Good Movie, Bad Prequel

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story

2018

D: Ron Howard

**********

Pros: Cinematography, Likable Cast, Action

Cons: A Few Logical Flaws

       Solo was an answer to a question nobody asked.  Han Solo already got enough screentime as a protagonist in the Star Wars Trilogy, and his backstory wasn’t that crucial to its main plot.  In fact, the one thing that got me into the theater was not fanboy obligation but something most people criticized about the film: the cinematography.  I usually make the decision to go see a movie based on its visuals, and I loved the gritty, dark look of it.  It’s an unpopular take, but I think Bradford Young should have been nominated for an Oscar here.  Overall, the movie was fun and well-paced.

       The movie begins on the drepressing planet Corellia with an atmospheric opening text explaining its underground crime universe as well as describing a precious material that drives the plot.  Young Han Solo (a surprisingly good Alden Ehrenreich) and Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) are two orphans working for the crime boss Lady Proxima (voiced by Linda Hunt).  They decide to sneak some Coaxium to an Imperial spaceport to bribe their way off the planet.  After being chased by Proxima's minions, Han barely manages to escape by quickly enlisting in the Imperial Navy while Qi’ra is captured by the gangsters.  Han swears to come back for her at some point.  I do like how this scene establishes that the Empire is a sort of Anarcho-Tyranny by having all this happen in front of apathetic Imperial military personnel.

        Sadly, Han’s background in the Imperial military is glossed over for the sake of a Gilligan Cut.  This is disappointing because I’ve always been intrigued by Han’s Legends backstory: a law-abiding Imperial recruit whose conscience compels him to rebel and resign from the Empire.  A deleted scene does, however, establish that Han was demoted to infantry as a result of his defying the dehumanizing policy the Empire has toward its soldiers.  This is simply reduced to a vague statement that he was expelled from Flight School “for having a mind of his own” in the theatrical cut.  Also, explaining how Han got his impressive piloting skills would be the point of a prequel.  Then again, this movie fails in various ways in that regard.

        Because Han must end up from the military to the galaxy’s underground somehow, he encounters a gang of criminals on a contrived mission in the midst of an infantry battle.  They’ve disguised themselves as Imperials and are attempting to steal a transport ship they need for a job.  This reminds me of the time I had to move, so I got a few friends to help me infiltrate the Army during a battle in Iraq so we could make off with a HMMWV so I could move my stuff.  I’ve generally liked how the Star Wars franchise avoided most A-List stars when casting new roles, so I think it’s distracting how they made Woody Harrelson the leader of this gang.  Granted, he keeps using some type of alias: Tobias Bucket..  His minions include his wife Val (Thandie Newton) and Rio Durant (Jon Favreau), a four-armed monkey creature who is not much more than less cute/funny version of Rocket Raccoon.  After picking up Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) by chance, Han talks Woody Harrelson letting him join in on the job.

        Prior to this raid Woody Harrelson casually tosses the iconic DL-44 to Han in a disappointing anticlimax.  I’ve bought actual guns with more emotional involvement that that event.  Another moment of fan disservice is how it’s briefly mentioned that Aurra Sing (who I presume has her fans) died by being pushed to death offscreen by Woody Harrelson.  Anyway the mission to steal Coaxium from an Imperial train is a thrilling action scene that results in the deaths of Val (with little reaction from Woody Harrelson) and Rio (mercifully).  The didn’t seem like particularly crucial characters, anyway.  Their theft is thwarted by a gang of pirates led by Enfys Nest, putting them all in big trouble with the movies primary antagonist, Woody Harrelson’s crime boss Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany).

         Vos seems like a cultured villain, but he has an implied savage side.  He ominously says that one shouldn’t be ashamed by his “appetites” and he ups the intimidating factor by publicly employing Decraniated servants, something I wonder is a line even Jabba wouldn’t cross.  Vos is a product of the massive shift in directorial control from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to Ron Howard.  I think the thermal detonator line in the first scene was an artifact of the probably-too-comedic Lord/Miller shoot.  The original villain was some type of cat person played by Michael K. Williams, and Vos was added after the change.  I also don’t think his striking his striking resemblance to GOB is a coincidence.

         Han reunites with Qi’ra, now a lieutenant of Vos, and she joins our heroes on a desperate mission to make up the loss by stealing some raw Coaxium from Kessel.  Because they need a fast ship they enlist the help of Lando Calrissian (a very well-cast Donald Glover, who might be laying on the suaveness a bit thick) and his robot sidekick L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) so they can use his ship, The Millennium Falcon.  Han’s sentimental connection with the ship is based on his assertion that his father built YT-1300’s even though the Imperial recruitment scene established that he was an orphan who didn’t even know his last name.  It’s almost as if the movie had major reshoots with a new director partway through.

