Solo: A Star Wars Story just had its lackluster opening weekend, and despite backlash from fans and critics alike, I felt that this was one of the better Star Wars movies since The Force Awakens. While Solo could have been easily improved in several different ways, I still left the theater firmly satisfied, and I feel like some fans have just set too high of a bar for themselves to enjoy a Star Wars movie. However, I do have a few issues that I felt the film could have improved upon, and I hope you take my opinion into consideration for your rating of the movie.
Alden Ehrenreich’s Casting
Since the first trailer came out, there has been a little reluctance towards Alden Ehrenreich replacing Harrison Ford in the role, but I honestly thought he was the best possible choice for Han Solo. The main complaint that I’ve been hearing from people is the fact that Ehrenreich doesn’t sound like Ford, and he barely has any resemblance to the original Han. This is all true, don’t get me wrong, but Harrison Ford would be the first person to say that he isn’t Han Solo. Han Solo is a fictional character that anyone can play, it’s just a matter of how good your performance is. Ehrenreich making the role somewhat his own is so admirable to me, because he’s not just trying to do a Harrison Ford impression, he’s trying to play Han Solo like this is the first time we’ve seen the character. Even though this wasn’t Harrison Ford or someone that looked identical to him, I still felt wholeheartedly throughout the whole film that Alden Ehrenreich wasn’t just playing Han Solo, he was Han Solo.
Donald Glover’s Billy Dee Williams
Everything I just commended Alden Ehrenreich for not doing is exactly what Donald Glover did in his performance as Lando. I felt like Glover was trying to be Billy Dee Williams for most of the movie instead of just playing Lando like it was his role, and while he does a very good Billy Dee Williams impression, I didn’t want to see Donald Glover playing Billy Dee Williams playing Lando Calrissian. I wanted to see Glover use his ingenious acting method to play a fan favorite character, and I simply didn’t get that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think anyone could do a better job as Lando than Donald Glover, but I just know that Glover himself could have been better in the role. Chances are we’ll still see a Lando Calrissian spin-off, and I’ll be just as excited for that movie as I was for Solo, but I just hope that Glover reevaluates what he wants to do with the role.
Val’s Death
One theme that I really enjoyed from this movie is that Han learned a distinct lesson from every member of his crew. Rio’s death taught him that he can’t go through life alone, Beckett taught him to never trust anybody (among other little details that makes Han who he is), and Val’s death taught him what exactly? But it’s fine, she died nobley sacrificing herself so that the crew could complete their job, but why was that important to the story? Her death hardly affected Beckett, Han or any other aspect of the film, so why would her character be used as a meaningless sacrifice instead of being used to teach Han some other kind of lesson? My best guess is that Thandie Newton’s filming schedule for Westworld coincided with Solo, but then why cast Thandie Newton if you can only use her character for the first act of the movie? It just seemed a little sloppy to sacrifice Val instead of using her character in a way that impacts the plot of the film, and I would have liked to see her death mean a little more than just an excuse to dispose of her for the rest of the movie.
Darth Maul
I think the one moment that surprised absolutely everyone who saw this movie was the appearance of Darth Maul. The reason why this surprised everyone is the fact that there was no reason for Darth Maul to appear in a Han Solo prequel. Why was it important to have Darth Maul be the Crimson Dawn, and why was it important for Qi’ra to be his apprentice? The only reason I could even possibly come up with is if they used Solo to set up a Darth Maul spin-off movie, which still wouldn’t exempt him from the fact that he just didn’t belong in the movie. I will say however that Maul’s new look and voice (provided by Star Wars veteran Sam Witwer) for this film created a version of the character that was utterly intimidating, and I would be intrigued to see if they do follow through on giving him his own feature film.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Solo: A Star Wars Story would be considered an excellent movie if it wasn’t apart of the Star Wars universe. Because Star Wars fans expect every movie to be as good as Empire Strikes Back, the bar is set so high that they’ll never enjoy what is a perfectly good example of the quintessential sci-fi action flick. Every film could be better, and so could Solo, but it was leaps and bounds ahead of The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens in my opinion. While it wasn’t as good as some of the other films in the series, I feel that this was still one of the more solid movies of the summer, and I think the fanbase needs to be far more lenient when it comes to a series of movies that are nearly impossible to keep fresh.