Solo User Reviews/Reactions for Solo: A Star Wars Story

We're foregoing the 3D version for simple 2D tomorrow because of reports that much of the picture is already dark and gloomy.

 

Tomorrow I'm going for my second showing about an hour after all the kids have broken up for a week off school. That should surely be one of the busiest moments, I do hope it's busy.

 

Hi.
I came out of it with a mild "it was fine" feeling. Which is disappointing.

TLJ was a gut punch. As with many people it took another viewing at a bit of time to sort that one out.
Rogue was unique and stunning.
And TFA was "OMG Star Wars is back".

But I floated through this having fun, perhaps over spoiled by the trailers. But it's done, and okay, fair enough, life goes on.

Maybe it had too much of "And that's how Han met Chewbacca, and that's how Han... " etc.

Seeing it again on Saturday.

PS, oh and the early Corellia stuff was the best bit IMHO. I know people are knocking it, but at that point the movie had be hooked.

 

Agreed. I didn't feel the need for that either. And I had the same feeling as you after watching it. It was ok, but I didn't find it unforgettable.

 

I'd give it a solid 7.5 out of 10.

I enjoyed it a lot, thought the characters were great, Alden really made the role his own, and I'd definitely like to see this cast do more.

 

Aiden as Han Solo still does not convince me
The movie is entertaining I was going to think it would be worse but I'm wrong
But the movie is inferior to Rogue One and the plot looks a bit forced
For me this movie was very unnecessary

 

Ok.

Wow.

Critics were right about one thing: Alden is spectacular.

They were wrong about literally everything else. I’ll elaborate later.

 

It would be a shame if there wasn't a sequel. Seeing Han's interactions with Jabba and the origins of his debt with him would really tie things up nicely in the lead-in to ANH. And Alden really did a great job. So much so, if they want to recast Luke and Leia as well I have zero objections. You hear me? ZERO.

 

[Insert vague opinion here]

I'll update you with my thoughts later.

Just kidding, I really enjoyed it. It wasn't a super phenomenal movie, but it didn't have to be. It just had to be a joy to watch. It suffers the most common flaw for films of this type: pacing, and some unnecessary characters. But it's not too hard to get past when everything else is just so darn fun. I really like the risks and experiential styles and twists that they've been doing with the spin-off movies. It has a really artistic tone like Rogue One. It's a fun little piece of art. Not a perfect one, or a completely necessary one, but a fun one.

 

Solid 8 out of 10 for me. I really enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. Was a little down seeing all the Meh reviews but I don't care anymore as this movie put a smile on my face and I left wanting more. Going again on Saturday with my wife and kids!!

 

I'm really glad all of us who had high hopes for the movie are enjoying it!
Tomorrow I'll see it again, can't wait!

 

8-9/10 for me. I don't care if 9/10 is too high. It was just a fun movie and the negatives of this movie are just not even worth bringing the movie down.

 

Just out of a sellout Dolby Atmos screening.

List of random things I liked:

The sequence on Corellia. Great production design with the Imperial shipyard there. Loved the visuals, and loved that part of the story. Nice bit of chemistry between young Han & young Qi'ra.

Emilia Clarke. I thought she was great in this.

The score. Went in with very low expectations. Thought it worked surprisingly well and the callbacks worked fine for me.

The train heist -- well-staged action sequence. Loved it. Cool effect with the hyperfuel explosion.

Donald Glover. I'm not a huge fan of his, but he really sold me as Lando.

Some new canon: "how Han got his name" (I liked that plot point), hyperfuel, the evolution and deconstruction of the Falcon, L3's brain being uploaded into the navicomputer.

Creature/alien design. LFL continues to nail this (with one exception -- see below). I know Rio didn't seem that well received when the trailers & TV spots dropped but I liked his design & execution and the voice didn't bother me like it seemed to have bothered a lot of others.

Thandie -- just thought she was very effective in her role, which was smaller than I expected.

Edited to add, almost forgot! -- Paul Bettany. Wow. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because he's a great actor. Took an underwritten role and really chewed it up.

Edited to add, one more thing! -- the world-building, setting the film in a "time of lawlessness", the gritty look & feel, etc. Just thought all of that worked extremely well.​

List of random things I didn't like:

Lady Proxima. Poorly executed, IMO.

Some of the heist-related storytelling and dialog just...didn't...quite....fire for me. Not sure how to express it. The twists didn't have enough zing and some of the dialog seemed flat. Some of the humor felt like it was just *this* close to really working (not always, just sometimes). The plot points that moved the story from sequence to sequence seemed, I dunno, kinda pedestrian/perfunctory. I know it's Star Wars and it's pulpy, but it seemed like even the actors didn't quite buy into the reasons they were doing things -- sometimes. I'm not much of a film critic so I'm sure I'm butchering the actual cinematic flaws that bothered me here. Maybe it's the screenplay; maybe it's the director. Don't know.

