The Kessel Run

Solo: A Star Wars Story was doomed from the start. Were people seriously asking for a Han Solo origin movie? Well the idea was originally conceived by George Lucas as part of Star Wars: Underworld. Then it became a movie, but with Lucas selling the rights to Disney, it was them that developed it. For a studio that wants to downplay the prequels as much as possible, Disney really leaned into the idea of multiple anthology films for a while. As I said before, Star Wars is not Marvel. You can’t release a new Star Wars movie every year and expect people to maintain interest in the same old galaxy and type of characters over and over again. There are so many reasons why Solo ended up becoming the first Star Wars box-office failure.

Popular directing duo Phil Lord & Chris Miller were notably let go for creative differences. Leaving former George Lucas collaborator Ron Howard as their replacement. Fans still had a bad taste in their mouths left by The Last Jedi, so giving Solo a traditional May release was way too close. It didn’t help that a trailer hadn’t arrived until a mere 3 months before it hit theaters. Solo was the first Star Wars movie that I had no anticipation for before going to see it. Crowd reactions were scarce and no one seemed to care. Solo is far from bad, but it’s far from groundbreaking. Which is a major problem for something in the Star Wars universe. SPOILER ALERT! (I’ve run out of clever things to say)…

Han Solo and Chewbacca look around

Solo begins with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…,” but it makes the half-assed decision to have an opening text instead of an opening crawl. Which feels just as wrong as Rogue One omitting it entirely. Only it made me a lot more angry to see the title casually flying above a planet instead of in space. The fact that “A Star Wars Story” remains in tact is just as inconsistent. Solo can only be described as a space western. Making it the most tonally different of the live-action Star Wars movies. With Harrison Ford all but retired from the role, a young Han Solo needed to be cast. Ironically the same thing happened before with Young Indiana Jones. Alden Ehrenreich wasn’t a huge star, but he fits the dashing rogue well enough. His only problem is being too nice. This Han can say he’s a bad guy as much as he wants, but you can’t make him too unlikable. Since Corellian ships have been mentioned in the past, it only made sense for Han to have grown up on Corellia. A shipping planet ruled by a criminal underworld. A strange centipede creature named Lady Proxima offers shelter in return for loyalty. Except Han and his never before seen lady love Qi’ra plan to escape with never before mentioned Coaxium fuel.

Emilia Clarke is the third beautiful British brunette heroine in a row. Okay Disney, this is getting ridiculous. Now every live-action Star Wars movie is lead by a brunette. Han and Qi’ra grew up together and they plan to make it off the planet together. A landspeeder car chase ensues and they manage to evade capture. Until Imperial forces separate them. We then see the Imperial recruitment process for the first time. They actually use the “Imperial March” in their propaganda campaign. As Han signs up as a flight cadet, a random Imperial officer takes his lack of a family name a little too literally. That’s seriously why his name is Han Solo. But the unnecessary callbacks don’t stop there. Dice that were barely visible in A New Hope now have their own backstory. I had no clue what they meant when they were shown in The Last Jedi. Now they’re an important token of Han’s affection towards Qi’ra. 3 years later, Han washed out of the flight academy and ended up in the infantry on foggy planet Mimban. It’s there he meets a ragtag band of rogues. Haven’t seen that before. I wonder who’s gonna die first?

Since he’s in everything now, Woody Harrelson plays morally ambiguous smuggler turned mentor figure Tobias Beckett. Thandie Newton is his wife Val and Jon Favreau voices blue four armed monkey pilot who won’t shut up Rio Durant. They deny him access into their crew at first and Han is left in an underground prison for deserters. The beast who’s also stuck there turns out to be Chewbacca. Although there were several first meetings envisioned for Han & Chewie, meeting in a prison with Han speaking Wookiee is now canon. They work together to return to Beckett’s crew and Han decides Chewie needs a nickname. While discussing their first mission, Chewie mentions a family on Kashyyyk, and Han gets his signature blaster. On Vandor-1 (yet another snow planet), the crew attempt to steal Coaxium in a nail biting train heist. The mission fails when mysterious masked Cloud Riders, lead by Enfys Nest, hijack the shipment. The rest of the crew obviously dies and Beckett is left to answer to a crime syndicate called Crimson Dawn. This particular syndicate is lead by Dryden Vos. Basically Paul Bettany with face scars and a light dagger. Either have a lightsaber or don’t, no more of this in between nonsense.

It’s there on Vos’ yacht that we see more mock cantina singers. Han happens to run into Qi’ra, who somehow became a top member of Crimson Dawn. In order to pay off their debt, Han, Chewie, Beckett, and Qi’ra are sent to steal unrefined Coaxium on the well known spice planet Kessel. But not before Qi’ra leads them to the perfect ship. Of course it had to be Lando Calrissian’s. Donald Glover perfectly recaptures Billy Dee Williams’ cool suave personality. He even mispronounces Han’s name just to retcon past mistakes. That doesn’t mean I’d rather be seeing his spin-off. Just as The Empire Strikes Back mentions, Han won the Millennium Falcon in a card game. Sabacc has existed in Star Wars for years. Their high stakes game is rigged in Lando’s favor. Then we’re introduced to another new character ruined by political correctness. Phoebe Waller-Bridge motion captures the third comic Disney droid sidekick. L3-37’s only traits are shouting about droid inequality and trying to make robosexuality a thing. C-3PO & R2-D2 she is not. I’m annoyed that they don’t even make an appearance. The Millennium Falcon is seen in a cleaner white & blue Republic state. They agree to work together in order to get the Coaxium.

Kessel is seen for the first time as L3 starts a droid revolt and Chewie frees Wookiee prisoners. It’s the only time Anthony Daniels makes an appearance, except as a Wookiee. L3 is obviously destroyed, but not before tarnishing the Falcon with her navigation system. It’s then we’re finally shown the legendary “Kessel run” in less than 12 parsecs. Showing it to be an overblown CGI space tunnel with a giant tentacle monster inside. The Falcon is damaged until it more closely resembles the older version. It’s there on Savareen that Han, Chewie, Beckett, and Qi’ra encounter Enfys. Who’s just a female leader of a band of Rebels. Beckett obviously double-crosses Han and everyone turns against each other. Qi’ra manages to kill Vos, but she stays behind so that Han can pursue Beckett. Since Han explicitly stated that he’s never seen an all-powerful Force, none of that is shown in his presence. Instead Qi’ra makes an unexpected call to former Sith Lord Maul. Again played by Ray Park, but voiced by Sam Witwer. Unless you’ve seen The Clone Wars or Rebels, his appearance will leave you with a bunch of questions. His sole purpose is to use the Force and present his lightsaber. Since Disney sucks at representing Force users.

Han then confirms that he does indeed shoot first, by killing Beckett. Han doesn’t join the Rebellion, but he does win a rematch game against Lando. With the Millenium Falcon in Han & Chewie’s possession, their next move is to meet a very important gangster on Tatooine. Too bad we’ll never see it. Since Solo can only be described as uninspired. The train heist and “Kessel run” are fun sequences we haven’t seen before, but they’re nothing special. Despite fans clearly wanting an Obi-Wan spin-off, Disney keeps on doing the same old blaster duels and space battles. It doesn’t help that everything is set in the original trilogy’s time frame. Ron Howard is a suitable replacement director, but his choice of dark barely visible lighting is awful. I’m also annoyed by the excessive amount of swearing. Star Wars is no stranger to occasional language, but it just never felt right to me. John Powell’s western themed soundtrack fits at least. With so many production problems and a total lack of interest, Solo proves some character backstories should be left to the imagination. “May the Force be with you.”

The Millennium Falcon