{"id":1208,"date":"2018-08-28T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T21:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2018-08-12T15:27:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T21:27:53","slug":"movie-solo-a-star-wars-story-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/28\/movie-solo-a-star-wars-story-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Solo – A Star Wars Story (2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Solo:Solo: A Star Wars Story
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2018
\nRating: PG-13
\nLength: 135 minutes \/ 2.25 hours<\/p>\n

Most superhero franchises start with an origin story. Sure, sometimes the franchise gets to this foundational plot after its first set of films (a la\u00a0X-Men Origins: Wolverine<\/em>\u00a0(2009)), but these movies are usually pretty rare. Unfortunately, they\u2019re also hampered by the source material that preceded them. While not necessarily \u201cprequels,\u201d these films need to fit within the canon of the franchise while also telling a story that expands the canon as well.\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> is not a superhero franchise, but it has its fair share of prequels and origin stories.\u00a0Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/em>\u00a0(2018) is the first to focus on a specific character, though.<\/p>\n

With Han Solo being such an iconic and fan-favorite character, there was plenty to pull from to expand out his backstory. Unfortunately, most people will only recognize Harrison Ford as the \u201ctrue\u201d Han Solo, and this film gives them some ammunition for that. Sure, Alden Ehrenreich does a passable job and looks like he could be a younger version of 1970\u2019s Harrison Ford<\/a>, but there\u2019s still something missing in his performance. Even Donald Glover\u2019s Lando Calrissian is pretty good but is still just Donald Glover doing his best impersonation. I get that it\u2019s not logical to cast the original actors in these roles, but for fans who grew up with them, there\u2019s a particular power from the nostalgia that\u2019s difficult to overcome.<\/p>\n

What also hampers\u00a0Solo<\/em>\u00a0is what I like to call the \u201cprequel checklist.\u201d Essentially, every reference that Han Solo made in the original\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0trilogy is packaged up and crammed into this film. From the Kessel Run to how he obtained the Millennium Falcon, each set piece is meant to explain something that had only been a passing mention almost 40 years ago. All this being said,\u00a0Solo<\/em>\u00a0is still a pretty fun film, filled with great visuals, a few original (and entertaining) characters, and a shocking reveal at the end. It\u2019s just that, if you went into this film with no knowledge of the source material, you\u2019d likely be very lost.<\/p>\n

An attempt to cash in on an iconic character\u2019s backstory, I give\u00a0Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/em>\u00a03.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solo: A Star Wars Story Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 135 minutes \/ 2.25 hours Most superhero franchises start with an origin story. Sure, sometimes the franchise gets to this foundational plot after its first set of films (a la\u00a0X-Men Origins: Wolverine\u00a0(2009)), but these movies are usually pretty rare. Unfortunately, they\u2019re also hampered by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,2],"tags":[1020,1433,1435,976,13,8,1434,1432,284],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-movie","tag-1020","tag-a-star-wars-story","tag-alden-ehrenreich","tag-harrison-ford","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-ron-howard","tag-solo","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}