Star Wars: Five Times Disney’s “Solo” Messed Up
Solo is without a doubt a Star Wars movie. And sometimes it’s a bad Star Wars movie.
Star Wars is a great franchise. Lately, we’ve taken a good, hard look at some of the things the Sequel trilogy got wrong, some things it got right, and some things it just kind of… did.
We’ve also been taking a look at some of the things Star Wars Prequel movies have gotten right, and a few things they’ve gotten wrong here or there. We’ve looked at mistakes made in Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones. Some silly git even had the temerity to pan The Phantom Menace.
We’ve also talked about what movies like The Phantom Menace and Attack of The Clones got right. Continuing on we looked at the OT. Such as taking a look at A New Hope. Now it’s time to move on to the stand-alone movies. First up, Solo.
5. L3-37
Courtesy of Lucas Films
At her core L3-37 is a cool character. Seeing a different angle on the normally subservient droids. It also raises a LOT of questions. However the implementation is the problem here. First off, the name. L3-37 is a joke on L33T and like… I dunno having a Star Wars character named after real world “cool”/”hacker” slang just feels weird. But it’s deeper than that. The way L3-37 is written often leaves her feeling more like a caricature of a parody of who she is supposed to be. Rather than providing commentary or inclusion for any group, she just opens them up to ridicule.
4. Underusing The Cast
Courtesy of Lucas Films
Solo has a big cast. Probably too big of one for its own good. There are a lot of characters in the story and the fact is most get very underused. With start off with Lady Proxima and her gang, who (aside for Han and Qi’ra) are never heard from again. Then we get to meet Beck’s gang. After some time getting to know them, they are all (aside form Beck) killed off. We then get a host of bad guys and scum. Finally the rest of the main cast. Chewie’s family. And then Enyfs Nest and her gang we are supposed to care about in the end. The result of all of this is that a lot of cool characters, such as Thandie Newton’s Val, get only a few minutes of screen time.
3. Trying To Do Too Much
Courtesy of Lucas Films
Tying in with the above if the simple fact that this movie tries to do far too much. It was billed as a Star Wars heist movie. And it kind of is. There is a heist. Two, or maybe three in fact. But all that is wrapped in a just a ton of baggage and side plots. The actual heist from Kessel is only a small part of the movie. This leaves the movie feeling disjointed. It has a lot of cool and fun scenes. But with so many in it they never jell. It’s a movie that is less than the sum of its parts and never breathes. Cutting it down to focus on a tighter story would have made a strong movie.
2. Telling Us the Origin of Every Damn Thing
Star Wars, and especially recent Star Wars, is often accused of relying too much on fan service and nostalgia. This is very clearly an issue with Solo. The movie was also going to be a prequel/origin story for Han. That was clear. But it then went of out of the way to be an origin story for just…. everything. Sure, it’s cool to see how Han, Chewie and Lando all met. That makes sense. An origin story for Han getting the Falcon? OK. What about how Han got his blaster? Those dice that no one cared about until The Last Jedi tried to make them a thing? That time Han bragged about the Kessel run? Why Han shoots first? That time 3PO said the Falcon was sassy? Yeah, we needed to know the origins to all that. When we are devoting time to the meaning behind throw away lines, it might be going too far. Speaking of…
1. Solo
You will never convince me that Han Solo, one of the most ionic characters in Sci-Fi, if not cinema, got his name because he said he didn’t have a family. Like, for real? What a joke.
Let us know what you think Solo’s biggest mistakes were, down in the comments!
