Indeed. And if we'd kept her around, I'd have been more or less fine with that. Adding new characters is a good thing. Adding them then killing them off almost immediately means that (a) you don't actually expand the list of available characters, and (b) you feel proportionately less connection to them when they do die.

Equally, I meant that the implication of the previous film was that any surviving rebel commanders would have been right there, on the Raddus . Quickdraw's missile shot effect was essentially "everyone you remember from the previous trilogy, they're all dead now".

With regards to her rank; we've seen her in three places to date Leia: Princess of Alderaan and A Leader Called Leia, in both of which she's a politician*, whilst in Cobalt Squadron she's already an admiral** who briefs the bomber squadrons and yoinks Rose off bomber maintenance duty to do maintenance on her ship instead. We haven't seen where she 'is' before joining the resistance, but she's not in any of the initial views we have of the resistance*** - which was around for about 6 years between Leia creating it and 'The Really Bad Week' of Hosnian Prime/the D'Qar Bombardment/the loss of the Fleet/Crait. It's possible she was a republic admiral, but to date we've had no indication to that effect. It is, ultimately, a relatively minor point. It's more a case that the series has been a bit schitzophrenic about how big the resistance actually is/was between the two films and their respective supporting media.

31 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

I don't disagree that she made an error in not dealing with Poe, but at the same time she doesn't see as much of what's going on as we do. She has a brief tete-à-tete with him in the bridge of the Raddus and then he just, from her perspective, seems like a disgruntled pilot. It's only the audience who knows just how over the top he is getting. But you're right, the smart move would have been to have him confined to quarters or tossed in the brig after he came to her with the plan about Rose and Finn. 

Indeed. Note that this isn't a 'plot hole' as much as very poor judgement; whilst I agree that as audiences, we see more than she does, but what I meant was Poe's personality type cannot be one you work with the Rebellion (which she apparently did) or Resistance and not be used to encountering, and hence whilst Poe is responsible for his own actions, his likely response is pretty predictable.

* I will grant you:

• Leia initially was too, and still earned her way into command in the trenches
• The rebellion, certainly, was pretty quick to hand out epaulettes with stars on them. Generals Solo and Calrissian, anyone?
  • In fairness, Calrissian was essentially acting as fleet CAG, so the rank is justified. Solo, with a couple of dozen grunts, less so.

** Not surprising as the character - or indeed the concept that there was a resistance fleet beyond a couple of T-70 squadrons - hadn't been invented yet...

Awesome post, and your asterisks even predicted my responses!

Poe should have been locked up the second he stormed onto the bridge and started yelling at her about the transports. That was outright insubordination. In any real military Holdo would have been found negligent in the subsequent Courts Martial investigating his mutiny, and would have been removed from field command track and stuck behind a desk for the rest of her career. If she was lucky.

7 hours ago, Ambaryerno said:

Poe should have been locked up the second he stormed onto the bridge and started yelling at her about the transports. That was outright insubordination. In any real military Holdo would have been found negligent in the subsequent Courts Martial investigating his mutiny, and would have been removed from field command track and stuck behind a desk for the rest of her career. If she was lucky.

Be that as it may, Poe was way out of line and had no right or business demanding anything from his superior officer. No that this is worth anything: but my good friend a decorated Commander in the USN said Holdo was totally right to not tell Poe anything he didn’t directly need to know, and any commander in that situation would likely have done the same.

People accuse her of being a bad manager, but she trusted her staff to follow orders, that’s probably a given in any military organization.

Saw the movie yesterday. Pretty good. Lot's of nods to the old movies. Just taht one cameo at the end is confusing if you haven't watched Rebels.

Looks like it's just episodes 7 and 8 that are dragging the franchise down.

Also: Is it just me or is this the first SW movie without R2-D2? (Or did I miss him somehow?)

11 hours ago, Robin Graves said:

Also: Is it just me or is this the first SW movie without R2-D2? (Or did I miss him somehow?)

You didn't miss him. This was the first movie without not only Artoo and Threepio, but without a Skywalker in it, as well.

Saw the movie last night, its up there as one of my favorite Star Wars movies yet. Bouncing between #1, #2 and #3 with Rogue One and Empire. I haven't quite settled yet.

One of the reasons is I got exactly what I wanted from the movie: a slice of life in the Star Wars universe. A bunch of criminals pulling a heist and dealing with other criminals while staying out of the Empire's sight.

