Solo: A Star Wars Story

I remember as a kid I wasn't much disapproving of Ep I's plot having lots of simultaneously vague and complicated politics, because I was used to not understanding "adult stuff" and spent much of the time during then looking at the weird aliens and stuff instead.

But I didn't want to be Anakin, I wanted to be Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Sep 10th 2018 at 12:25:33 PM

Anakin is never a viewpoint character really in Phantom. Obi wan and to a lesser extent Padme are.

Am I the only person who LIKED the intrigue and political dealings? It gave a real sense of People Are Doing Things for Reasons instead of just People Are Doing Things

You are not alone-I happen to like the politics, underhanded maneuvering, sabotage, infiltration, investigation-all the things happening in parallel to the actual battles being fought leading up to and during TCW. I think those are the animated series' strongest points, along with the deeper explorations of the Force.

I accept I am definitely not in the majority there, but by and large I am over action scenes for the sake of action scenes, and the interpersonal drama has often been one of the weakest aspects of the series. Pretty much anything that does not involve Luke, Anakin, or Ahsoka has been done, much better, in many other series I would rather engage with.

GIMME THE POLITICS

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Jul 10th 2018 at 5:26:35 AM

The politics certainly feels absent in the sequal trilogy, for sure.

People far too often blame the concept of the politics for what is ultimately a poor execution (then again, that's a thing that fanbases do too much in general - blame characters, themes, or ideas for faulty writing when they should be... well... blaming the writing): as noted, TCW weaves it into the narrative a lot better. What ultimately makes TPM's memetically poor use of it so badis that that movie adored it's infodumps and needless exposition: instead of using it as background, setting and tone establishment, having it work through the plot, they effectively stopped things so the politicians could do nothing.

If they're going to be in there, they need to be doing something, or at least doing nothing in an engaging way. And, again, TCW pulled that in well. Having a balance of story focuses probably helped there too.

Or in short, I agree with liking the politics when it was done well. I still really love the work in Valorum's concept and how what he represents sets the stage for Palpatine. And yes, the lack of politics in its entirely is really glaring in the sequel trilogy, because that series constantly tries to pull itself on the idea that what's going on has repercussions for the Republic as a whole but staunchly refuses to actually show any of it, resulting in the story's stakes lacking strength.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 10th 2018 at 3:27:42 AM

Yeah, a political thriller in Star Wars might be pretty good now that I think about it.

Definitely. The sequels would make more sense as a very politically-charged war that is even more topical than it already is. You can have Neo-Imperials on one side, most of the New Republic doesn't think they're a threat or are even being bribed to turn a blind eye, and then the heroes are the people who are actually being affected by these "harmless" villains.

In that scenario, maybe Finn's character would work better as a soldier who chose to join the First Order, turned on them to save his own skin without actually changing his ideals, and then gave up his fascism over time. That would match much more closely with real Neo-Nazis.

Solo is easily the best of the Disney Star Wars films.

It needs a sequel.

While it's definitely not going to get a direct sequel because it unfortunately flopped, the story should continue. It just won't be Han's story. It will be about Qi'ra, maybe Lando, and definitely Maul and whatever he is doing with Crimson Dawn. I think Han's actor has two more contracted movies, but they can probably get away with him just being a side character instead of the leading man.

Imo we've needed more plots that delved into the criminal underworld of the galaxy for ages now. I've been feeling that itch ever since Star Wars 1313 was cancelled.

Agreed, though I wasn't around for 1313. I'd like the next "Star Wars Story" (if there is one) to either focus on Crimson Dawn/Maul or focus on the general state of the crime syndicates following a New Hope/Rogue One (the death of several high-ranking Imperial officers as well as the destructions of Jedha, Alderaan and the Death Star).

I have to wonder if Solo could be Vindicated by Netflix or if a "loose" continuation would make it Better on DVD? The primary standpoint of my thinking that is the the primary reason why Solo flopped was because of TLJ driving the Old Guard, whom Solo seemed geared towards, to rage-quit the Franchise and the "New Guard" not being interested in a "dead" character.

Originally, I was thinking that Solo could be the "anti-TLJ" insofar as TLJ had a good, logical story flow but went against the Star Wars mythos, Solo immersed itself in that mythos, potentially at the cost of writing. But now I have another comparison for Solo:

It did Continuity Nods right, whereas TFA did them wrong:

• TFA hit the notes of the Classic Trilogy, but at the cost of a Sequel Reset among other things.
• Solo told a (somewhat-)fresh story with faucets of the Classic Trilogy as undercurrents. i.e. You saw how Han got to be the way he was in the CT, but Solo still told its own story.

I think there's really three reasons:

• Lots of competition
• The Last Jedi anger
• The reshoots really drove up the price on this one.

But yes, I could see the movie redeeming itself on DVD and streaming services. Everyone who actually watched it only has the same dislike people had for Rogue One, which is to say most people really really liked it.

Some of the references on Solo worked, others were a bit too specific to be worthwhile. But I feel it didn't succeed at explaining "how Han got to be the way he was in the CT". The ending kept flip-flopping between "Han is a cynic now, oh wait he's an idealist".

Nah, I'd say that he's still an idealist at heart but he's also more worldy now.

For instance, "I don't want to kill Tobias, but he's going to shoot me as soon as he gets the chance so I need to shoot him first" and "I know Lando won't play fair so I'm going to make it so that he has no choice."

On the other hand, "I'm gonna generously gift 99.999999999999% of my massively valuable Unobtanium bounty to a kid leading a war with eight people, for absolutely nothing in return."

I think that was wrong and it would have been better if Han had plans of splitting it, only to get robbed by the Rebels.

Where on earth is he gonna sell that made of explodium anyway? The raiders have proven they can take it off them if they want to, giving it to them is the smart move. I'm just surprised he's not grumpy about it.

Yeah, that was more "I'm going to give it to you before you can steal it from me." It's a trick you see rogue-type characters like Han pull occasionally. There was something similar in World War Z, where Fidel Castro realized he was about to be ousted, so instead he voluntarily stepped down, endorsed the new regime, and became a national hero.

Yes he came back for Luke, but not immediately. He spent nearly all of A New Hope as a cynic. Remember when he refused to rescue Leia when prompted to do so morally, and ultimately did it for money?

Solo came out at the wrong time. Same thing happened for Deadpool.

Deadpool did so well the first time around because there was no competition so it was a good option in the middle of February.

Summer 2018 had a lot of big movies released very early on with July and August kind of feeling like a deadzone. With so many movies all at once, good ones were bound to just fall off a bit. Deadpool 2 because families are going to look for movies that everyone can go to together and Solo because it was slammed right AFTER the massive money maker of Infinity War and then Jurassic Park and Incredibles 2 coming out a handful of weeks later.

More than likely, people can only reasonably go to one big summer movie every few weeks and, having spent money on Infinity War, they needed to save up again before seeing Jurassic World or Incredibles. Factor in the reshoots and Star Wars controvercies that might weigh on the average viewer's mind about which to pick, Solo just didn't look as safe for the money.

I still feel like the marketing for Solo was really lack luster. The trailer came out so close to release. It was a good trailer, but dang, it did not have time to drum up hype.

Thing to remember: all the CG in a trailer is typically the only finished CG that exists for the movie at that time. Meaning the trailer for Solo came out only two months before the movie because they hadn't been able started crunching on the CG rendering until that same month.