By Ian Roesler WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for Solo: A Star Wars Story The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board. Solo isn’t the worst Star Wars movie; that honor falls upon The Star Wars Holiday Special, which is easily the worst thing to happen in the last two centuries. So, this movie was a little controversial when it was announced. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Regardless of how I initially felt I was planning on seeing it anyway. I’ve seen every movie up to this point, except the Holiday Special I and others felt that Han Solo is one of those characters that the less you know about him the better, like Boba Fett, who is also getting his own movie. The mystery is part of the appeal and Star Wars hasn’t had the best luck with prequels, but I thought this movie was good. Whereas the other movies would switch between a character or group of characters, such as in Empire it’ll flip between Luke on Dagobah and the others in Cloud City, this one is just Han Solo as the title would “exply” (a made-up word meaning the opposite of imply). It was more action and adventure-y than a standard Star Wars movie. It was constantly moving. The music was decent. John Powell did the music for this one. The action was great. I think there’s more positives than negatives. A big controversy about this movie was the cast. So, if you’ve been living under a rock you probably heard about the casting controversy. They replaced an actor of a major character. Say what you will but I thought Joonas Suotamo did a great job as Chewbacca and I think he did a great job as him in The Last Jedi. You can’t blame Peter Mayhew for stepping down from the role. Thankfully they got new actors to play the younger versions of Han and Lando, instead of CGI-ing his face onto another actor like they did with Grand Moff Tarkin. That was odd and a creepy to say the least. Back to Solo, Alden Ehrenreich did an excellent job as Han Solo which is no easy task, I’m so glad they didn’t cgi a young Harrison Ford on him. Emilia Clarke plays Qi’ra, who is Han’s love interest and eventually becomes a gang leader. Woody Harrelson plays Tobias Beckett, he gets Solo and Chewie into the smuggler lifestyle. And finally, there’s Donald Glover who plays Lando Calrissian. Lando is easily the best character in this movie. Donald Glover just oozes charisma in this role. Ray Park reprises his role as Darth Maul for a brief cameo towards the end. There’s also a robot that might grate some people, as she’s like the embodiment of a social justice warrior for droids. This movie is the first in the franchise to not feature C-3PO or R2D2 in any capacity. Although I think I might have seen R2D2 in a cameo. Maybe. There’s also a main villain. He’s okay. He has a scarred face and is in charge of a large criminal empire. A human Jabba basically. Then there’s the tribal guy who’s set up as a villain but is revealed to be a good guy. So, let’s examine what the film did well, not so well, some possible complaints that others may have, and how it compares to Rogue One.
The Good:
The Bad:
Image from Hollywood Reporter
Possible Complaints:
Star WarsRogue One:
Image from Nerdist
Hollywood Reporter Nerdist
