Solo (Ron Howard, 2018)

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Dr Amicus
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#176 Post by Dr Amicus » Wed May 16, 2018 4:50 am

Luke M wrote:I realize my post might seem kinda dumb to fans that watch Rebels or Clone Wars or other non-live-action movie things but my only reference is to the movies.
This is one of the strange aspects of the new spin-off media now under Disney - most of it is (I believe) canon, along with Clone Wars (which dates from pre-Disney ownership days). Apparently the explanation for C3P0's red arm is in one of the comics.

The only one of the these I've read / watched so far is Rebels - I'm about 2/3rds through the third series and it's a lot of fun. As usual though the droid is the most fun character.

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#177 Post by tenia » Wed May 16, 2018 4:56 am

The few French reviews I've read so far don't make much of him, though he seems better in Solo than Emilia Clarke. I never found her to be a very good actress but it seems she's quite mediocre in Solo, so being better than her isn't a great achievement. However, what I read about Glover's character in here doesn't inspire me much.
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Carlissian would be in Solo a "closeted droid f***er" in a way that seems poorly developped.

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Lost Highway
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#178 Post by Lost Highway » Wed May 16, 2018 7:39 am

tenia wrote:The few French reviews I've read so far don't make much of him, though he seems better in Solo than Emilia Clarke. I never found her to be a very good actress but it seems she's quite mediocre in Solo, so being better than her isn't a great achievement. However, what I read about Glover's character in here doesn't inspire me much.
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Carlissian would be in Solo a "closeted droid f***er" in a way that seems poorly developped.
I refuse to believe it, Glover rocks ! I agree with you on Emilia Clarke though. Terrible actress who I haven’t liked in anything I’ve seen her in. She is the weakest link in Game of Thrones generally excellent cast.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#179 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri May 25, 2018 3:36 pm

Not to pile on but I agree 100% about Clarke. She is playing an iconic character in Game of Thrones so it's easy to look past, but her line deliveries are absolutely terrible and this past season in particular was rough for her from an acting perspective. She's a capital-S Star, though, so like any other star, it doesn't particularly matter since people want to see her in things and likely will continue to for the foreseeable future.

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Lost Highway
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#180 Post by Lost Highway » Sat May 26, 2018 4:00 am

Unless her acting improves, I can’t see Emilia Clarke lasting past when the next pretty young thing comes snapping at her heels. She is beautiful but she lacks the charisma of a true star. She may well be the Sarah Michelle Gellar of our day. I think that bad actors who successfully star in a TV series for years, find it hard to shed bad habits or improve. Both these actresses got a lot of praise for the interesting characters they play/ed rather than for their actual performances. Maybe she will prove me wrong. Sometimes actors initially cast for their looks do learn their craft along the way.

I think Diane Krüger successfully managed to work her way from bland eye candy to respected actress over the years. But she made good choices which challenged her, while Clarke stars in blockbusters and bland romances.

Not just saying this to knock her, but I’ve always been interested in looking at screen acting.

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Kirkinson
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#181 Post by Kirkinson » Sat May 26, 2018 4:25 am

I actually think she's just fine in Solo, but her character is badly written and poorly utilized in the story. Most of the characters are — this is a movie very much just going through the motions. Some really lazy writing from Kasdan & son, very bland direction from Ron Howard, very little personality of any kind. Really shrinks the Star Wars universe, too, as all the locations are pretty anonymous and everything we've ever heard about Han Solo's past happens in the space of a few days. Bradford Young's dim, murky lighting seems rather at odds with the material, but he's the one person involved who seemed to be trying to do something a little different. John Powell's score is also an improvement over Michael Giacchino's attempt at Williams pastiche, but it's poorly mixed in the soundtrack. There are a handful of fleeting moments when the movie comes to life, and none of it is especially bad, I guess. It's just totally hollow and featureless.

