So, finally got round to watching Solo again after having it burning a hole in my TV stand since it arrived on Monday and.... I really can’t see what’s not to like about this film ?

It’s a quality Star Wars in my humble opinion!

I can agree that there's not much to dislike. I do wish that there was a bit more for me to like though. It was an ok movie, but not awesome IMO.

I enjoyed it a lot. I think it suffered more from backlash hatred of Last Jedi more than any true criticism of itself

I loved Solo. IMO, it was much more enjoyable than TFA or TLJ, and it didn't plagerize it's own franchise. There were a couple of things I didn't care for but overall??!

25 minutes ago, Varlie said:

I enjoyed it a lot. I think it suffered more from backlash hatred of Last Jedi more than any true criticism of itself

I think you may be right there. I really couldn't understand all the hate for it after I'd seen it at the cinema?? For me it's got everything you need if you're a Star Wars fan!

6 minutes ago, whisperingskull said:

I loved Solo. IMO, it was much more enjoyable than TFA or TLJ, and it didn't plagerize it's own franchise. There were a couple of things I didn't care for but overall??!

I've much preferred both stand alone films to the sequels, it'll be a shame if they slow down on producing these as there are so many potential stories to tell in the Star Wars Galaxy that don't include any member of the Skywalker family!

I think also we here at the Edge of the Empire are adjusted to Star Wars stories in the seamier underbelly of the Empire, in a way that the general fan may not be.

It was done a disservice being released when it was, in the shadow of sister studio Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War. The latter was a juggernaut that, I think, performed even better than Marvel and Disney expected. Couple that with a later and lighter than normal (for Star Wars) promotional campaign.

Gotta stop this evening and pick up my copy.

I really enjoyed it as a movie, and I appreciated the expansion it offered the universe. It canonized, however slightly, some fun parts of Legends. The movie was basically a compressed EotE game, too. Of course, I've also enjoyed the sequel films, particularly The Last Jedi, so it could just be that I'm down for whatever Star Wars is doing these days.

I'm also bummed about the rumors that additional standalone films are being shelved for now, though I have to admit none of the supposed stories they were going to tell interested me. The Kenobi movie was closest to being interesting, but only because it promised a return by Ewan McGregor. I'm way more excited by the movies being helmed by Rian Johnson and the Game of Thrones guys.

Watched it again recently on digital at a friend's house, but I prefer to actually own my movies, so I've been waiting to get a Blu-ray copy. Amazon doesn't have one for less than $50 USD, though, so I'll have to—shudder—go out among my fellow humans to find one at a retail store. (Do those still exist?)

And I just saw Solo for the first time this week.

Mind you there weren't many surprises for me, but I agree that it was a good and enjoyable movie.

There were still instances in the movies where I was smacked out of my suspenders of disbelief and I have to ask, do the folks out at Disney NOT have access to Wookieepedia? <shrug>

I loved the actors (but I haven't had an issue with the actors in the other failing installments) and Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover both did amazing jobs of channeling the characters as I understood them. Very nicely done.

Woody Harrelson, who I really have trouble watching in ANYTHING, did an admirable job. I'm guessing that he got to play himself again so no struggles there.

And I've loved Paul Bettany ever since Knights Tale. It was great to see him on the screen again.

And to contrast, I tried watching the Shape of Water in close proximity to Solo and I'm finding the Shape of Water to be utterly unwatchable. Didn't Shape rake in a bunch of Oscars in February? My point being that the Solo movie was incredibly better by comparison.

And on pains of delusions of grandeur; as a Movie Director, I still could have done a better job . . . but I also probably would have been fired by Kathleen.

While I don't think it's the best Star Wars movie ever made, I do agree that Solo is a fun popcorn movie.

As others have mentioned, the reason it didn't do so well was due more to a combination of factors. The very light marketing campaign (especially when compared to other Star Wars films have gotten) certainly didn't help matters, and was only exacerbated by releasing the film in the shadow of the unstoppable media juggernaut that was Avengers: Infinity War. Stories of the troubled production for the film certainly didn't bolster confidence in the film, with even the news of Hollywood veteran Ron Howard coming on board to salvage the production.

