I never bought the excuse there were too many Star Wars movies. Black Panther had left the theater less than 3 weeks before Infinity War and they both blew the box office up.

Isn't a Jedi Knight a sjw? Isn't luke, Leia, the wookiee, rebellion all social justice warriors? What's the difference between a droid wanting freedom?

I think the big issue with a droid wanting emnicption is it forces us to look at the Galaxy and characters in a new light. They're essentially a disposable slave class which raises some ethical issues. Few protagonists seem to treat them with respect.

If they address the issue at a later date that could be interesting. If they give it their all. David Fitchner has pitched some ideas along those lines which could be very interesting to see.

2 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

I dunno...Iron Man 3 - the first Phase 2 movie - screamed, “Lookit me! I’m a Shane Black movie!” from beginning to end, up to and including his controversial spin on the Mandarin. The one bit of interference that I’ve heard of is vetoing Maya Hansen as the primary Big Bad (like she was in the Extremis comics arc) because “boys won’t buy an action figure of a female villain.” ?

But, views on when Marvel Studios first felt that breathing room aside, we’re pretty much on the same page.

It’s weird. There are those who say one Star Wars movie a year is too much, but don’t blink at two or three MCU movies a year. (When hearing that July’s Ant-Man and the Wasp was the last MCU movie of 2018 - after getting Black Panther, Infinity War, and Ant-Man all within six months - my wife said it felt like we were getting shorted this year.)

Yeah, I find that attitude about MCU and Star Wars odd.

But I think it stems from people seeing Star Wars as a single-story saga, while the MCU is usually about one different superhero or group of superheroes per movie.

So it seems different, I suppose.

However, the box office revenues of Ant-man and the Wasp indicates that people are getting superhero fatigue as well, so they might slow down on that front too.

I think, in general, it was a bad idea to try and push out two Star Wars movies in one year. At least this early in the game.

Let Star Wars be a winter holiday type thing and leave the summer for MCU, I say.

I don't get people getting bent out of shape over L3 and the whole droid revolution thing. I think they were just trying to lighten things up a bit in the whole sjw thing everyone is going through recently, regardless of actual position. I mean it was pretty satirical I thought, as in tongue in cheek, not too be taken too seriously, etc

Her conversation with Q'ira in the cockpit about Lando was pulled straight from GoT and was a total parody of the conversation between Danerys and Missandei.

People have lost their sense of humor.

On 9/28/2018 at 2:24 PM, whafrog said:

I thought it was okay, for popcorn. What bored me to tears was the "fan service". I don't care where the dice came from, or his blaster or...any of that trivial physical shyte. I wanted a character arc, not a checklist. In fact, this pretty much sums up the movie for me:

This was a horrible easily forgettable/regrettable movie going experience. The lead lacked all the charisma of Han, everyone in his scenes outshone the actor, pansexualising of Lando was ridiculous and Emilie Clarke was dull. The original directors train wrecked it and it was beyond Ron Howard to jump in the directors chair and apply the breaks to prevent it hitting that wall. I had hoped this was going to expedite Kathleen Kennedy's departure and hoped Dave Filloni would take the mantle but it wasn't meant to be. At least it put down a couple of dumb movies in development, namely someTatooine movie and Rian Johnson's Trilogy. They need time now to re-evaluate what works. This clearly doesn't hence the box office slump.

I don't think there's much ability to compare MCU and Star Wars. You have people out there that are huge fans of the MCU that've never picked up a comic in their lives. That mythos was built from the ground up, and grounded in our reality, with increasingly outlandish elements introduced slowly over time. People have been spoon-fed, slowly, all the elements required that led to Infinity War. I could be wrong but they even scrapped the lot and started over when... I think it was one of the Hulk films, failed to impress. Conversely, Star Wars from day one says, pew-pew, laser guns, laser swords, magic this-and-that, look at this spaceship. There are a lot of people that simply aren't interested in Star Wars, but the MCU has built a much broader base and appeal.

I didn't find Alden's performance to be the train wreck so many people make it out to be, but I'm just one opinion.

A little bit of a tangent here, but when I first saw Fury Road I left the cinema super-disappointed, I pretty much hated it. I thought about why I hated it, and realised how much of that was stemming from my own expectations of what Mad Max is to me. I've probably watched that film 30 times now and absolutely love it, because once I put aside my preconceived ideas, I saw the masterpiece I now see it for. I think that helped me a lot when I went to see Solo.

I thought Fury Road stunk and still do.

7 minutes ago, Roderz said:

I didn't find Alden's performance to be the train wreck so many people make it out to be, but I'm just one opinion.