Spoiler

Maul igniting his saber. Ok, we get it -- everybody loves Maul, we're all glad to see him, but igniting the saber just seemed gratuitous. It felt like the movie was screaming SEE EVERYBODY HERE IS A DARK LORD OF SITH YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE HERE HE HAS A LIGHT SABER WHICH HE WILL NOW DEMONSTRATE TO YOU BY TURNING IT ON.

Things I was kinda meh about:

The whole Han/Chewie dynamic. Wanted to love it, but maybe had too high expectations here. Certainly wasn't bad -- it was just, ya know, fine.
​

So, overall, despite some bumps, I liked it and plan to see it again. I'd say it's probably the weakest of the 4 DIsney-era films, for me, but I like all of them.

Should you see it in theaters? If you're on these boards, it's inconceivable to me that you wouldn't.

 

Loved the entire cast, everyone did great, but Alden absolutely hit it out of the park!

I was never sure if I'd ever be able to accept him as Han coming into it, and it felt really odd seeing someone else in the role when the film started. Alden did such a bang up job though, but about the 30 minute mark I didn't notice any awkward perceptions anymore, and by the time the film was over, I didn't see anyone but Han Solo... not some actor trying to play Han Solo.

I would love to see him get another opportunity to expand Han's legend even further on screen!

Also, loved the little nod to Rey's 13 parsecs comment in TFA! Han lands and right away starts bragging about 12 parsecs, Chewie points out that it was more than that, Han responds "Not if you round down Chewie!"

 

Maybe I'm misreading it, but your post here seems to imply you felt I was criticizing you for having not watched Rebels. Please understand no criticism was intended in my post. I merely wanted to inform you of that plot detail since you seemed unaware and it was directly related to your speculation.

 

No, I didn´t think that at all.

 

I saw it at a 6pm showing on the 24th and it was sold out. I really enjoyed this. Of course I say this with expectations extremely low for this new mostly-terrible epoch of SW films ( I loved RO but absolutely despised the rest). I didn’t cringe or roll my eyes even once which is saying an awful lot with SW lately. I loved Han shooting first, seeing how/why Lando mispronounces “Han,” Woody Harreleson, Han and Chewie sitting down to man the falcon for the first time (teared up there for a bit) and the many homages and Easter eggs. I have some problems with parts of the film as well but today I’ll take what I can get and say I’m pleased.

 

i loved solo!!! yeeehawwww

 

It was entertaining. Far better than the dreary mess of Rogue One, though the visuals suffered under a lot to murky, ugly dark scenes. This movie had actual characters you could be invested in and care about. You could really feel the hackish fingerprints of the Story Group on this one, though. That certain cameo was incredibly stupid and basically just there to NOPE. It would have made so much more sense for it to be Boba Fett, and I don't even like Boba Fett. I have this theory that the main saga filmmakers hold too much sway for the Story Group to butt in on, but they run wild on these spin-off movies, forcing in all kinds of references for the fanboys. I'd definitely go see a Lando movie or a Han and Lando adventure. I'm not sure, though, if while watching this I ever truly believed I was watching Han Solo and not just another similar young up-and-comer.

 

I was somewhat bored for the first half and then it got fun. My overall impression was that it was fun; good, but not great; largely inconsequential and unnecessary. This is a one-time only in the theater for me until the home release.

 

The movie felt really flat. The score was really weak which seemed to sap the tension out of almost every scene.

 

OK. This is the first of the Disney era Star Wars films where I feel the RT score is very accurate (TFA and TLJ too high, RO too low, and Solo just right). A 70 percenter, through and through. The best thing about the movie, though, is that Han Solo is...Luke Skywalker in this. And I loved it. He's got that optimistic earnestness that Luke had in ANH (not to mention a desire to flee oppressive circumstances and...fly). And it's heartbreaking to see that optimism tested. Gives a new layer to Han's relationship with Luke in the OT (strengthening the reasons why he was both exasperated by him, and liked him). That said, I'm about as mixed about this as I can get with a Star Wars film. 20 other quick thoughts.

1. Alden was fantastic. Runners up are Bettany and Harrelson (and Clarke was much better than I expected). Bettany totally surprised me with his Vos. One of the best elements of the film, and I really wish we got more of him.

2. 90% of the critics are absolutely wrong about the beginning being the weakest part. It's the best, and least clunky (especially compared to the Kessel Run). The scenes on Corellia had real human stakes, and felt very authentic (minus the unfortunate choice for Lady Proxima's voice - someone tell LFL to stick with alien languages!). Han and Q'ira's separation at the spaceport was surprisingly emotional to me. I welled up a bit. Great acting, including from the Imperial officer at passport control. And those Corellian hounds! I also liked Mimban quite a bit, and loved Han and Chewie's meeting. The film should have spent more time with these stages of Han's life. They would have accentuated the trials and tribulations he goes through later. Again, I'm baffled that so many critics wanted to be done with those scenes and just jump into the action.

