"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

I'm wondering if sci-fi/action movie fatigue is slowing it down a little. Infinity War and Deadpool are both still in theaters. Incredibles 2 is coming out soon. I get that the audiences for those movies aren't exactly the same, but plenty of folks would want to see all four. Count me among them.

Solo is the one I chose not to see opening weekend. Part of that was higher expectations for the others, but the larger part is that I simply cared the least about having Solo spoiled for me because so many results were a given going in. Sure, there is one significant surprise that I already heard about and I'd prefer that I hadn't already heard what it was, but it doesn't really ruin the movie for me.

 

I have a theory about why Solo didn't do well, and it dovetails with why I think the Top Gun remake won't do well (relatively speaking; compared to expectations and projections, etc):

The youth of today doesn't give a shit about our circle jerk nostalgia culture.

Han Solo was cool in the 70s and 80s and yet no one under 30 thinks he's that cool now. This is, in part, because Han Solo became the archetype for 100 other roguish characters, in other films and franchises. So whatever coolness Harrison Ford and Lucas (and his wife, who wrote many of his funny lines) instilled in the character no longer seems like anything original.

You still get people 30-and-up interested in seeing a stand alone film about his origins, but a lot of kids today just don't give a shit. They have very little emotional attachment to him. So you get decent numbers for a film, but nothing great. The same will be true of Indiana Jones, Maverick and Ice Man, etc.

I saw Solo and the film was fine. I enjoyed it. It tugged at my nostalgia strings when he and Chewie got to fly the Falcon for the first time.

 

Could it be that people liked Harrison Ford the actor more than Han Solo the character?

 

I think you are underestimating how many people under 30 love Star Wars.

 

I’m not.

 

You really are. At the very least, you were engaging in some serious hyperbole when you wrote that nobody under 30 thinks he's cool now.

There are plenty of other reasons for Solo to disappoint. The word of mouth was bad for a long time. There were production issues. There is the problem of having somebody other than Harrison Ford play the character. There is the knowledge going in that Han, Chewbacca and Lando all have to survive. There are two other science fiction blockbusters still in theaters with Infinity War and Deadpool 2.

 

My suspicion would be that it is a combination of all of these factors way more than it is a young audience being unable to connect with an idolized character from the 80s.

 

That's exactly how I would describe it. Saw it today with my kids. I think there were stretches where they were bored. The built-in limitations of these movies present a serious problem: They are predictable in a lot of ways. We know who's going to live and who's going to disappear. We know he's going to do the Kessel Run. We know he's going to beat Lando in a card game. There's something a little paint-by-numbers about it.

I think one of the reasons I loved Rogue One was the mystery of it, the openness of it. Solo felt constrained. Easter eggs masquerading as a plot.

 

That's all true, though it is also often true of movies made from books. They could have left the Kessel Run or the card game with Lando out, setting those up while focusing on other aspects of his backstory.

Of course, this is also why movies or television shows based on books often change key points, to create some mystery for the people in the audience who already know the story.

Some things had to happen in Rogue One as well. I know they considered having some or all of the crew live, but that would have left some challenging questions regarding where the hell they went during the original trilogy.

 

That’s why I think the next Solo movie (assuming there is one) can be a lot better. Origin stories have to follow a storyline. The next one can go any direction.

 

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Except that eventually he needs to end up on Tattoine, dicking over Jabba.

I’ve had enough prequels. Han can never die in them, nor can Chewie, nor can Lando, so there are limits to what stories can be told and what tension can be maintained.

 

Generally agree. Though I think there are some untold stories, at least to me, on how he gets there. We shall see.