I think it was a case of Alden stepping into a role that had been molded and solidified by a very charismatic performance by Harrison Ford decades previously, and then was reinforced with Han's re-appearance in TFA. I've heard it joked that fans would be willing to fully engage their suspension of disbelief that grizzled old Harrison Ford was a twenty-something character if it meant having him play the lead role in Solo. Granted, I've not seen anything else with Alden in it, so I can't say if he's got the actual acting chops to carry a film or not when he's not playing a role that requires him to mimic a certain style of performance.

It's a similar case to Brandon Routh's turn as Superman in Superman Returns, stepping into a role that for many folks had been largely defined by Christopher Reeve's outstanding performance in those films (even if the third and fourth films were a hot mess, he still delivered a great performance as the Man of Steel). On it's own, BR's Superman is fine, but it comes across as a rather bland imitation when you compare it to Reeves' performance in the first Superman film. Heck, just the fact that Reeves' took what was one of the oldest jokes in comics (that Superman could hide his identity behind a pair of glasses) and made it not only plausible but actually believable speaks to just how strong of a performance he gave.

I saw Solo opening weekend and I HATED it. I thought it could have been the worse ever. I had the bar set real low and Howard and co. still tripped over it.

Then months later, I watched it again to 'secure my position,' but now I changed my mind. I honestly don't know why I bashed it so hard. I think there may be a foundation for some better films if they can make Han hit rock bottom with Chewie.

On a different note, I do not buy the whole 'Star Wars' fatigue hype. They probably should have known better and just delayed/or originally planned it for a winter release. If Disney just did better work, they would sell more tickets.

12 hours ago, splad said:

This was a horrible easily forgettable/regrettable movie going experience. The lead lacked all the charisma of Han, everyone in his scenes outshone the actor, pansexualising of Lando was ridiculous and Emilie Clarke was dull. The original directors train wrecked it and it was beyond Ron Howard to jump in the directors chair and apply the breaks to prevent it hitting that wall. I had hoped this was going to expedite Kathleen Kennedy's departure and hoped Dave Filloni would take the mantle but it wasn't meant to be. At least it put down a couple of dumb movies in development, namely someTatooine movie and Rian Johnson's Trilogy. They need time now to re-evaluate what works. This clearly doesn't hence the box office slump.

How exactly could the non-existent pansexualising of Lando ruin the flim?

I liked it more then TFA and TLJ but less then Rogue One. To me it felt a lot like a Firefly story in the Star Wats setting which was always what I expected from a pre-OT Han movie.

33 minutes ago, RogueCorona said:

How exactly could the non-existent pansexualising of Lando ruin the flim?

I liked it more then TFA and TLJ but less then Rogue One. To me it felt a lot like a Firefly story in the Star Wats setting which was always what I expected from a pre-OT Han movie.

He was in love with the robot dude...no telling what attachments it had:p

Unproven. Yes he he got very upset when L3 was destroyed but that in no way requires him to be attracted to L3 sexually.

18 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I never bought the excuse there were too many Star Wars movies. Black Panther had left the theater less than 3 weeks before Infinity War and they both blew the box office up.

Black Panther opened in late January (global) or mid February (US), and was largely unopposed by any other major cinematic juggernauts in theaters at that same time. Infinity War didn't drop until the end of April, roughly two months later.

It's the very rare movie that can keep up the pace of its opening weekend, and even Black Panther saw a drop in receipts during its second week in spite of being a pop culture phenomenon.

Pretty sure if Black Panther had been released a couple weeks before Avengers: Infinity War, one of those two movies would have suffered a severe loss of box office receipts. Most likely Black Panther because in spite of how good it may have been, it didn't have the years of build up that Infinity War did.

It's possible that Solo might have had a stronger opening weekend if it'd been released before Infinity War, but again it would have seen a sharp drop in box office receipts once Infinity War (again with it's years of build-up and fan anticipation) dropped.

6 hours ago, splad said:

He was in love with the robot dude...no telling what attachments it had:p

No more so than Anakin is with R2 in the Clone Wars. How many times did he disobey orders to go find R2 when he was missing or in trouble? Almost as many times as he went after Ahsoka

L3 was comic relief. Reading anymore into it is way OTT imo.

4 hours ago, Varlie said:

No more so than Anakin is with R2 in the Clone Wars. How many times did he disobey orders to go find R2 when he was missing or in trouble? Almost as many times as he went after Ahsoka

The attachment went beyond friendship and loyalty.

31 minutes ago, splad said:

The attachment went beyond friendship and loyalty.

Especially once that attachment had a few mods...

Just now, HappyDaze said:

Especially once that attachment had a few mods...

R2 did have a "ligtsaber slot"... Just sayin.

33 minutes ago, splad said:

The attachment went beyond friendship and loyalty.