I think one of the bigger hurdles the films had to clear was that Han Solo as portrayed by Harrison Ford is such an iconic character in the franchise, making that a very big set of shoes to fill for any actor. To be frank, we saw something similar with Anakin/Vader in regards to the prequels, which gave us Vader's backstory and his fall from grace, again centered on what is one of the most iconic villains in all of cinema amidst casual movie audiences. Tall order to start with, and while Hayden Christiansen does have some solid acting chops, he's one of those actors whose only as good as the director they're working for, and while George Lucas is an astounding idea guy, he's not really that great of a director in terms of getting solid performances out of his actors. Now take a character as beloved by the general Star Wars audience as Harrison Ford's Han Solo, and you've got a daunting challenge, one that I'm not sure that Alden Ehrenreich really had the chops for, though I felt he did a good job with the role as presented, that being a starry-eyed street kid learning the hard way that the galaxy isn't a very nice place and that you really can't trust anybody but yourself.

To be honest, I would love to see a Lando movie featuring Donald Glover, as he freaking nailed it in every scene, having that mix of swagger and suaveness that is Lando Calrissian.

23 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

To be honest, I would love to see a Lando movie featuring Donald Glover, as he freaking nailed it in every scene, having that mix of swagger and suaveness that is Lando Calrissian.

Want.

I particularly love any scene that shows the Star Wars galaxy on a more mundane scope. Just seeing the people of the galaxy going about their lives is very interesting to me. I don't really know why.

I thought it was pretty good. I think it was the weakest of the new Star Wars movies but I think all the new Star Wars movies are good.

I thought it was a fun ride. Nothing profound and I didn't care for the depiction of Corellia, but overall I enjoyed it and will certainly watch it again. Can't say the same for TLJ.

I enjoyed it. Actually enjoyed it more the second time. It had some missed opportunities visually. It's only real sorta failing is it's pretty much what I expected, so that's double edged good and bad. It's new characters were far more interesting than anthing else they've introduced. It certainly didn't deserve to be a flop.

I would absolutely love a Tobias, Val, and Rio stand alone. That dynamic intrigued me.

Well, having seen a lot of the negative comments about Solo in the media & on the Internet (including these forums), I have to admit that when I posted this I half expected to have numerous sets of quad lasers trained in my direction ?

It’s good to hear that people do actually think this is a good Star Wars movie!

Here’s hoping that massive blu ray sakes go some way to changing Disney’s mind about slowing down on the stand alone films!

I hadn’t thought of a Lando movie as a stand alone but now it’s mentioned I reckon that’s a great idea! And as for the films by Johnson & the Thrones guys I can’t wait to see what they’ve got planned!

I also loved Solo. I see Rogue One as an AoR movie, and Solo as an EotE movie. I loved the work done by all of the actors.

I do think the movie was hurt by a lot of factors. Han Solo without Harrison was going to be tough. Fans of Donald knew he’d do great, but other than Woody, who isn’t exactly a draw card, you have little star power, but Star Wars usually doesn’t rely on it. We also live in an era where Star Wars is highly accessible, not like the years preceding Episode I, so there was no real hunger for this movie. This story is outside the main story lines, and doesn’t really fill any associated gaps, and the argument could be made that Han is more compelling without an origin, though I don’t necessarily agree.

I didn’t like the origin of his name. I felt the Wookiee effects aside from Chewie lacked a little. Minor quibbles.

I worry that the profit numbers hurt future budgets or green lights for projects. I like the thought of lower budget yet better planned or better told stories.

Kessel had already been ruined by Rebels, so I guess I can’t blame that one on Solo.

However:

• The Kessel Run was so much worse
• The whole droid rights thing was just stupid
• Sound in space became a canonical thing

Sound in space has been canon since A New Hope.

