Why I Didn’t Watch Solo: A Star Wars Story

[JZ909]

Solo: A Star Wars Story has had an unimpressive start as a movie. Various publications have tried to explain these sorts of things: Fatigue in the franchise, drama with directors, the fact that it's an unnecessary story etc. but I think most miss out on the reason why I personally didn’t see the film. For me, the reason I didn’t go see the film is that a story about Han Solo’s past, any story about his past, is not only unnecessary, it actively detracts from Han Solo as a character.

Let me explain:

When we’re introduced to Han Solo in A New Hope, he’s portrayed as a smuggler who owes a debt to some crime lord. He has a ship that is, for the most part, a piece of junk that’s barely held together, and he’s only hired because of Obi Wan’s jedi intuition, or because Obi Wan has spent so long in the desert that he has no idea how to hire a smuggler. In short, he’s an unremarkable lowlife in a sea of unremarkable lowlifes. Any story about his past that stays true to this narrative is going to be boring, so Hollywood won’t make it. Instead, they will make Han Solo glamorous and exceptional, with a life full of excitement and adventure. It diminishes his rise as a heroic leader in the Rebellion, because he will already be a hero, and diminishes the story of princess Leia, who’s trying to deny that she’s falling in love with someone who falls impossibly below what she knows her standards should be, because he will no longer fall quite so short.

A story about the rise of Admiral Akbar as the Rebel’s military leader, Mon Mothma as their political leader, or even the rise of a Wedge Antilles as a pilot could have been interesting adventures. Alternatively, if Disney wanted to do something ambitious and make a Star Wars movie that isn’t an action movie, the rise of Lando Calrissian as the political leader of a small, free civilization in Cloud City could have made for an interesting drama and could help expand our understanding of the Star Wars universe’s political landscape. Instead, they made an action movie out of character that shouldn’t have had an action movie.

[NerdInDenial]

For me I don't like the direction of where LucasFilms is going.

[zagor]

Straight down a mousehole...