You have odd limits to friendship and loyalty.

1 hour ago, splad said:

The attachment went beyond friendship and loyalty.

Hardly. Read the citations for all the Medals of Honor awarded and see how many are for exactly what Lando did.

Minus the wiring a brain into the hyperdrive navcomp of course

I think what frustrates me more about Solo than anything in the movie is the "lessons" supposedly learned by Disney.

What I did appreciate about Solo is it carved out its own space, and as others mentioned, proved that a Star Wars story doesn't have to be about Jedi and Death Stars. Not every movie needs to turn the galaxy on its head. There's really no limit to the kind of sub-genre that can be placed in the Star Wars universe, and Solo kind of proved that. They could do a movie about Val and Beckett's previous heists (maybe, how they met), and I'd totally go see it...provided of course the character arcs were compelling.

In the broadest strokes, where the movie fell down was: the fan-service checklist of iconic items (nobody cared about any of those things); and that it wasn't as dark as it could have been. (And as a third, they killed off the most interesting characters in the heist...Val had sheer presence, and that multi-arm dude had some great lines.) Han was a total lowlife, you don't get to be Jabba's "best smuggler" by being nice. If Solo was "part 1", showing he started out a reasonable human being, but there were more movies to follow that went darker, that would be okay, but I haven't heard about any plans for a followup. So we're left with this "lowlife nice guy", which makes no sense.

Unfortunately, I think Disney didn't get any of that, and they'll make dumb decisions based on that misread. Oh well, at least I have the new TCW episodes to look forward to...

3 hours ago, whafrog said:

Han was a total lowlife, you don't get to be Jabba's "best smuggler" by being nice. If Solo was "part 1", showing he started out a reasonable human being, but there were more movies to follow that went darker, that would be okay, but I haven't heard about any plans for a followup. So we're left with this "lowlife nice guy", which makes no sense.

Agree with this & think that follow up films to Solo would be a great idea.... & after seeing it at the cinema I was kinda hoping that that’s what they had planned, & let’s be honest... there’s plenty of scope for doing them!

I also agree with him coming across as the nice guy but the way I look at it is that this is just the start... he’s still young & not had the experiences yet to have turned him into the total lowlife we know & love.

I think the end of the film was paving the way for that though, he shoots Beckett after being betrayed by him & also Qi’ra leaving him to head back into the Crimson Dawn fold are the start of Han becoming colder & more hardened to the Galaxy.

You raise a good point. There are a couple of threads left hanging. Maul (Sorry, I'm not up on TCW, I think I had just reached the part where his brother found him living like a beast) and his Crimson Dawn seem to be setup for more action. In Ep V it feels like it's been a while since Han and Lando met, which could easily be after Han wins the Falcon, or some other point later on. I know in Legends there was more, and there's also a new... canon... book (wow Legends vs Canon gets hard when you think of the books). Either way, Donald was a stand out performer and you would think a second shot at Han would need him on board.

The question that is left, is that with all the hate hanging around Alden, would he be given another shot, or is that seen as too risky? On one hand, you'd want him to build a legacy, inhabit the role, have the chance for cameos and TV show cameos, etc, for whatever we get in the future. Or is it better to cut losses and try to recast and risk Han becoming a flavour of the week role?

On the whole, I doubt we'll get another Han based movie, but then we don't need a whole movie based around him anyway. I'd really be interested to see another heist film, with Jabba in the mastermind / financier role, a motley crew assembled from a whole new cast of critters, maybe a helmeted Bounty Hunter meets Han for the first time, not as a foe but as a fellow mercenary. I don't think the film should be focused on either of those two, but I'm just throwing ideas in the fire here. Maybe that crew goes up against Crimson Dawn? Maybe there's action on Tatooine, and a certain hermit feels a disturbance when a certain bissected former-Sith takes his 'apprentice' to stop this upstart Hutt's crew.

The problem is Disney doesn't want to give us another Han-job right now. If Han is supposed to go dark before Ep.IV, that's something that Disney would probably rather keep off camera and in the background. I don't see them taking the risk of putting out a "Solo: Down & Out in the Outer Rim" bridge film when other media (books or comics) can cover that with far less risk.

Re: Follow-up film to Solo

It's possible that such a film that was on the drawing board, but given the film's underwhelming performance (while it didn't completely bomb at the box office, neither did it break even) the odds of getting that follow-up are pretty slim.

Part of that is going to depend on how good the home video sales are; there's been more than a few films that underperformed at the box office that still got sequels green-light simply because the home video sales were strong enough to make up the difference and then some.

Of if the execs at Lucasfilm decide that maybe they want to take another gamble on Alden-as-Han and see if this time it pays off.