There's an especially gratuitous piece of fan service toward the end that will probably baffle the overwhelming majority of the audience who has never consumed any Star Wars content other than the movies.
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Darth Maul shows up in what is basically a Marvel post-credits scene edited into the movie — as a shadowy crime boss it seems inevitable that he'll be a major part of the forthcoming Boba Fett movie (and maybe the Kenobi one if that happens, though I don't know how they'd square that with the events of Rebels).

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Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#182 Post by All the Best People » Sat May 26, 2018 12:09 pm

Perhaps it was the low expectations caused by all the backstage drama, but I found this a fun romp. I don't know if I buy into all the "cookie cutter" criticisms; the actual author of the film feels like Larry Kasdan, and here he's taken something of a film noir outline and crossed it with some Dr. Jonesian adventure, all including a good sense of humor. Basically, it's exactly the Star Wars movie one might expect from the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, and Silverado. The cast and Bradford Young delivered. Powell's score was fine, but the best bits are the reprises of Williams' themes -- the one track that really goes for it in that regard is titled "Reminiscence Therapy", which ... okay. I found The Giacchino's Rogue One score far superior.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#183 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sat May 26, 2018 4:27 pm

Thinking of Donald E. Westlake's Parker novels, I can't help but think that the adventures of Boba Fett, amoral space heister would be really cool.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#184 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat May 26, 2018 6:36 pm

I had the big cameo at the end of Solo spoiled for me, and frankly, it’s one of those spoilers that makes me glad I was in no rush to see it - like a surprisingly large number of people, if the box office projections are on point. Apparently there’s some preexisting explanation for it outside of the films, but I have exactly zero interest in whatever absurd justification for this might exist.

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Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#185 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sat May 26, 2018 7:35 pm

And I thought that Rouge One was boring. Solo is a connect-the-dots story that barely goes anywhere. There are so many double and triple-crosses that even if I could keep track them, I didn't care. It did almost nothing with the one interesting aspect-the space Western motif-and everything else was deathly dull, giant CGI monsters and action sequences cut without any sense of tempo or pacing. The big twist at the end makes me question the whole chronology. Love or loathe George Lucas, he did what was once stylistically new. This whole Disney-era feels either like it's simply repackaging old ideas like Abrams, or giving anonymous, unbelievably boring spin-offs like Solo and Rogue One. At least the prequels, for all their flaws, showed us new designs. This version of the franchise in desperate need of a Ralph McQuarrie. At least Tom Cruise let the directors of the Mission: Impossible movies bring their own flavor. This was dull as dishwater.
Kirkinson wrote:
Sat May 26, 2018 4:25 am
I actually think she's just fine in Solo, but her character is badly written and poorly utilized in the story. Most of the characters are — this is a movie very much just going through the motions. Some really lazy writing from Kasdan & son, very bland direction from Ron Howard, very little personality of any kind. Really shrinks the Star Wars universe, too, as all the locations are pretty anonymous and everything we've ever heard about Han Solo's past happens in the space of a few days. Bradford Young's dim, murky lighting seems rather at odds with the material, but he's the one person involved who seemed to be trying to do something a little different. John Powell's score is also an improvement over Michael Giacchino's attempt at Williams pastiche, but it's poorly mixed in the soundtrack. There are a handful of fleeting moments when the movie comes to life, and none of it is especially bad, I guess. It's just totally hollow and featureless.

There's an especially gratuitous piece of fan service toward the end that will probably baffle the overwhelming majority of the audience who has never consumed any Star Wars content other than the movies.
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Darth Maul shows up in what is basically a Marvel post-credits scene edited into the movie — as a shadowy crime boss it seems inevitable that he'll be a major part of the forthcoming Boba Fett movie (and maybe the Kenobi one if that happens, though I don't know how they'd square that with the events of Rebels).
This. A thousand times this. It wasn't terrible, it was just so dull and generic as to be difficult to care much about.

I’d be willing to suffer all of this if I could just get the original trilogy in HD, but even that seems impossible.

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furbicide
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#186 Post by furbicide » Sat May 26, 2018 8:33 pm

I found The Last Jedi insultingly dumb and boring, so I shudder to imagine how bad these non-tentpole movies are. And there are only another 3,526 of them to come (or, at least, however many it takes to totally bleed this La Grande Bouffe-worthy franchise dry and make even the most regressed Star Wars fan loathe the merest mention of the series).

