Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Yes, I went to see Solo. Yes, there are spoilers in this post!!!! 

To tell you the truth, I'm still conflicted about this movie.  I enjoyed watching it and I really WANT to love it, but I just still feel...confused. Stuck. And I don't even know why. 

Sorry, sorry. So anyway, this is what I came away from the movie with: 

First, I thought that Alden Ehrenreich did a great job portraying Han. No, he didn't look exactly like Han, he didn't sound exactly like Han, but I think that overall he did an excellent job.  It didn't feel like a parody or imitation of Harrison Ford's Han, which I liked. Alden (using his first name because it's so tiring to type out the last name) put his own sort of spin on the character, while still keeping some of the little character traits that the original Han had. There were a couple moments where he would smirk or do some little thing that would inevitably make me think, "Oh yes, that was Han all over." 

I liked Han's character in the movie as well. Though I didn't care for the romance between him and Qi'ra (sorry!), I still liked him a lot. He was just the right mixture of streetwise and inexperienced, mature and childish. I felt like Alden really got the portrayal spot-on, even without looking exactly like Harrison Ford or anything like that.

To be honest, my favorites were Han and Chewie. I knew as soon as they tossed Han in with "the Beast" that it would be Chewbacca, and that made me excited. When I first saw that trailers for Solo and saw that there were other Wookies, I was afraid that the movie would pay homage to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special with the inclusion of Chewbacca's family, but THANK GOODNESS they did not. 

I mean, what can I say? Han and Chewie are an inseparable duo, and to have one without the other is just not right. I love how, throughout the entire movie, Han has people double-crossing and betraying him every which way, but then there's Chewbacca, loyal to the end, probably the first person--creature--Wookie--that Han ever had consistent loyalty and friendship from. That made me happy. 

I also thought that Lando was portrayed very well. His persona and, well, Lando-ness was well done by Donald Glover (I think that's the actor's name), and he was definitely a Scoundrel. The card game scenes were so good! And now I think we know why he asks Han in The Empire Strikes Back, "What did you do to my ship?" because, boy, the Falcon sure went through some changes. Also, the scene where he tells Han, "I hate you," and Han replies with "I know," was Perfection. I really didn't like Lando's droid girlfriend though. She was rather pointless and very obnoxious. After she "died" and we're supposed to be all sad about it, I could not take it seriously, like I would if BB-8 or R2-D2 died. I even like K2-SO much better than K3. But that's all beside the point.

Now, on to some other stuff. I really liked Beckett throughout almost the entire film, and then once it seemed that everything was going fine and dandy, after he left, almost the instant before he returned as a traitor, I was thinking, "Oh no, it's Beckett, isn't it?" It was sad that he was the one to betray Han, having been almost a father figure for most of the movie. I wonder if the other two members of his little gang had survived, if he wouldn't have betrayed Han? How would things have gone if the two of them had survived? His character, the way that he was so stubborn and refused to think in terms of helping others, made me a little sad, and his death was honestly painful. He was obviously someone that Han looked up to and admired, and it just hurt to see their friendship/camaraderie end in that tragic way. I liked Beckett...until the end. However, the scene where he was playing Holochess with Chewbacca on the Falcon was great! 

"You're sure you wanna make that move?"

I really disliked Qi'ra for some reason. Maybe it was her character arc--I had this feeling from watching the trailers, from the way Beckett said "everyone will betray you, etc" in the trailers, that Qi'ra would turn out to be a traitor, and well would you look at that, she did! Maybe I don't like her because I don't want to see Leia as Han's "replacement" of Qi'ra, the girl that he lost years ago. But that's beside the point. I just felt like there was too much romance--the first bit, with the chase on Corellia, was fine, I liked her then, but after that...

Maybe it was just that she was SO STINKING GOOD at being a traitor. She led them on all this time, and even Han, who has known her seemingly a long time, didn't notice her treachery until the very end. I feel like they kind of looked at each other and realized that they both knew what she was going to do, but that she was willing to let him get away before she put him in any real danger. I don't know, I just came away from the movie wishing her ship had blown up and she had died. (Anna, that's not nice.) Well I'm sorry! It would have been much more satisfactory than her having a hologram conversation with--DARTH MAUL??? What is going on here????? Might as well have Obi-Wan Kenobi pop up and turn out to be the villain!

I know that the cartoon Clone Wars resurrected Darth Maul with robotic legs, but NO. I'm very sorry. That is just not right. 

Now, the villain, Dryden Vos, was very good. Not that he was a good person, you see, but he was very classy and refined, a non-lame, non-cheesy villain. He was very intimidating and scary, but he wasn't over-the-top. The kind of villain who could stab you in the back while offering you a glass of wine with the other hand. 

It's really distracting to try and write with Obi-Wan popping up every couple seconds.  Let's see, what else is there to say? I don't know why I came away from this movie feeling very conflicted, walking away from the theater and trying to decide whether I liked it or not. Maybe it was because of the seeming endlessness of the betrayal and conflict. There were no definite "bad guys" and no definite "good guys," like in most of the Star Wars movies, and I felt like the line between good and bad was really blurred. There were no Jedi or Sith (which to be honest I rather miss, I love a good lightsaber duel), and the way that everyone uses whatever means necessary to gain their ends was a little disappointing, that there doesn't seem to be any objective Good in the galaxy. However, what's new? Isn't that every Star Wars movie? 

I think I would need to see it again in order to really understand the whole subplot with rival gangs, but the one gang needs the blue power stuff (I forgot what it was called) for their people, not for money. I didn't really understand that or the whole Enfys Nest thing. I also kind of wished that a clearer timeline had been drawn in regards to how long before A New Hope this took place.

I think I can honestly say that I enjoyed this movie. It had a great, almost Western feel to it, plenty of fun and action, and Han/Chewie made it a very entertaining watch. Leaving the conflicted feeling behind, it was a very enjoyable movie and, I think, a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon (other than the whole Darth Maul thing, I just will never accept that). Alden Ehrenreich was an excellent Han Solo without making the movie feel like a Harrison Ford impersonation, and it was a whole lot of fun.

Have you seen Solo? 

Agree (or disagree) with anything I said?

How do you feel about the return of Darth Maul?