Solo: A Tabular Star Wars Review
With the world on lockdown and a plethora of streaming services just begging to relieve you of your boredom – and the last of your cash – there’s never been a better time to finally scratch that itch and watch the 2018 oddity Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Who would’ve thought the origin story of the most beloved, charismatic smuggler in this galaxy – or any other – would prove to be Disney-Lucasfilm’s Waterloo?
I won’t bother summarising the plot as there isn’t one to speak of; where other films use narrative to tell a story, Solo: A Star Wars Story uses it like gaffer-tape to string together a seemingly endless number of references.
In fact, I hesitate to use the word “film” at all, this feels more like an exercise set by a creative writing teacher. Imagine you are given the task of creating an origin for Han Solo, but — here’s the catch — your story must explain everything we know about him from the original trilogy, each and every trivial detail.
Solo is a product; a balance-sheet entry; an advertisement for a theme-park ride.
That it feels like it was put together on an assembly line is no surprise, since it stinks of being birthed by manacled bean-counters enslaved in Disney’s book-keeping dungeons. Therefore, it follows that the most fitting way to assess its merits is to use the tool with which it was created: the spreadsheet.
Bottom line
In a nutshell, it cost a fortune, was endlessly meddled with in production, performed poorly at the box office and effectively nixed the idea of Star Wars one-offs.
Now, how well did screenwriters Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan do on their assignment?
21/24, a solid 88%.
The most obvious omission here is failing to explain the origin of the name “Millennium Falcon”. An inexplicable oversight, especially as an origin story in-keeping with the tone of the movie should’ve been trivially easy to throw in. For example, let’s say that teenage-Han once kept a pet eagle, but the beloved bird was tragically slain by some loathsome Imperial officer. Later, when he bests Lando at Sabacc and wins ownership of the ship known as the “Millennium Freighter”, Han movingly re-christens it in memory of Feathers.
[1] Solo: A Star Wars Story shows us an even cooler version of the Millennium Falcon — the coolest spaceship of them all — than we saw in the original trilogy. And why not? Everyone loves the Falcon: the characters in the movie do, the screenwriters clearly do, and so do millions of kids unwrapping Lego Millennium Falcon kits on Christmas morning. To my knowledge, there’s only one person who doesn’t think the Falcon is super-awesome: Luke Skywalker, a character in the universe this movie is supposed to take place in. As I recall, he described it as a “piece of junk”. On second thought, Lando (the real one) also called it a “hunk of junk”. Guess he forgot about that cape closet.
[2] At least, he fired first before George Lucas changed his mind (twenty years later) and hacked Star Wars to bits to make it look as though Han fired second. Solo: A Star Wars Story comments on the whole debacle by including a scene of Alden Ehrenreich’s Han shooting Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett before the latter can even get his hand on his gun. It’s all very meta. With so much nodding to the audience it’s no wonder there wasn’t any time left to tell an actual story.
Now, for bonus points, let’s see how many other references the Kasdan boys managed to cram in there:
15/15. Nailed it.
Ditch the pivot-tables
By a curious coincidence, a film released one year before Solo: A Star Wars Story (yeesh, that title) similarly features a Han Solo-ish main character (“Baby”) who drives fast, is the youngest member of a gang of thieves, takes part in a heist, tries to rescue his girl and is double-crossed by his associates… Spooky.
If this story had been the basis for the Han Solo origin film, there would’ve been no Chewie, no Lando, no Falcon, no blaster, no Kessel Run, no Darth Maul, no extraneous world-building, and no bloody gold dice.
Unlike Solo: A Star Wars Story, Baby Driver (cool title!) isn’t a prequel, sequel or any other-equel to an existing property, and therefore doesn’t feel the need to wink at the audience every five seconds. It’s just a fully satisfying, self-contained story. Also unlike Solo, it leaves me wanting to see what Han, I mean Baby does next.