It may be because I have spent years role-playing characters in the Star Wars universe, between West End Games tabletop RPG, Star Wars Galaxies MMO, and FFG's own Edge of the Empire RPG, but I don't need Death Stars exploding every movie, or for each one to be some critical fate-of-the-galaxy-hanging-on-the-edge, or friggin Jedi showing up and killing everything within 10km every single time. Sometimes I just want to see the stories of the little guys on the side not named Skywalker who have to try to survive in this enormous universe with so many different possibilities of planets, aliens, etc. That's what the movie gave, even with the occasional tie-in to the bigger GCW.

Harrelson did a great job with Beckett. He was the perfect example of a guy getting the raw end of the deal again and again and trying to stay one step ahead of death catching up with him. Someone earlier mentioned that we didn't need to know how Solo got his DL-44, but that misses that him getting the gun was just a footnote as the scene was more importantly character building, specifically the relationship between Newton's Val and Beckett, to make the climax of the train job more impactful. We needed that scene to get to know Rio and Val as well as Beckett, and Solo getting tossed that pistol was just a Easter Egg for the fanboys (which was appreciated).

Enfys Nest was a interesting antagonist as the leader of a proto-rebel cell. People complaining about a young girl being the leader must have missed the "when my mother wore the mask" line, showing that she wasn't the first Enfys Nest, nor the founder of the cell, but had taken leadership after the previous Nest (her mother) was killed. Child soldiers are not a rare thing in the Star Wars universe, Jyn Erso and Boba Fett are notable examples ignoring the practices of the Jedi order. The character also allowed us to see the golden-heart in the scoundrel as he gave away millions of credits worth of product, and may unknowingly helped jumpstart something leading to the larger rebellion in a Butterfly Effect.

Bettany did a good job as Dryden Vos, walking the line between homicidal and business-like that you may come to expect from a higher-up of a criminal organization led by a former Sith. I thought he was an interesting character and the Star Wars RPG fanboy in me was very pleased to see vibroknuckles and Teras Kasi being brought to the big screen. Qi'ra was a strong character, and I think we'll be seeing more of her in the later two Solo movies they have in the works. I liked that she had effectively "surpassed" Solo by the time they had met again as she had climbed up in the Underworld. She saw him as naive if still "a good man" and knew that she would likely be doomed if she threw in with her old childhood love. She was better off trying to seize power after Vos's end, especially if their boss came looking. Also, getting to see/hear the Ray Parks/ Sam Witwer combo on the big screen as Maul was brief tease but they could certainly do something there with the character in later movies as well.

Lando and L3-37 were both awesome. Glover nailed the character's mannerisms previously shown by Williams, from his mispronunciation of Han's name, to his suave style and ability to pour on the charm the moment he saw a beautiful woman. Lando acting like a big shot while all the time needing the crew to steal back his ship was a nice touch to show how manipulative he is. L3 was a very funny character with her constant grumbling about droids being mistreated to her accidentally causing a slave rebellion while trying to get access to a terminal. She also demonstrated the importance of wiping droids memory on the regular, as over time they develop stronger personalities and sense of self. While there is certain value to keeping them, such as L3's database of navigational routes, they get very quirky, like her uncomfortable "woman-to-woman" conversation with Qi'ra.

I am kind of bummed about the poor sales of the movie, as I think it more a case of Star Wars overload than poor quality. I think this was a much better Star Wars movie than The Last Jedi and would love to see the other two planned Solo movies, but I feel that because of the sales results, they may end up changing a lot about the tone and style, and that may compromise future movies.

Agreed on all points, except I think the poor results are a two-fold problem of extensive reshoots blowing out the cost (and moving the goalposts of what would constitute a 'success' for this movie) and a poorly timed release. Competing against the Marvel juggernaut and the much anticipated Deadpool sequel definitely hurt the success of this movie, and the marketing was very low-key. Most of my family weren't even aware this movie was coming out, let alone when, there were no TV spots, very little advertising, etc.

The Star Wars overdose is not a bad observation; Rogue One being in the christmas-ish slot meant it was essentially "the 2016 star wars movie", whilst this one being early in the year it feels kind of appended to The Last Jedi - which is more of an issue with the controversies about the latter.

It being so close, sequentially, to Deadpool and Infinity War didn't help. It's odd, given that there isn't really anything instead this Christmas as a result.