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#187 Post by Mr Sausage » Sat May 26, 2018 8:50 pm

hanshotfirst1138 wrote:Love or loathe George Lucas, he did what was once stylistically new. This whole Disney-era feels either like it's simply repackaging old ideas
Repackaging old ideas is all George Lucas did. Even when he attempted to make Star Wars appear profound, he had to admit to reusing something so time-worn that Joseph Cambell could call it a monomyth. And that's just Lucas' high-faluting version. He otherwise stole from samurai movies, Buck Rogers serials, and a whole galaxy of pulp novels. Star Wars has always been derivative, a repackaging of familiar ideas, deliberately so. We're just removed enough in time to forget that. It's some kind of irony that the same people who adore Star Wars and Indiana Jones are giving J.J. Abrams a hard time for mining the nostalgias.

hanshotfirst1138
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#188 Post by hanshotfirst1138 » Sat May 26, 2018 9:56 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
hanshotfirst1138 wrote:Love or loathe George Lucas, he did what was once stylistically new. This whole Disney-era feels either like it's simply repackaging old ideas
Repackaging old ideas is all George Lucas did. Even when he attempted to make Star Wars appear profound, he had to admit to reusing something so time-worn that Joseph Cambell could call it a monomyth. And that's just Lucas' high-faluting version. He otherwise stole from samurai movies, Buck Rogers serials, and a whole galaxy of pulp novels. Star Wars has always been derivative, a repackaging of familiar ideas, deliberately so. We're just removed enough in time to forget that. It's some kind of irony that the same people who adore Star Wars and Indiana Jones are giving J.J. Abrams a hard time for mining the nostalgias.
At least he repackaged it as something which looked different. Lucas may not have been a great storyteller, but he did what was once stylistically new and visually innovative. Virtually every blockbuster is a Lucas clone now, a photocopy of a photocopy. I freely admit to Lucas lack of original ideas, but as I said, he innovated in fields like VFX or action-adventure set pieces in ways no one did in the 70s and 80s, and opened up a whole new world of filmmaking that did things people hadn’t seen before, completely changing the whole film industry (for better or worse). Abrams does neither. Old ideas in fresh paint can’t beat the buzz of something which at least once, was new. We can of course debate how good the original Star Wars & Raiders movies were, but their technical innovations are pretty hard to argue. And to put it more bluntly, Abrams doesn’t do it anywhere near as well as his idols did.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#189 Post by McCrutchy » Sat May 26, 2018 10:08 pm

Unfortunately, if Solo bombs, it really doesn't matter. There are myriad excuses for its failure, and in the end, while it might make Disney/Lucasfilm more cautious about mining the original trilogy films, it won't be enough to stop them greenlighting even other, similar Star Wars films, as evidenced by the news of the Boba Fett and Leia/Rebels films being announced/rumored. Personally, if this is what Disney and Lucasfilm have planned--and it makes sense, because if these come to fruition, then when you step back, the Disney Star Wars films would start to look a lot like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just with a larger timeline--then I'm glad I quit while I was ahead.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#190 Post by cdnchris » Sat May 26, 2018 10:42 pm

Regarding the character revelation at the end since I doubt I will see this
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how does Darth Maul survive? Is that ever explained anywhere?

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#191 Post by domino harvey » Sat May 26, 2018 10:56 pm

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Apparently he's revived in the Clone Wars animated series, which is now canon, so this is really more a callback to that-- but I've heard most viewers have just been confused at the chronology, so seems like yet another bad choice from the producers

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Kirkinson
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#192 Post by Kirkinson » Sun May 27, 2018 1:48 pm

