea of how valuable certain resources and commodities are by having the writer, director and actors/characters show us.

A couple lines sprinkled in the first thirty minutes of the movie, eliminates all that reading. And if that exposition is necessary, here is an idea, put it in a crawling, receding text that disappears into the stars. Fresh. I've seen that tactic employed somewhere before.

Also, Solo has a few characters more dynamic than many given enough screen time in either of those two sci-fi classics, to be able to pull off the exposition of the story without people needing to read.

Note: ironic, very little exposition in this review; it starts with a defect right out of the gate.

High
2) Over the top giant villain. The slug creature that emerges from some cesspool must have been a lot of fun for the special effects people to create. I see it as one more overdone freakishly large impediment. I’ll have another example below. Men in Black used a pug (think of Salacious Crumb- judge him by his size do you?) as an information source the audience never would have expected. Can’t we just have some alien in charge of the local syndicate that is like Snaggletooth, Max Rebo, etc.? We get it, this is a large galaxy, populated with a lot of freakishly unique creatures- but now your art and design people are just showing off. Why does it not occur to the creature creators to just recycle something like the changeling (bounty hunter Jango Fett hires from AOTC), the wolf creature from the Cantina scene in Star Wars, the six-eyed thing Han sits next to at the card game, or [insert your random alien species here from 1 of hundreds we’ve encountered, many of them in passing, in 10 movies to date]. 

Note: yes, Vincent Dinofrio's bug character considerably expands in size when it gets to the park with the trophy/statue ship he needs to escape with Orion's belt. The Star Wars franchise has had 10 shots at this. Use your universe people. The fans would be thrilled to see a female Bossk as a bad-ass crime syndicate boss. The word "boss" is already just right there.

For that matter, put one of the Clone soldiers in charge of something like that. We've now seen a Stormtrooper defect (Finn), and sometimes nature trumps nurture and a sixty-five year old clone soldier's wiring to propel it into a rogue position after having left the Empire, would be a welcome change.

Low
3) Han throws a rock through a window, which lets in a lot of light, which isn't appreciated, expected, or helpful, for the giant millipede. The complaint might be, why would a powerful villain even have a window in a room in which they live for fear of someone destroying it to let light in? Fair enough. However, Jabba doesn't expect someone to choke him with a chain; the New Order didn't expect Holdo to fire a space cruiser into them at light speed, and Snoke didn't anticipate Kylo Ren would turn and ignite a light saber into his midsection. I didn't expect Vader to get into a fighter plane instead of staying inside the womb of the death star in the original film.

People are unpredictable; the characters they play should be no less so. I'm not asking for each situation and outcome to be anticipated by the good and evil characters in any movie. These characters aren't actuaries. I'm asking for a certain level of consistency with a special influx of unpredictability and oversight under normal, and dire, circumstances. Villains in movies have always overlooked the potential resourcefulness of the hero. Can the creators make the audience believe the good v. evil interactions are realistic, when you factor in the precedents in the worlds they've created? Is the inherent suspension of disbelief willful and smartly attended to (as judged on different scales depending on if the subject matter is historic fiction, a present day crime drama, a farcical romantic comedy, or science fiction)?

The real question is, how, in a dingy hell-hole of a futuristic city, would a pane of glass still be completely intact? Why wouldn't there be a tarp, sheet, or boards in that space, in a city in complete disrepair, instead?

4) Stormtroopers detaining people both before and after Han and Kira go through the checkpoint shows us that many are still trying that method and perhaps still succeeding. Since Han and Kira are separated there, we see a little of both (Han gets out, Kira does not). Besides, showing multiple others in the midst of getting caught trying to flee is one of the reasons Han actually gets out. If all else was an orderly procession of people milling around a detention center escape point, while only two people were trying to sneak through, any one person escaping would have been less plausible.

Medium
5) Kissing. While Emilia Clarke is quite fetching, I don’t get the sense that Han has been away for years, months, or weeks when he returns with the super fuel. If he’d been gone three years, then I get it. But if I’m someone who just made a deal to get out of somewhere, and had in my possession the commodity that would get me out, I’m not kissing anyone, I’m getting into the fastest vehicle, and urging anyone I'm attracted enough to to kiss, to come with me quickly.

In Enemy at the Gates, Jude Law and some intoxicating filthy beauty have intercourse during a brief interlude of a sniper fight. It is a desperate exchange and perhaps both of them think that it is their due, given an overwhelming feeling of mortality, to enjoy sharing something with, and taking something from, another human being. If those two had an imminent hope of escaping their situation, they would have waited to bang until after their safety was assured. Han and Kira are not in that position. And ahem, since this is a Disney movie, they aren't in any position.

