Genre Grandeur – Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) – Encore Review – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Anti-Hero Films, here’s a review of Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) by me

Thanks again to Dell of Dell on Movies for choosing this month’s genre.

Next month’s Genre has been chosen by Tony of Coog’s Reviews and it is Political Thrillers.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of June by sending them to polithrilltony@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Tony!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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“If you come with us, you’re in this life for good. ” – Tobias Beckett

Number of Times Seen – 2 (24 May 2018 and 30 May 2018)

Link to original review – Here

Brief Synopsis – A young orphan living in poverty tries to find a way to escape the life of a scrounger and take to the stars.

My Take on it – When Dell chose the theme of anti-heroes for this month’s GG, I had a big problem.

There were too many choices of such great examples and I knew that I still needed to limit myself, so I ended up choosing 5 diverse choices in different kinds of films in order to help emphasize how important such roles are because anti-heroes aren’t always the easiest to spot.

For my final choice, I went with the best anti-hero in movie history; Han Solo.

When we are first introduced to him in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), hes a pilot and a smuggler who is hired by the good guys to fly them across the galaxy.

Within 5 minutes of meeting him tho, he is confronted by a bounty hunter who he shoots first before Greedo has a chance to kill him. (I’m ignoring the fact that they changed that in the Special edition).

This right away tells us so much about who he is as a character and we get to see how he changes over the next 3 films once he finds a cause.

But what about beforehand?

What made him the kind of person that he became?

That’s a question that many of us have been asking for 40 years and now that his “origin” story ha been released, we have some answers.

I have always been a HUGE fan of Han Solo and have been anxiously awaiting the release of this film ever since it was first announced even with the many production problems that have occurred over the production of the film.

I even chose to go see it a second time in the theater just to try and catch things that I may have missed the first time on the big screen and enjoyed it even more the second time.

LOve dthe way that they show us so many of the characteristic of the character from the trilogy and how they perhaps affected him in his lifetime.

I wanna try to keep this spoiler free but here is a short list of things shown without a full explanation of how:

Dice, gun, bandoliers, introduction to Chewbacca and the nickname, kid, his cocky attitude, Lando Calrissian, The diguise used at Jabba’s palace, thermal detonator, holographic chess, Wookies ripping off arms, Millennium Falcon smuggling pits, the way Han and Lando hug and of course learning how important it is to shoot first.

In a future review, I’ll add spoilers and explain some of those situations.

It sound like the correlate too many of Han’s future actions with his past, but it works really well in helping us see how Han’s personality and characteristic were formed based on his experiences in life.

Loved the way that the music in this film is a merging of the Star Wars themes that we already know with new variations of it.

The use of The Imperial March for recruitment commercials is a genius idea.

Alden Ehrenreich is quite good in the title role and all those who dismiss him for not being Harrison Ford need to realize that they will never be able to find a doppelganger and we should be happy with someone who does a nice impression of the Solo we know but still adds his own voice to it.

The story is great and it dives right in which allows us to get to know the characters quite well as the story moves along.

Great supporting characters and cast help keep things very interesting and thrilling the whole time.

Loved the way that they add so many twists and turns along the way and still leave so much room for future installments of the Han Solo storyline open for us to explore in the coming years.

As of now, this film will be quite high on my to ten of 2018 and I assume that it will rise even higher when I see this film a few more times before the year is out.

Bottom Line – Great addition to the “new” Star Wars canon that helps us understand how and why Han Solo became the kind of character we know his as in the original trilogy.  They explore some very dark places in his past and explain to us how he got many of his quirks and characteristics that helped mold later in life. The story works really well and is so much fun to take in. The special effects are superbly done and they are able to make the technology look like it did in the prequels and the original film without compromising on the effects and technology that has advanced since then.  Great music that blends the Star Wars music we know with other elements. Great story that gives us interesting characters along with lots of thrills along the way. Can’t wait to see this again. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia –  Han’s entry into the Imperial military mirrors James T. Kirk’s entry into Starfleet in the new “Kelvin continuity” Star Trek: both grow up in an area where ships for the fleet are constructed, both enter their respective academies after an adolescence marked by petty crime, and both vow to become exceptional pilots. The similarities end there, as three years after his enlisting Kirk becomes a starship captain while three years after his enlisting Han has flunked out of the academy and is relegated to being a “grunt” in the Imperial infantry. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10) (no change from original review)

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