First View Review: Solo, A Star Wars Story - Z Factor

Solo: A Star Wars Story

First View Review

by Z Factor

SPOILER-FREE

“I've got a good feeling about this,” says Han Solo during an intense action sequence.

Surprisingly enough, I had a good feeling when walking out of the theater. With all of the speculation and rumors, stories of a troubled production, the firing of a director, re-shooting of the entire movie, and all the baggage following the Solo movie, I had a rather bad feeling about it. Not to mention the very idea of a Han Solo movie made me cry out “Noooooooo!” The first trailer of the movie made me laugh. I felt confident that this movie was going to be a disaster and ruin the name of the legendary Han Solo. I was sure that I was going to hate this movie, especially with my negative feelings towards Rogue One and The Force Awakens. Then, I was proved wrong, and I couldn't be happier.

I don't want movies to be bad, but in assuming that this movie was going to destroy my childhood, I was blown away. I believe all the credit should go to Ron Howard, the director, who took over the project when it was in the dumpster, and he successfully made a film that I believe is better than Rogue One and The Force Awakens. Of course, that's merely my opinion, and a position which could easily be debated.

I enjoyed this movie, even though I strongly felt I would hate it, and that is saying a lot considering how stubborn and opinionated I am with regards to my favorite space saga. So begs the question, what is the Solo movie? Well, it's not a dumpster fire. It's certainly far from perfect and I have my problems with it, but here are some of the things it did right. From the screenwriter within me, I could see that this film was very well written. In my opinion, surpassing the writing of Rogue One and The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens was a paint by numbers remake of A New Hope, which infuriated me. Meanwhile, Rogue One was a bland mess, trying to fill a “plot hole” from A New Hope, with boring, flat, one-dimensional characters, and shoehorning Darth Vader to appease the masses. Solo, on the other hand, was able to successfully manage to take iconic things from A New Hope (like the other two movies do) such as the “Kessel run in 12 parsecs” and turn it into an integral part of not just the plot, but the story, dealing with the characters.

The characters were not just archetypes or a bunch of cool adjectives slung together; each of the main characters were fully realized, with their own motivations and goals, their own pasts and reasons for their actions, and it fulfills the story. The one character that I felt was lacking is actually Han Solo, which is one of my problems with the movie. However, the other characters, Qi'ra, Becket, and Lando, were fully realized and interesting in their own ways.

The plot was centered on the story of Han Solo and his journey as a character. Except, here is the problem. If you take this movie away from Star Wars and any connection to Han Solo, it would be an even better film, because there wouldn't be continuous comparison to Harrison Ford's performance of the character. Harrison Ford is Han Solo. No one else would be able to capture that. And that is unfortunately the problem with this movie, though it is a good movie. Alden Ehrenreich plays Han Solo in the Solo movie, and though he does an okay job acting in the movie, he doesn't carry the film. The film carries him. One performance that succeeds at masterfully lining up with the character of a previous film is Donald Glover's portrayal of Lando Calrissian. He embodied the character and did an amazing job at being utterly Lando. But, it is arguably much easier to act as Lando than it would be at Han Solo, seeing as Solo has been in more films and is such a huge icon.

While the movie was very enjoyable and one of the better entries of the latest Star Wars films, it's biggest problem is that it's Han Solo isn't Han Solo. He's someone trying to be Han Solo. An argument can be made that the Han in this movie isn't yet the Han we meet in A New Hope. True, he's still a young man who will change as time goes on. However, this Han is a morally sound person, though he's an outlaw. This is an arch which doesn't come to Han until A New Hope and yet we see Han in this movie clearly helping the good guys. The Han in A New Hope only wanted his money. He didn't want to save Princess Leia because it was the right thing to do, he did it because there was a reward. That's why his return to help Luke is such a significant moment in the story, Han choosing to sacrifice paying off his debt in order to help the Rebellion. Yet the Han Solo in this movie didn't take the money and never look back, he instead did the right thing—this isn't a lesson he's learned yet. It's this character inconsistency and the actor's lackluster performance which makes this movie only good, instead of great. Though, it would be impossible to make a great Han Solo movie without time traveling to find a young Harrison Ford.

When taking a step back, not looking at the ties to Star Wars, not thinking of Han as the Han Solo we all know and love, but thinking of him as a totally different character, then this movie is way better, because it can stand on it's own two feet. This is a problem with Hollywood today. It doesn't allow good movies to be their own, not attached to any franchise or other popular property. Everything has to be recognizable, a remake, reboot, prequel, sequel, and anything in-between. It was a bad decision in the first place to make a Han Solo movie, and even more films are going to come, such as an Obi-Won movie, a Boba-Fett movie, and more. However, despite all this, I was still able to have a good time watching this movie and that's not a bad thing. I'm very glad they were able to turn this around and make it fun. I just wish that same time, energy, talent and money, were put to more original films.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes, if you're a Star Wars fan. It's a fun Star Wars film, and one of the few actually good ones in recent years. If you're not a Star Wars fan, you might actually enjoy it too, because it could actually stand alone. It could have been an original, solo film, but instead it's attached to the conglomeration of Star Wars.

-Z Factor