This film was directed by Ron Howard, written by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan and stars Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke. It was produced by Lucasfilm and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in July 2018.
Han and Qi’ra are orphaned children trying to escape indenture to a crime boss on the planet Corellia. They make up a plan to get away, but Qi’ra is caught just on the threshold of freedom. Han escapes and signs up for military service, hoping to become a pilot, but he deserts when this doesn’t work out. He takes up with a band of freelance thieves led by a man named Beckett, who introduces him to Chewbacca the Wookie in the worst possible way. Beckett is trying to steal coaxium fuel for Dryden Vos, a crime boss of the Crimson Dawn syndicate. When they arrive at his penthouse, Han finds that Qi’ra has escaped Corellia by taking employment with Vos. She introduces him to smuggler Lando Calrissian, and on his second try at sabacc, Han catches Lando cheating and wins his ship the Millennium Falcon. Rebels capture the coaxium, causing mayhem. Can Qi’ra and Han get out alive? Can they rebuild their relationship? Can Han make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs?
So, Howard has done a workmanlike job of incorporating everything that had to go into this film. Because Han, Chewbacca and Lando are well-known characters with established histories, the film had to go back and provide scenes and details that were already described. Even with generous actions scenes, it’s not that exciting, moving from point to point like a checklist.
There was a controversy before the film even got to theaters, as director Howard was hired to replace Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were fired for “creative differences.” A lot of the film was then reshot, at considerable expense. Box office receipts were dismal, the first real failure of a Star Wars film in the history of the franchise. This may have been about poor word-of-mouth, but it was more likely a boycott by fans unhappy about the Disney-controlled films and especially annoyed by The Last Jedi. The result has been mutterings from Disney about maybe not making any more Star Wars films. Is this a demo of how to kill a cash cow?
The biggest problem with this film, of course, was Alden Ehrenreich trying to step into Harrison Ford’s shoes. Ehrenreich did a workmanlike job with the character, but workmanlike just isn’t Han Solo. Donald Glover as Calrissian got glowing reviews, but it was really the charismatic Woody Harrelson as Beckett who lights up the film—an understated, low key performance notwithstanding. Also prominent was Lando’s annoying co-pilot L3-37, an animated character fighting against the slavery of droids, who got quickly squashed. Was this a message about SJWs?
The casting issue brings up another question. Why isn’t Disney investing in flashier talent for these movies? I think some of the Marvel films have had the same issue, where it looks like they went down to the local acting school and hired a bunch of young kids and then suppressed whatever talent and individuality they might have. Even weeks of promotional hype about what stars they are doesn’t make up for their lack of presence on the screen. Howard did a good job making his cast carry their weight here, but really, why is Disney so hell-bent on mediocrity?
Average film. Three stars.
thephantom182
Aug 04, 2018 @ 19:18:31
I’ve been raging on about “Soylo” elsewhere and haven’t seen it yet, based mostly on the bad idea of killing off Han Solo AND Luke Skywalker… and then immediately releasing a Han Solo stand alone movie. That’s got to be the dumbest shit ever.
I heard a lot about the alleged SJW content of “Soylo” (hence the name) and I wondered how you felt about it. Was there a bunch of SJWism in there, and how “in your face” was it? Droid slavery sounds fairly prominent, particularly given that the droids are supposed to be non-sentient machines, not real people with real volition. Major departure from cannon there.
“I think some of the Marvel films have had the same issue, where it looks like they went down to the local acting school and hired a bunch of young kids and then suppressed whatever talent and individuality they might have.”
Personally I haven’t been distracted by the acting in any of the Marvel movies. Some of the Marvel TV shows on Netflix have been achingly bad, such as Iron Fist (OMG that dude can’t act!) and lately Cloak&Dagger, in which -nobody- can act. They really did raid the local acting school and took the drop-outs, it is SO bad. We watch it for the opportunity to yell and throw popcorn at the screen. ~:D
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Lela E. Buis
Aug 04, 2018 @ 21:53:02
Actually, this was pretty low on the SJW scale. I suspect this is because Ron Howard is old school and maybe a Star Wars fan himself, so he had a feel for what would be acceptable.
There were minor indications of SJW, which is hard to escape these days. For example, a notable proportion of women were cast in strong or leadership roles. Qi’ra was certainly more interesting than Han, who just sort of drifted along. Qi’ra started off pretty much as chattel, but by the end of the movie, she looked ready to move up the food chain. Lando’s co-pilot had a definite female voice when most of the droids are genderless, and I suspect she might have been envisioned as a SJW character, but she ended up being comic relief. It was clear nobody had any interest in what she was ranting about, and she eventually got squashed. Was this a message everyone missed?