High
6) Han is separated from Kira while both are trying to escape. When I watched this a second time, I was convinced the complaint I'd heard about him caterwauling for too long after Kira had been caught, was legit. I don't think he turns around to see if his protests are drawing more attention.

7) For those skeptical about the psychic connection creatives and thinkers have with the number 3- here are two more examples- why would we have to advance 3 years in time? Why not 2, or 4? I am re-watching Breaking Bad, one of the top ten television shows of all time. In the first episode we start with an action scene showing the two main characters hysterically driving from something. Ok, we see one, because Jessie had been knocked out. But after the opening scene, we are brought to action 3 weeks earlier. Back to the main topic.

8) Solo- the name. I've heard criticism about how Han got his last name. Unless the creatives decide that Anakin's last name was granted by Darth Plagueis witnessing the procreation of a cloud and a star giving birth to the immaculately conceived child, I'm not considering how Han got his name a defect. Is it reminiscent of how Vito Corleone acquired his name in the 2nd Godfather movie (from the town he's from in Sicily)? Sure. But giving Solo a demerit because his last name wasn't his birth name, or because this scene doesn't stack up to something from the Godfather . . . Jesus people! Grow up. 


Medium
9) Woody Harrelson. I think he was underutilized. This isn't because he isn't on screen for enough of the film, but rather because he is such a good actor who plays a role that hundreds of other actors could have played. There isn't much pathos extracted from him generally, and not much specifically, when his love dies. I get the impression that Harrelson had to hold his talents in check so as not to distract from who is supposed to be the star like a brilliant guitarist who plays down so the singer can shine.

High
10) I get that Becket (Harrelson) is supposed to be a heartless bastard who can't trust anyone, a loner without a conscience, but when Val dies the movie spends less time with his grief than they do showing Han wailing about losing Kira at the checkpoint. This isn't the first time the creatives were off on the scale of sorrow.

High
11) Alden Ehrenreich- as Han Solo. Not bad. He's anxious to prove himself about twenty years before the only thing he had left to prove was that he was dutiful. So, we can forgive casting for finding someone that isn't an exact fit. I can envision Ehrenreich as Han about half the time. Casting didn't do as good a job finding a young Solo as those casting the Star Trek reboot did in finding young versions of Kirk, Spok, Bones, Scotty, Sulu and Checkov. Still, for all the pre-release hype about how horrible Ehrenreich was supposed to be, I certainly did not see that. Those who haven't seen this movie once because of all the bad hype are the same types of people who felt their only two options for president were Trump or Hillary. Seeing the movie, and not seeing it, are not the only two available options. Seeing it and being critical of a world you love, but giving reasons why it isn't a perfect world is an open-minded possibility.

I gave this a high defect because it is halfway between nothing and Critical. Couldn't those in charge of casting have found someone with a longer face? I'll admit this is a bit nitpicky, but Hollywood has found someone who looked incredibly close to JFK (Greg Kinnear) and made Gary Oldman look like Winston Churchill; Han Solo needs to look more like Harrison Ford and less like a version of Han Solo if only his head hadn't survived the trash compactor.

Also, Ehrenreich is 28 years old. Ford, in the original, was 34. I get that actors have been playing older and younger than their age for a couple thousand years in stage plays dating back to the Greeks, but I'm not buying that this is the version of Han 10-12 years before we see him for the first time in Mos Eisley. It isn't just the look, it's the feel. I had the same criticism of both Obi-Wan/Alec Guinness and Luke/Mark Hamill from Star Wars. They keep getting the passage of time wrong. When you factor in the desperado mentality Luke portrays in TLJ, they keep getting the feelings and motivations of the characters wrong as well.  

Note: Research yielded some guy's idea of all of the character's ages at various times during each of the movie's to date- http://www.yodasdatapad.com/ages.html. I don't know based on what authority some guy drunk in the basement of a pub in Boston came up with those opinions, but the chart considers that Solo occurs 10 years prior to A New Hope. There is no way that the Solo we just saw is only 10 years younger than the Solo in "A New Hope". That doesn't feel right. It feels like Han's debt to Jabba is older, and that his name "Solo" was given to him 20 years previously and not 13.

12) Han meeting Chewie. Nicely done. It was a great way to show how quickly they built trust and how Han knows what Chewie is saying. How anyone else ever knows what Chewie is saying is still a problem, which I'm willing to overlook until . . .

Medium
13) Also a problem is- how does Chewie know English and if he knows English, wouldn't he be able to understand what others were saying? If so, wouldn't he have demonstrated that understanding and not be incarcerated for being a beast, but for some other reason, like he's rebellious, or Wookies are known to be free-spirited?

