Solo; a Star Wars story
May. 27th, 2018 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trude
Unspoilery stuff:
* Not a great movie, but I enjoyed it - generally, I think the anthology movies have done a better job expanding the Star Wars-universe than the Sequel Triology has (even if it sometimes is in baby steps).
* First movie I've seen in 3D, it worked better than I'd anticipated.
* Really, really tiny audience.
* The plot is...not much to talk about. Various people run around stealing stuff and double-crossing each other for two hours?
* I thought the train-heist sequence was visually stunning, apart from that the movie looked OK, but a bit dark.
* Alden Ehrenreich is not trying to channel Harrison Ford, he's trying to play Han Solo, and succeeds better than expected. (It's a bit like reading a fanfic or tie-in novel where the characterization is slightly off but still feels like it's saying something interesting about the character?)
* Donald Glover's Lando is attractive, funny and not in the movie enough. He isn't really the Lando we met in ESB, but he feels like he plausibly could get there.
* I think Jonas Suotamo's way to move as Chewie sometimes feels very different from Peter Mayhew's but otherwise, Chewie is great here (and as always, Han/Chewie and Han/Millenium Falcon are the only real competitors to Han/Leia as ultimate Han-OTP.)
* L3 is an interesting idea for a character who would have needed a lot more screen-time to actually work. I do appreciate that Star Wars cast of female characters are getting larger and more varied, though (and I want a hundred cheesy vids of her dying in Lando's arms to "A little fall of rain").
* Speaking of female characters who disappear to quickly, Thandie Newton was really good as Val, I think that for most of the time she could have replaced Woody Harrelson's (who is also very good) Becket, but it would have made the impact of the ending very different.
* Possibly unpopular opinion: Dryden Vos was boring and Paul Bettany did some pretty unremarkable scenery chewing.
* Qi'ra is, unfortunately, one of the weakest links in the movie. There is a good idea for a character somewhere in there, but it's not very well excuted, neither by the script nor by Emilia Clarke. As for Han/Qi'ra I can buy them as two people who where in love when they were kids and when they were kids and when they meet as adults they still care about each other's well-being but are no longer in love, but I have no idea if that is the story the movie intends to tell. She has a lot of nice necklaces, though, and I do like the fact that she exists (meaning that I sort of want a lot of Han/Leia/Qi'ra threesome PWP and gen awkward meetings-fic, and I want Old Qui'ra to show up in EpIX and try to kill Kylo Ren but ending up killing Hux instead.)
* Probably popular opinion: Enfys Nest is awesome. She feels like the heir to all the rebel girls/violent idealists/people who wear masks and then remove them that has passed through the Star Wars-universe before her, but she is also her own person and I really hope we see her again in some way.
* I don't think she should show up in the sequel to this movie, though (if there is one). One thing I liked about Rouge One was how the gang in general and Cassian in particular were the kind of people ANH-Han didn't want to be and stayed the hell away from. My biggest fear about Solo was that it would make Han too heroic and mess up this. It wobbles a bit on this front but ultimately ends up OK, but Han really needs to stop being to chummy with pure-hearted rebels for a while now.
* I really don't care about Darth Maul showing up again one way or the other. (I've seen Clone Wars but he never made much of an impression on me, sorry.)
* The only trio in this movie is Val-Becket-Rio, apart from this it's about an ever expanding and decreasing gang. As is should be.
* I do not think that anyone in this movie is, or should be, related to Rey. (Yes I used to passionately wish that she was related to a very prominent character here, but seriously, we have all wasted way much time at beating this particular dead horse, let's stop.)
* I still think that the only trait Ben Solo inherited from his father was bad impulse-control.
* Not a great movie, but I enjoyed it - generally, I think the anthology movies have done a better job expanding the Star Wars-universe than the Sequel Triology has (even if it sometimes is in baby steps).
* First movie I've seen in 3D, it worked better than I'd anticipated.
* Really, really tiny audience.
* The plot is...not much to talk about. Various people run around stealing stuff and double-crossing each other for two hours?
* I thought the train-heist sequence was visually stunning, apart from that the movie looked OK, but a bit dark.
* Alden Ehrenreich is not trying to channel Harrison Ford, he's trying to play Han Solo, and succeeds better than expected. (It's a bit like reading a fanfic or tie-in novel where the characterization is slightly off but still feels like it's saying something interesting about the character?)
* Donald Glover's Lando is attractive, funny and not in the movie enough. He isn't really the Lando we met in ESB, but he feels like he plausibly could get there.
* I think Jonas Suotamo's way to move as Chewie sometimes feels very different from Peter Mayhew's but otherwise, Chewie is great here (and as always, Han/Chewie and Han/Millenium Falcon are the only real competitors to Han/Leia as ultimate Han-OTP.)
* L3 is an interesting idea for a character who would have needed a lot more screen-time to actually work. I do appreciate that Star Wars cast of female characters are getting larger and more varied, though (and I want a hundred cheesy vids of her dying in Lando's arms to "A little fall of rain").
* Speaking of female characters who disappear to quickly, Thandie Newton was really good as Val, I think that for most of the time she could have replaced Woody Harrelson's (who is also very good) Becket, but it would have made the impact of the ending very different.
* Possibly unpopular opinion: Dryden Vos was boring and Paul Bettany did some pretty unremarkable scenery chewing.
* Qi'ra is, unfortunately, one of the weakest links in the movie. There is a good idea for a character somewhere in there, but it's not very well excuted, neither by the script nor by Emilia Clarke. As for Han/Qi'ra I can buy them as two people who where in love when they were kids and when they were kids and when they meet as adults they still care about each other's well-being but are no longer in love, but I have no idea if that is the story the movie intends to tell. She has a lot of nice necklaces, though, and I do like the fact that she exists (meaning that I sort of want a lot of Han/Leia/Qi'ra threesome PWP and gen awkward meetings-fic, and I want Old Qui'ra to show up in EpIX and try to kill Kylo Ren but ending up killing Hux instead.)
* Probably popular opinion: Enfys Nest is awesome. She feels like the heir to all the rebel girls/violent idealists/people who wear masks and then remove them that has passed through the Star Wars-universe before her, but she is also her own person and I really hope we see her again in some way.
* I don't think she should show up in the sequel to this movie, though (if there is one). One thing I liked about Rouge One was how the gang in general and Cassian in particular were the kind of people ANH-Han didn't want to be and stayed the hell away from. My biggest fear about Solo was that it would make Han too heroic and mess up this. It wobbles a bit on this front but ultimately ends up OK, but Han really needs to stop being to chummy with pure-hearted rebels for a while now.
* I really don't care about Darth Maul showing up again one way or the other. (I've seen Clone Wars but he never made much of an impression on me, sorry.)
* The only trio in this movie is Val-Becket-Rio, apart from this it's about an ever expanding and decreasing gang. As is should be.
* I do not think that anyone in this movie is, or should be, related to Rey. (Yes I used to passionately wish that she was related to a very prominent character here, but seriously, we have all wasted way much time at beating this particular dead horse, let's stop.)
* I still think that the only trait Ben Solo inherited from his father was bad impulse-control.