2 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

As others have mentioned, the reason it didn't do so well was due more to a combination of factors. The very light marketing campaign (especially when compared to other Star Wars films have gotten) certainly didn't help matters, and was only exacerbated by releasing the film in the shadow of the unstoppable media juggernaut that was Avengers: Infinity War. Stories of the troubled production for the film certainly didn't bolster confidence in the film,

Honestly, I recently saw a video outlining how it's probable that Disney execs intentionally setup Treasure Planet to fail as a way to justify gutting the traditional animation department in favor of Pixar and computer animation.... and the tinfoil hat wearer in me sees something similar here.

Disney got big on "A Star Wars Every Year!" then realized what it took to run that kind of operation AND that the market was already kinda oversaturated with Disney IPs, resulting in self-competition. When TLJ turned out to be divisive and Solo started having problems, and those problems got out to the public, it made Solo an easy target to setup. Allow all kinds of rumors to persist, under market, release the film too close to both TLJ and Infinity War, complain that it merely turned a good profit instead of making Billions! and use that as the justification to scale back Star Wars production and slow releases down.

Again... probably not what happened, but it sounds good...

Their mistake, aside from rushing the films and not massaging the scripts more, is making anything, or anyone, we've already seen and/or had covered in material.

You don't do an Obi Wan movie. You do a movie with entirely new characters and motivations, and then you have Obi Wan help them out of a jam on Tatooine. You don't do a Boba Fett movie, you do a movie with new heroes and Boba Fett is leading a group of antagonist bounty hunters in one cool shoot out with the new heroes.

I hope Disney gets its act together.

1 hour ago, Silim said:

Sound in space has been canon since A New Hope.

I always imagined that it just just an effect that makes the movies more enjoyable to watch, not one that actually occurs from an in-universe standpoint. (Or, technically, they’re doing the sound as if there are microphones placed on every ship.)

But, they made it clear in Solo that that’s not the case: Somebody said “What’s that sound?” with regards to the storm. Granted, that could be the exception rather than the rule caused by the unusually high amount of air needed to cause a storm, but it still felt like it broke physics unnecessarily.

4 hours ago, CaptainRaspberry said:

I really enjoyed it as a movie, and I appreciated the expansion it offered the universe. It canonized, however slightly, some fun parts of Legends. The movie was basically a compressed EotE game, too. Of course, I've also enjoyed the sequel films, particularly The Last Jedi, so it could just be that I'm down for whatever Star Wars is doing these days.

I'm also bummed about the rumors that additional standalone films are being shelved for now, though I have to admit none of the supposed stories they were going to tell interested me. The Kenobi movie was closest to being interesting, but only because it promised a return by Ewan McGregor. I'm way more excited by the movies being helmed by Rian Johnson and the Game of Thrones guys.

Watched it again recently on digital at a friend's house, but I prefer to actually own my movies, so I've been waiting to get a Blu-ray copy. Amazon doesn't have one for less than $50 USD, though, so I'll have to—shudder—go out among my fellow humans to find one at a retail store. (Do those still exist?)

Rian Johnson didn't get fired? Wow.

21 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

I always imagined that it just just an effect that makes the movies more enjoyable to watch, not one that actually occurs from an in-universe standpoint. (Or, technically, they’re doing the sound as if there are microphones placed on every ship.)

But, they made it clear in Solo that that’s not the case: Somebody said “What’s that sound?” with regards to the storm. Granted, that could be the exception rather than the rule caused by the unusually high amount of air needed to cause a storm, but it still felt like it broke physics unnecessarily.

Legends before had all ships be equipped with "sound generators" that basically generated sound based on everything around the ship to give an illusion of sound in space. To me, both this and actual sound in space break physics just as much (so sensors can lose a ship that docks onto a Star Destroyer directly, but can also accurately create a fake sound map of everything that surrounds a ship?!), so it didn't matter to me if the line was meant to imply the sound system of the ship, or actual sound in space.