Low
14) Lando a pansexual. I had to look up the word "pansexual" when I read rumors that Lando was said to be flirting with Han during the movie. I didn't see any evidence of that behavior and I have to admit my relief. Some of the comments justifying such a move were ridiculously topical and cliche- (i.e. it is time for representation in these movies for GLBT-type characters.) That may well be true. I wouldn't stop paying money to see a Star Wars movie just because an alternative lifestyle were represented, even if an endearing character like Lando were selected. I stopped paying any money at all to watch a Denzel Washington movie because he whined about there not being any good roles for black men. ?? He's been nominated, and won, Oscars and his IMDB resume is filled with well-respected acting credits. I don't think he's gone more than two years without a major motion picture credit, and he's one of the most bankable actors in the business. Also, I wouldn't pay money to watch or rent Spaceballs II and there aren't any black actors in that.

[Note: I had no idea there even was a Spaceballs 2, and there isn't, yet. And I only know that because I had to Google it to find out if there was; turns out there might be one on the way. I look forward to not watching it.]

Where I think Disney and Star Wars missed the opportunity, while still successfully making light of it in this general topic was, before I looked up "pansexual" I speculated that it might be a human's sexual proclivity toward a member of an alien race. And I thought that could be interesting if done right. The making light of it part was the female droid (L3-37) musing on a relationship between she and Lando. And the droid's disclosure to Kira was funny and well done.

15) Donald Glover- excellent call. That casting decision is right there with the Star Trek calls I mentioned above.

16) Millennium Falcon- that was an excellent casting decision, to put the Falcon in that role; it looks just like it did in the original. It loses another radar dish, or the first one we know it loses.

Medium
17) Lando too quickly puts something he's said to value that much (the Millennium Falcon) up in a card game.

Severe
18) Not one guard at the gates of the impound lot where the falcon is stored. I realize there is a homing beacon attached, but I'll get to that in a minute. Not one of those characters notices how easy it is to cut through a fence and get into an impound lot holding something with enough value to be impounded in the first place?

Severe
19) A homing beacon is attached to the Falcon. I can't fault Lucas for not foreseeing that Vader, when he pulled the same stunt 10-20 years later/in a film shot 40 years earlier, would not have had Han remember how they were tracked in this instance. After all, it occurs to Leia, in Star Wars, to consider that they are being tracked, and that the escape was too easy. Never mind the fact that despite it occurring to her that they're being tracked, she doesn't object to their flying directly to the rebel base.
     a) just like droids are a thing in this universe, homing beacons are a thing. Not considering the possibility of being tracked when the ease of your escape came at such a trifling price (it was free) is not something a set of pretty, to very, experienced scoundrels would overlook is pretty unforgivable.
     b) perhaps Han, in Star Wars, didn't consider the escape from the Death Star easy, because, in retrospect, his escapes have been more like those we see in Solo, where no resistance, instead of almost no resistance, is the norm. Yeah, that's more revisionism. This is a severe defect not because of (b) but because of (a).

Thing is, you can't survive in this universe without knowing about the reality of droids and homing beacons. Asking the audience to believe these characters are that gullible is embarrassing. One to three howls from Chewie about how easy it was to get the falcon, with Han offering a retort that tells the audience what Chewie said, would have been enough to minimize this defect.

Low
20) Becket and Lando keep calling Han "kid". Dude is 28. If you wanted your main character to be called kid, that pejorative isn't applicable to anyone who looks 25, or who is playing a character over 20.

21) Lando calls Han "baby" and Han returns the favor later on. These are both spoken as insults, not as two guys flirting with each other.

22) I had read that the woman who played L3-37, is given credit for being a scene stealer. In the theatre I viewed the movie in, there were some laughs derived from her revolutionary streak, but she’s really only in the action for about 30-40 minutes, 4-5 scenes. Chewbacca, Lando and Han seem to take turns stealing scenes. I think the idea of a scene stealing robot was revolutionary and hip for some critics, so they went with it. A robot leading a robot’s revolt and putting on airs about how she and Lando could have been a thing are pretty funny. Let’s not get carried away. The idea of having a female robot, ten movies into the franchise was an excellent call.

23) With Han and Kira on the Falcon, that is the time to get busy (reference to the preemptive kissing from above). C'mon Disney, if you're going to grace us with the onslaught of multiculturalism and enlighten us with pansexuality, let's see the cleavage you allowed the hottest of your cartoon Disney princesses (Beauty/Belle) to reveal. You've got the private quarters. It is time for the heat to go out on the falcon so we can see how cold it is in there.