Brief explanation of the cameo for anyone who doesn't want to have to dig through lengthy Wookieepedia articles (this contains spoilers for Solo and both animated shows):
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In the Clone Wars series, Maul is shown having survived his fall and bisection, vaguely explained by saying his rage and hate made him powerful enough to keep himself alive. He is found by his brother after 10 years, raving mad in the sewers with a set of robotic spider legs. His brother takes him back to his home planet where he gets a new pair of robotic legs (which can also be seen in his Solo cameo). Over time he becomes a crime lord, but this makes him influential enough that Palpatine considers him a threat and comes after him, killing Maul's brother and most of his associates and driving him into hiding. He later returns for a short arc in Rebels where he tries to take on one of that show's characters as an apprentice but is finally killed for real by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Solo takes place some time in between the two animated series (Clone Wars takes place in between episodes 2 and 3, Rebels takes place a few years before A New Hope) and suggests he is still a crime lord, but is keeping a much lower profile this time.
I think the cameo is kind of silly just because it has almost nothing to do with Solo's story, but I also think that if Lucasfilm is determined to keep telling stories about pre-established characters that take place in between the first two trilogies, and they want to maintain that all their supplemental material is canon, then they would have to start acknowledging events from the animated series in the movies at some point. It's not like Marvel where the TV shows only concern minor characters — both of the animated series feature major events happening to major characters that have a significant impact on the timeline. The fact that Simon Kinberg, who worked on Rebels, is writing the Boba Fett movie, seems like an indication that they're going to try to tie these things together further in the future. I would not be surprised if this is actually the reason it's taking them so long to mount an Obi-Wan movie, as they are really painted into a narrative corner with that character.

That said, it probably was a bad idea to drop this cameo in with zero explanation for people who didn't already know it was a possibility. It would surely have been a better idea to wait for a story that would give them space to include a few lines of dialogue for the general audience to get their bearings.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#193 Post by cdnchris » Sun May 27, 2018 2:20 pm

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That all sounds really stupid.
But thank you for explaining that to me! I just don't have the time (or will really) to go through all of that.

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Kirkinson
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#194 Post by Kirkinson » Sun May 27, 2018 3:10 pm

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Much of it is. I didn't even mention that his brother's name is Savage Opress or that second set of robotic legs was conjured into existence by his Dark Side sorceress mother! Clone Wars fluctuated wildly in quality, so I've only seen a highly curated selection of episodes. I do think his arc on Rebels was better, but I would never recommend it to anyone who wasn't already curious about it.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#195 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Sun May 27, 2018 5:43 pm

Never quite understood why anyone thought Lord and Miller would be able to direct a Star Wars movie. These movies need a steady hand, a Ron Howard, much as Lucas's original sequels hired workmanlike guys with no personal vision. Going the way of the Marvel franchise and getting a film out every year does nothing to make me want to watch them, and as much as I like Donald Glover's work, if Solo comparatively flops, then perhaps someone might work out that churning out films in this "will this do?" way is getting tedious.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#196 Post by Shrew » Sun May 27, 2018 11:51 pm

I enjoyed Solo more than I expected, that it is to say, more than Rogue One. Both films show the seams of their Frankenstein construction, but Solo hangs together better. Perhaps that’s because Rogue One’s central flaw was a script rushed into production two drafts ahead of schedule, meaning the third act feels built on set. Whereas Solo feels like a solid outline of a script weighed down by pedestrian direction, cheaper production values (likely mainly due to reshoots), and some really eye-rolling attempts to work in “classic” Star Wars lines of dialogue.

There’s two better films in here. One is the Han and Lando hang-out film Lord and Miller were probably aiming for. But it's really hard to see why they were hired when Kasdan wrote the bones of a film noir (the femme fatale, the cynicism, the double crosses, the postwar crime mileu, the surprisingly high body count). Which you know, actually makes perfect sense as the origin story of a jaded loner with an idealist streak. It also helps explain Bradford Young’s monochrome palettes. Some of these noir ambitions survive the lighter tone, but they're all undone by the ending.
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There must have been some version of this where Han’s plan failed. Getting double-crossed out of the cargo by Qi’ra would have been a standard noir ending, justified Han’s later cynicism, and Qi’ra’s final actions would make a lot more sense if she was leaving with something (rather than just acting out of… fear of the syndicate?). But as it plays, there’s a reluctance to let Han fuck up, and the ending we have feels like the film trying to have its cake (Han learns not to trust anyone) and eat it too (Han trusts the rebels! But he doesn’t join them now because… everything’s gone great for him?) The resolution with Becket is surprising, but Becket and Han’s relationship never established the emotional father figure bond it aimed for, perhaps because they so rarely share the screen (again reshoots). Becket’s only really interesting in relation to his original crew, who I really wished had been around for the whole show.
All this really hurts Clarke, who isn’t bad, but has the impossible job of playing girl next door, femme fatale, crime lord’s sexpot, and supreme strategist all at once. In other words, she’s a female cipher who’s whatever the plot needs at any moment, and that requires a far more powerful presence than Clarke to pull off cohesively.

