Solo: A Star Wars Story thoughts

***This post will contain my thoughts and spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story and other movies as well***

Thank you for reading. If you are interested in what I thought about Solo before I watched it, CLICK OR TAP ON THIS LINK.  Otherwise keep reading for Part two.

The film met my expectations.  I found it entertaining while adding nothing new to the Star Wars Universe.  A very inconsequential movie that didn’t feel perilous, but made me ask, “OK, they (Han and Chewie) are not going to die, but how are they going to get out of this situation?”  I thought that the visuals were on par with other Star Wars movies.  More upbeat in story than Rouge One and The Last Jedi, and I had a surprise for me that I didn’t see coming.

The film follows Han played Alden Ehrenreich coming up from a “scumrat” to a pilot along with a friend, or lover Qi’ra played by Emilia Clarke, Chewbacca, and Tobias Beckett, a mentor of Han played by Woody Harrison.  They are staging a heist on Kessel of coaxium, a volatile hyper fuel that is used to power entire fleets of ships for the criminal empire the Crimson Dawn headed by Dryden Vos played by Paul Bettany.

I thought Alden did a good job.  He had the look and feel of Han and pulled off the character well.  Donald Glover was excellent as the cape wearing, smooth talking smuggler Lando.  Glover’s portrayal was the best in this movie. Both Glover and Enhrenreich got advice from Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Willams.  Advice that paid off as they got the characters down well.  As much as I said that Han’s story doesn’t add anything for me, I’d be willing to see other story from Han’s line after this movie.

Clarke was OK, I didn’t feel I had enough to go on with Qi’ra.  Her character left more questions with me than answers.  She was constantly saying how “she’s done things” through out the movie to Han Solo.  I have no idea what those things were and wanted to know.  The only thing I got is that Qi’ra did study Teras Kasi.   A form of hand to hand combat in Star Wars, and a pretty bad Playstation one game.

She also had a connection to a surprising return of Darth Maul.  Yeah, I didn’t see that coming.  I wished I paid attention to Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels for that explanation of how he lived after being sliced in half.  But is he a criminal underworld leader or Sith lord?  I’m guessing crime lord due to Qi’ra not showing any signs of force. Of course, the movie is setting up for what looks to be a sequel as Jabba the Hutt is hinted at a few times.

Among the other new characters, Beckett was ok.  Woody Harrelson did a good job.  He seems like an actor who can act the same way every time in every movie and do a great job of it. Other than that, there weren’t too many other memorable characters. There was Beckett heist team that died off quickly in the train heist scene. Vos wasn’t in this movie much. He seemed to just be a quick antagonist to everyone. L3-37, Lando’s droid that I had my concerns with, was tolerable,but a bit annoying. She was a recently woken droid who was about the freedom and treatment of droids. A big thumbs up for leaving C3PO and R2D2 out of this movie. I do dislike unnecessary cameos.

I did like some of the nods to other movies.  There was one scene after the heist where Han puts his arm around Lando and Lando says “I hate you”.  To which Han replies, “I know”.  I wonder if that “I know” is always Han’s go to when someone expresses emotion to him.   A scene was shown of Chewie and Beckett playing Dejarik, a chess like holographic game that Chewie losses, but doesn’t rip out Beckett arms. The movie even ends with Han winning Sabacc and the Millennium Falcon from Lando the second time. The first time Lando had “an ace up his sleeve” which Han caught Lando with the second time that they played. Only thing, he got the name Solo because he had no last name and he was by himself. I didn’t like that reasoning.

The best part of the movie was the end, the first ending at least.  Han stands off against Beckett after being betrayed.  I didn’t catch this until I was driving home, but Han shot first!  I don’t know if anyone else noticed that but I felt it was a nod to the debate of how in the 1997 Star Wars special edition scene where Han shot Greedo first was edited to not make him look like a heartless killer.  Since then, it was shown that Greedo shot Han first. It always sparked a debate of who shot first Han or Greedo?  I’ve always been the believe of Han shot first.  It looked like the writers did as well because Han fired and killed Beckett rather first and fast.  A good touch to a long standing debate among Star Wars fans.

Did you watch this movie and have anything else I missed. Let me know and thanks again for reading.