          Now it’s time to discuss the most contentious part of the film: L3-37.  She’s derided as a rather typical parody of an activist type, and she certainly meets the archetype.  Some people can’t decide if she’s meant to be a parody or not, but I’d my interpretation veers toward intentional parody considering how Disney rejected a proposed version of the new trilogy that logically involved addressing the droids as slaves as opposed to just rehashingthe original trilogy.  Between this and the rejected original concept for Zootopia, I'm seeing a frustrating trend from this company.  Here’s the thing: I don’t really think she’s annoying.  In fact, I think it’s somewhat apathetic to hate an activist character just for being an activist character.  Activist characters are only annoying when they’re full of s---, and she’s not.  It’s not like she’s advocating something truly controversial like robot abortion; she’s upset that her people are literally being enslaved.  Her dry deliveries also help.  Well, there is one moment that implies that she and Lando somehow make love, but that does sound like Lando.  The main problem I had with her is her death.  After inadvertently starting a (doomed) droid uprising during the raid on Kessel, she so busy reveling in her political victory that her dumb ass ignores that she’s in the middle of firefight, with predictable results.  Her death is one of the most effective uses of robotic gore I’ve ever seen.  In a special moment of Fridge Horror, her last words to Lando are “What’s happening to me?” implying that she’s not used to a gradual loss of consciousness as her circuits fry one by one.  Still, the character theme is hamfisted to the point that it actually triggered an Ad Hominem fallacy among viewers.  It's always been clear that the droids were people in this universe, and now people are laughing the at the concept out of nowhere.  The theme was already made clear through 3PO's constant complaining, but Disney unsurprisingly had to do the same thing with less subtlety.

         What happens later is the movie’s biggest flaw: the heroes cannibalize her brain to retrieve her navigation data to help them take a shortcut through the maelstrom surrounding Kessel.  It’s an awkward attempt to add some character to the Falcon.  If it’s a reference to 3PO’s comment on the ship’s “unusual dialect,” it doesn’t make sense because L3-37 had a straightforward English accent.  What makes this such a problem is that the writers didn’t seem to understand this increases the Falcon’s sentimental value for Lando.  It makes Han’s acquisition of the ship from him at the end seem inconsiderate and petty and, among all the movie’s flaws it’s the only one that detracts from the likability of the hero.

Especially considering how flippant he is about the Falcon's damage.

         The Kessel Run shortcut is an understandable way to justify the infamous line from A New Hope in which Han apparently uses a unit of distance as a unit of time.  The original script makes it clear that Han didn’t know what he was talking about (Obi-Wan even reacts to it in the movie), but practically no one liked the idea that Han was a fool who lacked basic knowledge about his own skill set.  Solo even adds a nice joke about how Han is progressively exaggerating the distance.  The chase from Kessel involves a tense buildup to a final precision hyperspace jump.  The scene was surprisingly fun, and it says something about Howard as a director that he can put you on the edge of your seat during a fanservice scene with a foregone conclusion.  He has an interesting range from good movies (Apollo 13) to perfunctory Oscarbait (Cinderella Man, A Beautiful Mind) to garbage (How the Grinch Stole Christmas).  It’s a good thing we got Apollo 13 Ron Howard as opposed to Grinch Ron Howard.

         When the gang arrives on Savareen to refine the Coaxium, they are confronted by Enfys Nest, who turns out to be young woman (Erin Kellyman).  They find out that her band is actually a group of freedom fighters who stand up to the Empire and The Black Sun Organization (a crime group Vos is a member of).  Han and Co. decide to give them the Coaxium and trick Vos with a ringer.  Vos sees through it thanks to a double-cross from Woody Harrelson.  Vos is killed in an ensuing battle with Han and Qi’Ra, and Han rescues Chewie from Woody Harrelson, coldly shooting him before he can let his guard down.  This makes sense because Han saw what Woody Harrelson is capable of with a blaster during their first encounter; he wouldn’t be able to win a fair draw.  Then he ruins the moment by cradling Woody Harrelson before he dies for some reason.

        Han’s cold-blooded kill (as well as the whole movie) would have made more sense if the battle between Nest’s and Vos’s men had been a complete bloodbath for the former.  It would have explained Han’s anger at Woody Harrelson, and justified his characterization at the beginning of ANH.  Han’s cynicism would have made so much more sense if a past attempt to help idealists ended in tragedy; he even calls the Rebels’ attack on the Death Star “suicide.”  I know my solution is dark, but they pretty much had to do something this for the movie to make sense as a prequel, which it doesn’t. 

         After Qi’ra is kills Vos, she secretly contacts the head of the Black Sun Organization, Darth Maul (Ray Park, voiced by Sam Witwer).  Now, if you’re wondering just how he managed to survive being cut in half and dumped down a hole in Episode I and frustrated at the though of having to catch up on The Clone Wars for this to make sense, don’t worry.  The show didn’t exactly sweat the logical justification of his comeback, either.

Pretty sure we're getting this again with Palpatine, too.