Anyhow, I’m sure the real failure was The Last Jedi. I couldn’t believe they’d say things like that to their fan base. I read that Hamill is expecting to be back for the next film, so I guess Luke will be resurrected, hopefully with a new, more positive outlook.
In general, everyone seems to be hiring actors on the cheap for limited roles. I’m not sure what movie it was where I thought it was so obvious, Days of Future Past, maybe? Michael Fassbender worked really hard carrying the film, while a bunch of kids stood around and looked pretty. They seemed like interesting characters, too–a huge waste that they got no development.
Sorry to hear Netflix is so bad. I was envisioning it as better than ye olde TV networks. Mostly what I watch is old reruns of Law & Order.
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thephantom182
Aug 05, 2018 @ 00:36:43
I wouldn’t say -all- the Marvel stuff on Netflix is bad. Daredevil was pretty good, for the most part. Luke Cage had its moments of goodness despite being inherently silly. Jessica Jones second season was actually better than the first season, which was dark dark dark! just for the sake of being dark. First season of Punisher was good, second season descended into violence and torture pr0nz and I abandoned it before the last episode. It says something that a show is given away free, and you stop watching because you flat-out don’t want to see how it comes out.
Iron Fist was terrible, in a “oh this is so lame!” sort of way, but I did watch all the episodes. Cloak&Dagger isn’t Netflix, its on Apple TV/some cable network. I’m throwing popcorn at it because I had to pay money. 😦
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Lela E. Buis
Aug 05, 2018 @ 03:02:16
The Solo movie might end up making back most of its expenses. Worldwide box office is currently $390M and the budget was $275M. Of course, there are always promotional expenses, etc. above that.
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Lela E. Buis
Aug 05, 2018 @ 02:32:36
Hm. Must be a slow day at File 770. They’ve linked to this review. Have I said something no one else has said?
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thephantom182
Aug 05, 2018 @ 10:40:04
China Mike is scant for blog-fodder these days, he scans through the comments of blogs he’s banned from for seeds of outrage. He goes for the seeds because (of course) there is no -actual- outrage available. If he waters them with enough passive-aggressive innuendo they might grow into something.
Truthfully, he does find interesting things from time to time, but the unrelenting Elder Statesman, “more in sorrow than in anger” virtue signaling makes it not worth the increased blood pressure.
Since you mentioned, I took a peek. Couple days ago there was what looked like an interesting project about AI in film and TV, listing all the themes that hadn’t been covered in movies and TV shows on a big poster.
https://i0.wp.com/scifiinterfaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Untold-AI-poster-06-LARGE.png?ssl=1
And emblematic of the larger problem we find ourselves plagued by in science fiction/fantasy, the poster was largely themes regarding how government should regulate AI, how people should be funding AI, and so forth. It isn’t even invented yet and they’re planning the bureaucracy. Because that’s the Leftist focus. Control.
This springs to mind because of the AI “slavery” theme you mentioned in the review, and the fact that I’ve just finished watching season 2 of Westworld. Which is basically Frankenstein, again. The robots are Frankenstein’s monster, the humans are Victor Frankenstein the contemptible jackass, meddling in things he shouldn’t be. (At least this season they left out most of the grotesque sex-and-violence bullshit, I think somebody in a position of fiscal authority figured out that pr0n is available free on the Internet, and selling something that’s free elsewhere is not a good business model.)
The problem of how AI is handled in TV and movies isn’t with the AIs. The problem is with the writer’s willful misunderstanding of humans. The creators of Westworld in an interview considered humans to be comparable to cockroaches, with the roaches claiming the moral high ground. There’s only so many AI stories you can tell when the Humans are software that “can be written in 200,000 lines of code.” That’s a quote from Westworld. To the authors, no thinking, reasonable intelligence would be partners with humans, they’d stamp us out as an exercise in moral hygiene.
“Humans are Evil” is the effective ground state of any artwork in the Modern Era, certainly since WWI. Any artist who deviates from that norm is at best fighting an uphill battle, in SF/F they are not getting published. The evidence is in those movies. The untold stories are the ones where Humans aren’t bastards.
No one on one side of this divide is questioning that, meanwhile they’re busy demonizing the other side as hard and fast as they can.
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Pixel Scroll 8/4/18 Your Pixeled Pal Who’s Fun To Scroll With! | File 770
Aug 04, 2018 @ 23:09:21