3. John Powell has given us the absolute worst Star Wars score ever. It's the single worst thing about the film. He ruins good scenes by punctuating them with super-cheesy heartstring cues, piles onto already busy action sequences and renders them almost incoherent in the cacophany, and just plain hams the whole thing up. Awful, IMO. And the orchestra simply doesn't fit this kind of small-scale movie. Feels like it's trying way too hard to make the events seem grandiose, when they're not. The film would have been drastically improved by a completely different approach to the score. Something funkier. More akin to the trailers.

4. Even for a Star Wars film, it was surprisingly really corny at times. Vos's guards had the cheesiest of voices too. Like TMNT goons.

5. Despite most critics saying that the train heist and Kessel were the best bits, they were the worst for me. Especially the space kraken stuff, and TIEs inexplicably following the Falcon into the Maw...

6. 80% of this film was shot in close-up, which was maddening. One of the biggest disappointments of the film for me was going from the great-looking and expansive Corellia to the cruddy little sets for much of the rest of the film. Kessel looked like it was shot in my backyard. I liked Vos's ship and Savareen though.

7. I feel a significant mistake was jumping from Mimban straight to the train heist, with little to no character interaction between Han and the new crew (apart from the pretty good camp fire scene). This is when the movie really needed to take a minute and establish Han's new life with this crew. And where was the planning? The funnest parts of heist films are the planning scenes. Yet the train heist has barely any, and Kessel's planning process is non-existent. It all just starts. And it's hard to care, not least as you don't really know what the plan is, so you don't know how or what they're doing. And unlike the nonexistent plan in ROTJ, these set pieces don't build up the tension. It's just wham, bang, bang, bang, bang, done. The film needed the equivalent of the 3PO-Luke-Leia triple intro to Jabba at his palace. Action scenes aren't that great when there's no build up. No tension.

8. I liked L3 quite a bit, but found Lando either underutilized or utilized in a strangely disjointed way. Glover was great though. And I loved the "recording his memoirs" bit. Felt like a Lord and Miller touch.

9. Orange Rodian!

10. The Enfys Nest plot saved the film at the end. After the Kessel Run, which I hated, I was worried that I would generally dislike the film. Then the Savareen coda happened, and I liked it. Almost all of it.

11. The film actually did a great job of underlining a very simple point about life doing favors for organized criminals: You have to do crappy stuff because otherwise, the bosses will kill you. In this context, the influence of the crime syndicates was palpably felt. That's what gave the film any stakes at all.

12. Best parts of the film happen on Corellia, Mimban, Vos's yacht and Savareen.

13. I hate to say it. but I think Howard's corny blahness really hurts this film. I'm going back to my initial disappointment with Lord and Miller's firing, and Howard's hiring. I really want to see L&M's film. Though if I were KK, I would have gotten someone like Steven Soderbergh for this. Someone who can turn an ensemble heist film into delirious fun, while still getting good character work done. The criminal schemes needed a lot more depth than this. It was like a Saturday morning cartoon version of Oceans 11.

13. It doesn't even come marginally close to the awesomeness of Rogue One, but it looks like the same universe. That's good.

14. The film wasn't slow at all. I have no idea where that criticism comes from. It moves like a...well, a freight train. And is actually at its best when it takes a moment (like on Vos's yacht). Many of the actions scenes are also curiously rushed. Stuff just happens. Fast, and with little time to take it all in. Like Chewie's liberation of the wookies on Kessel. Completely incoherent scene.

15. The Kessel Run should not have been jammed into this film. It feels completely out of place. Like a totally different movie. That space kraken getting eaten by a gravity well just can't be in the same movie as Savareen. We go from a bad cartoon to a strikingly realistic-looking oil town. It's jarring and makes me reject Solo's world as a real one.

16. The singing duo on Vos's ship is the best of the Star Wars singers. Great designs.

17. I loved Enfys Nest, but would it have hurt to make her a tad older? She seems to be about 12 or 13. As with broomboy, it came off as Star Wars Christmas-commercial level cheesy. It's just not credible that she was the same person doing flips on that moving train. Though once I got used to it, I accepted her.

18. You go, orange Rodian. And Two Tubes!

19. What was with the weird camera rush through the jungle before the final card game? Probably the most underwhelming approach to a planet we've seen. I'd rather watch ten ship landings from the PT than that. Like something out of the Jungle Book cartoon.

20. There's a Gigoran on Kessel (as all the slaves are exiting the mines towards the Falcon). Looks like Moroff. This elevated the scene significantly. Enough said.



Overall, I liked the film enough, but am actually not really sure how I feel about it. Was one of the strangest movie experience I've ever had.

The only solution? Watch it again.

 

Bor Mullet is dead right about the score. It was awful and it killed the energy of the film.