I don't mind reshoots so much - I enjoyed Rogue One and that supposedly got tweaked a lot too, and I'd rather a problem sequence be reshot than not - but I agree it does move the budget goalposts. Star Wars Story films are like Marvel's individual hero film sequels, or TV box sets, relative to the all-singing-all-dancing Avengers films; they assume you are already a fan and as such your potential audience is....not exactly small, but reduced.

Rogue One and Solo are inherently a harder sell to the cinema-going public as a whole than The Force Awakens.

star wars overdose is completely wrong. there is no real overdose of starwars. its the fact that Lucasfilm is making forgettable bad movies and then crap on the fans after they are critical of the bad stories. so this is literally what happened, the Force Awakens comes out. it makes over 2billion dollars. it was highly anticipated. then the reviewers pick it apart. but most people still like it even though it had some blaring plot holes. it was still a decent movie that left so many things we were looking forward to finding out in the next movie. then rogue one came out. it was a nestalgia driven beautifly created visual masterpiece with the plot and story telling of a doctor zeus book. i mean seriously. Saw Guerrara says random words that make no sense in the movie. there is an epic review of that movie here......

sorry i didnt expect that link to be so big..... then the last jedi hits theaters... this movie single handedly split the fanbase in half. this movie completely throws out everything that came before it. it destroys the lore, the mythos, and character assasinates Luke the person we grew to love in the original trilogy. this movie is the sole reason why starwars is failing.. yes it made an initial box office success but afterwards the movies sales dropped like a stone. now since TLJ came out there has been backlash, in fact its been utter war between disgruntled fans vs online media shills that are backing Lucasfilm with thier tabloid headlines. they even went so far as to fabricate bullying articles about Kelly Marie tran and daisy riddley for dropping of instagram. then only a month later daisy riddley came back to tell fans that she was taking a break from social media. so we are being insulted, lied to, lied about, and treated like we dont even matter. after all this do you think these fans are going to see solo? no not really, this is why solo failed. if you want to compair starwars to marvel, marvel puts out 3-4 movies a year. and they make bank with each movie. how is there no fatigue there? as for advertizing, i dont know what you werent paying attention to but i saw adds on TV, internet youtube, streaming services. i work at subway and we had kids bags for it.. toys came out months before the movie hit the theater. the only reason you didnt know the movie was not coming was if you were living under a rock with no wifi. i saw plenty of adds.......

Finally got around to watching the movie. As I expected, I was entertained by it, but it's definitely not my favorite Star Wars movie. I'd say it's definitely better than the Prequels, and probably even better than the Holiday Special, but that's as high as it goes for me.

I'm sure part of it is that I'm more into space battles and Good vs Evil stories, so heist movies aren't really my thing, but I also wasn't really a fan of the guy who played Han. Not only was it not Harrison Ford, but he didn't have any of Ford's charisma or character. Donald Glover had some weak moments too, but overall he captured the character of Lando much better.

Overall, it wasn't horrible, and if I saw it while flipping through channels I'd probably stop to watch it, but it doesn't have that "must rewatch" appeal that many of the others do.

5 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Finally got around to watching the movie. As I expected, I was entertained by it, but it's definitely not my favorite Star Wars movie. I'd say it's definitely better than the Prequels, and probably even better than the Holiday Special, but that's as high as it goes for me.

I'm sure part of it is that I'm more into space battles and Good vs Evil stories, so heist movies aren't really my thing, but I also wasn't really a fan of the guy who played Han. Not only was it not Harrison Ford, but he didn't have any of Ford's charisma or character. Donald Glover had some weak moments too, but overall he captured the character of Lando much better.

Overall, it wasn't horrible, and if I saw it while flipping through channels I'd probably stop to watch it, but it doesn't have that "must rewatch" appeal that many of the others do.

I can relate to this. I never really got into the “pace” of the movie. I liked certain scenes and moments more than I liked the overall story. Don’t get me wrong, I still found it to be a very entertaining film, but it didn’t get a hold of me like many of the other Star Wars movies did. And the character interaction seemed a little meh for me from time to time…

Loved Donald Glover though. Think he did a great job as a younger Lando.

It's the only star wars movie I've only seen once in theaters (not counting the ones I wasn't born yet to see).

And I still have yet to watch the Blu-ray I bought of it (or even on Netflix). I just don't have a big desire to.

It's not a bad movie, just doesn't seem to have a lot of re-watchability compared to the rest.

But the fact I've only seen it once tends to make me think I should maybe put it at the bottom of my star wars movie ranking.