Critical
24) Despite our knowing that the falcon had permission to land that close to such a valuable resource, the superfuel, the number of guards watching the ship, searching the ship, or boarding it to search it, is not anything that would happen in our world. When the start of the movie offers 2 paragraphs of text about the value of a commodity like Xanadu, a ship being tracked to that resource is too much of a threat not to be guarded more heavily.  The falcon sitting that close to the mines is like the Trojan horse. How do the guards know there aren't thirty bad-ass soldiers on board? It never occurred to the miners that someone would attempt to steal unrefined Xantham Gum/hyper-fuel?

25) Han kicks one of the guards in the nuts. How does he know that's where the alien's nuts are? In this universe we've seen creatures with four arms, six eyes, necks two feet long and three-breasted women. Wait, that was Total Recall. Even more, how do we know the guard even has nuts? It could be a female, or it could be a race that spawns the next generation out of tears.

Medium
26) With all the bullets being fired again, and the hero band is making their escape after stealing the unprocessed super fuel, to have only one casualty (L3-37) and one flesh wound- Lando's arm, from a band of 8 is better than all the movies to date. But, I still have to track it as a defect, because it isn't good enough, and amidst the firefight, the dynamite of that world was loaded onto a ship that wasn't inspected or guarded without one bit of it exploding. Giving it a medium because of the attempt at improvement in this area. If the next movie has more of this, the severity will be increased.

27) Plugging L3-37 into the Millennium Falcon to act as its brain, a brain C-3PO must deal with in ESB . . . Very good idea! Excellent! At this rate, with these one off's fixing the mistakes, oversights and overreaches from all of the creative's since the series' inception, I'll actually live to see the revisionism explain away all that embarrasses me when I declare that I am still a fan.

28) Tie Fighters and Star Destroyers- another good decision. No need to create yet another ship with which fans were unfamiliar. When I see things like X-Wings in RO and Tie Fighters, it makes me think of how cool it is to see 1920s Fords and 1957 Chevies driving down the road.

29) YT-1300- why no others around? Can we know why it is such a pile of junk? Was there a design flaw like there has been on many automobiles- the brakes don't work, having the heat on while the radio is running causes it to hesitate, not having the gas cap completely secured when the left turn signal is flashing causes it to burst into flames? It would be cool to see another YT-1300 out there.

Severe
30) The bad- that the big scary giant creature was even in the Kessel run. Can we just stop that whole business. If you're not sure what else to do, let's stick this monster in here to make the characters have to overcome something. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had a big creature at the beginning and end of the movie, Ghostbusters, or Ghostbusters II had a giant marshmallow man . . . the Castle Crashers video game has you fight a giant boss to advance to each level, who would be no less menacing if given the same powers as the big boss and the same height of its enemies. If I cared to, I could crawl through the thousands of movies and movie sequels and give plenty of other examples.

31) The good- they didn't have a tentacle come from nowhere to latch onto the falcon right when the heroes and audience thought they had gotten past that. That is so old and best left to horror movies.

Medium
32) Why can't Dryden Vos be an alien character? Although, his boss is Darth Maul, a human-challenged species, so forgivable in some respects, but how about some interplay on the socioeconomic level the way Jabba treated his Gamorrean Guard and his green-skinned eye candy (before Princess Leia) by allowing each of them to be fed the Rancor monster.


33) On the topic of Darth Maul- nice call. Very nice call. Nice to see how many bosses, and overbosses there are. Of course, we can tell, despite it being a hologram that it isn't the Darth Maul from TPM. We'll get over it- it's Darth friggin' Maul!

Also- we see Han's dice, that made infrequent appearances throughout the films, Lando's mask from ROTJ; there is the hologram chess table, a reference to Bossk, and Mandalorian/Fett looking armor in the background of Vos' office.

34) Beyond all that above there is an allusion to Jabba (the job on Tatooine), which it is clear, would be the major story for the sequel so that more uber-fans can bitch about how that movie will check all the boxes. On that point, would I ever steer you wrong? This reference to Jabba is about as ominous as the card of the Joker that is handed to Batman at the end of "Batman Begins".

Disney- big mistake to decide that there doesn't need to be another Solo movie. The movie was good. Just because it didn't shatter box office records is no reason to not have a sequel to this prequel. Whether we have Star Wars fatigue, or a vocal minority of fans are boycotting Star Wars until you get your collective shit together, aren't good reasons to quit. Stall the franchise for a while. Bring out episode IX in 2020, after you've hired me to fix what your creatives are going to eff-up. 

The Star Wars DNA is dripping from my fingers, my brain and my imagination.  Where can I send my resume?