The Origin of Everything We Didn’t Want
Han wants to escape his crummy life on an Empire controlled planet. He wants to become the best pilot out there by any means possible. After joining the Empire’s military, he begins running into several people that will affect his life from that point on. Will he achieve his dream? Let’s find out in my review of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Being a prequel, we already know where everyone ends up, so we get to see how they got there. Things like how the dynamic duo’s inception, the game on how he got the Falcon, and the fabled Kessel Run are all here. Filling in the blanks within a beloved franchise is dangerous territory, aka the prequel trilogy. This is especially true if you cast someone to represent a key character.
***Warning: Spoilers***
Alden Ehrenreich plays everyone's favorite scruffy looking nerf herder. He starts off as a loverboy with big dreams, but starts to transform into the selfish smuggler that we all know to survive in this dog eat dog world. His take on the character is a bit problematic though. The most important thing, is that Alden Ehrenreich isn’t Harrison Ford. It’s probably impossible to have someone emulate the original Han Solo. This is a prequel, so you can probably say that he isn’t the character we know from the original series. I wonder what a de-aged Harrison Ford could have been like, maybe even a digital one. Probably not that last one.
Speaking of young versions of characters, Donald Glover does a great job as Lando Calrissian. You can probably say that he was the best part of the movie. Glover manages to be as charismatic as the character we know, but providing his own take on it. The only bad thing is that I wanted to see more of him.
Like Rogue One, this Star Wars story shows us the gritty aspect of War. In his attempt to be a pilot, Han joins the Imperial army, where he also receives his surname, in one of the dumbest ways possible. Eventually, he gets thrown into the trenches, fighting a faceless enemy. Following this is the best sequence in the movie, the big train heist. Just the idea of a train heist in space is fun. High stakes, high speeds, all while high off of the ground.
From this point, it starts to get a little messy, if it wasn’t already. Sassy robots, long lost countrymen, robot uprising, black hole monsters, there's a lot going on here. That didn’t even include the ton of double crossing. Oh and check out this character that people who only watch the movies would be super confused about.
This is a movie that feels like we really didn’t need it to be made. We learned things that we probably did not want to learn. It had a few fun parts, but soon becomes convoluted with story plots. Ehrenreich is outshined by Glover with his take on the suave character. I suppose it’s worth a watch if you’re a fan.