I’ve never agreed with the criticism of Maul’s death in TPM.  I thought he as a cipher who served his role in the story, and his death was a nice “anything can happen” turn of events.  Then again his motivation as a failed Sith robbed of his “destiny” is interesting, even if his chessmaster persona is completely unearned.  As little sense as this scene makes, it does establish a very interesting story arc between him and Qi’ra, and I would love to see a spin-off series with Han’s career in the crime world with this as a potential sideplot.  Besides, I like listening to Sam Witwer’s dreamy voice.

            Some have criticized Han’s characterization according to Qi’ra as a “good guy,” but I disagree.  Han may have started out as a cynical criminal in ANH, but that’s because he was a good man beaten down by a corrupt world.  His true nature is that of a lover, not a fighter.  Conversely, Luke, despite his brighter beginnings is the fighter underneath.  He immediately adapts to battle (Han even reacts with annoyance at his too-joyous reaction to shooting a TIE at one point), and evolves into a darker character.  He has the blood of Anakin Skywalker in his veins, after all.  Han evolves into a boyfriend for Leia (still a tough guy, though); he motivates her to realize her feelings for him, and allows her to go to Luke when he thinks she loves him.  In fact one of the redeeming features of TFA is how he goes out of his way to save his son, even if it costs him his life, while Leia gives up on him.  My main objection, though, is how Qi’ra needs to tell him and the audience.  Movies used to imply; now they have a female character inform the hero of his own character appeal like a movie reviewer would.  Come to think of it, maybe that scene is a holdover from the Lord/Miller phase.       

           That being said, I love the design of the movie.  The dark, gritty look does a great job reflecting the dark age the story takes place in, particularly on Corellia and Mimban.  I love the creature and vehicle design, even though the Corellian speeders had literally no aerodynamics.  Even the Falcon gets a slight makeover as a clean luxury yacht to look fresh.  John Williams provided a decent motif while John Powell filled in the rest of the score.  There were some obvious fanservice lines, such as Han’s saying he has a “good feeling” as opposed to a “bad feeling.”  There’s even the same twist on ‘”I love you”/”I know,”’ but the chemistry between the two actors is so effective it’s actually a good line in its own right.  Other cast members include Clint Howard, Anthony Daniels, Kiran Shah, Warwick Davis, and Dee Tails.

            Many people blame the awful Last Jedi for this movie’s failure at the box office, but I don’t agree with that interpretation.  The standalones seem to have gotten a different fanbase from the sequel trilogy, so I treat them as separate systems.  As I said before, nobody wanted to see a Han Solo prequel; it was a bad idea for a movie.  Even the people who went to see it generally shrugged it off as decent.   In fact, I would have much rather seen a Lando prequel; he was a great character whose potential wasn’t fully realized, and that movie would have still taken advantage of Donald Glover and Alden Ehrenreich.  It’s good to know they have those two actors at their disposal now.  I wish this movie did better, because it pretty much killed the Standalone movies.  They were a redeeming feature of the Disney Star Wars canon, and they were inherently more appealing: spin-offs that take advantage of a literal galaxy of potential as opposed to just rehashes.  Despite being fun and competent, Solo has its flaws as a result of franchise context.  Its status as a prequel mucks up continuity, and this make it not much more than a guilty pleasure.

QUOTES

LADY PROXIMA: Well, what happened?

HAN: I'll tell you what happened. They double-crossed you and tried to kill me.

LADY PROXIMA: The money?

HAN: They kept it.

LADY PROXIMA: And the Coaxium?

HAN: They kept that, too. But we learned a very valuable lesson. We cannot trust those guys.

LADY PROXIMA: So you expect me to believe that you walked away with nothing?

HAN: Well, I... I ran away with my life! I think that's something. I mean... to me, that's a lot.

HAN: EVERYBODY STAND BACK.

LADY PROXIMA: What’s that supposed to be?

HAN: This is a thermal detonator. [makes clicking noise] That I just armed.

LADY PROXIMA: That’s a rock.

HAN: No, it’s not.

LADY PROXIMA: Yes, it is.  And you just made a clicking sound with your mouth!

VAL: We could’ve gotten someone good on this job and not these two idiots.

HAN: We’re not idiots.

WOODY HARRELSON: See, they’re not idiots.

LANDO: Do you want anything?

L3-37: Equal rights?

[L3-37 implies that she and Lando have sex]

QI’RA: How does that work?

L3-37: [beat] It works.

LANDO: I don't like it, I don't agree with it, but I accept it.

HAN: What do you think?

CHEWIE: [howls]

HAN: [dryly] Well, what do you know.

HAN: [to random person] Just did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs!

CHEWIE: [howls]

HAN: Not if you round down.

[Lando looking at what’s left of the Falcon after Kessel]

HAN: Well, doesn’t look so bad.

LANDO: I hate you.

HAN: I know.