As mentioned above, this is easily the cheapest looking Star Wars, as the usual top-notch production design is missing, particularly in the sets and locations. There are a few early flashes of Corellia as steampunk hell that look interesting, but most everything else is anonymous. And compared to the other new films, it relies far more on CGI than practical effects. The costume department and creature design still do okay though.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#197 Post by Luke M » Tue May 29, 2018 10:08 pm

I saw Solo tonight. I think my biggest problem was so much of it was built around nods to the other movies. Every other movie has been fairly subtle, or at least moreso, about references but this was just one after the other of stuff. Also, I don’t understand the focus of the dice when it was never of any significance in the original trilogy.

Donald Glover’s Billy Dee Williams impression is something to behold. Everything else can be skipped.

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#198 Post by bearcuborg » Thu May 31, 2018 5:09 pm

Shrew wrote:
Sun May 27, 2018 11:51 pm
I enjoyed Solo more than I expected, that it is to say, more than Rogue One. Both films show the seams of their Frankenstein construction, but Solo hangs together better.
Pretty spot on. I liked it more than Rogue One, but that’s not saying much. Of all the new things Force Awakens has felt most like Star Wars, and Jedi been the most thought provoking. These side stories feel very minor league.
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Having never seen more than a few minutes of Thrones, Clarke isn’t really on my radar-but compared to the other female characters who are killed off, she’s the least interesting.

It was funny to see Han shoot first, and I’m not even one of those guys... I could have done without the racial stereotype description of Lando, but he and Aldon have chemistry. There was definitely a better movie to be made based on their time together.

The cameo at the end doesn’t work, even though I knew this character was around-at least superficially from listening to podcasts like Rebel Force Radio.
They’ll figure this franchise out eventually. Clint has a funny cameo, and I always wanna see more Warrick Davis. Also, Erin Kellyman with the freckles was stunning!

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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#199 Post by denti alligator » Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:56 am

I must be alone here in thinking Rogue One is by far the best of the recent films. Solo only makes it look even better, in my opinion.

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars Franchise (1977-∞)

#200 Post by tenia » Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:00 am

denti alligator wrote:
Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:56 am
I must be alone here in thinking Rogue One is by far the best of the recent films. Solo only makes it look even better, in my opinion.
You're not. I haven't seen Solo yet, but I'm among those who thinks Rogue One is at least pretty much decent but mostly held back by its awfully tedious first half. I'd rate The Force Awakens above it though, because the pace and overall entertainment felt better, but I don't think Rogue One deserves the dislike it received in some places. And since I found The Last Jedi absolutely awful, this mechanically places Rogue One higher in the recent entries than in other people's lists.

This being written, my enthusiasm for Solo progressively got down from "not much" to "about zero" and it will most certainly be the first SW I could have seen on theaters but won't. I'm 31 so clearly couldn't have seen "day one" the OT in theaters, but except The Clone Wars movie (which I never saw at all), it was kind of a tradition for me (with my family or my friends) to see a SW movie Day One on theater. I saw TLJ a few days later than usual already (but that was mostly because the dubbed version had the better time slots so I had to wait a few days to catch a good showing time), but with Solo, I might just wait for the video release altogether, and the feedbacks I'm reading on various discussion boards only further convice me that there isn't enough to appreciate in it anyway.

It's a shame, really.

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