"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

It still comes down to the quality of the story. Years ago, I read the Han Solo Trilogy. The novels told Solo's story from when he was a child right up to the moment he met Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. I enjoyed it enough that I've read it multiple times, though not for years. It had his first meeting with Chewbacca and Lando and his acquisition of the Millenium Falcon. I'm sure Solo steals some story beats from it. It was a good story, so it worked.

 

I think what they need to do is set the standalone movies in the Star Wars universe, but tell new stories—that's the thrill they offer. You can do something totally different, that doesn't have to fit into the larger story of Star Wars. For instance, Solo starts on Corellia, the shipbuilding planet. I've talked before how I wanted to write a script set in the docks when the Falcon was being built. There's a line in Solo about a character's father building the ship and wanting to be a pilot but never getting the chance. Now that is the movie I want to see. The Star Wars standalones could take on entirely different tenors from the main story. They could be small. They could be quiet. The could win Oscars for something other than special effects.

 

I’ve always found “origin stories,” especially of already fleshed out characters, to be largely a pointless money grab.

 

Given that they are planning movies with Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, it sure looks like they just want to go the money-grabbing route. Maybe Solo not doing well could change the plan.

 

I kind of hope so. I also think they'd be better served by filling in gaps of the timeline, a la Rogue One, vs. doing origin stories, if they must have some sort of tie-in to established, existing IP with all of the new movies. I don't think Shadows of the Empire is canon anymore, but that would have been an easy, LucasArts-developed project to do. (I'm also surprised they haven't done Knights of the Old Republic, since it is set 10,000 years before the first trilogy IIRC.)

 

And when he's not working at the docks, Solo's dad -- a former mid-level military officer -- is making spare money playing the Mandalorian mandolin in a band (CAMEO ALERT: It's the guys from the Mos Eisley Cantina band). The other band members want him to tour the galaxy with them, but he makes the agonizing choice to stay on Corellia, give up his dreams of being a musician, and work at the docks to provide a stable income for young Han.
Coming in June 2022 and starring Nic Cage as Papa Solo, it's "A Star Wars Story: The Corellian Captain's Mandolin."

I'll show myself out.

 

This is the nerdiest post in the history of this site, which, considering we're a bunch of D&D playing virgins living in basements and by-the-month motels, is really saying something. Congratulations.

 

Then I got Jyn Erso pregnant
And that put it all to rest
And for my 19th birthday
Got a union card and a wedding vest...

 

Watched The Last Jedi again on a flight home from England. Have some conflicted thoughts...

Still not sure how I feel about the biggest plot hole in the whole thing: How does Benicio del Toro's character know about the plan to escape on the transports that are supposed to be hidden with the cloaking device? He doesn't. In fact, there is no way he should know about this since Rose and Finn don't know about this. The whole point of hiring a master code breaker was so that they could disable the tracking device from the main ship, for six minutes, and the rebels could jump to hyperspace. Seeing as Poe didn't know about Leia's and Holdo's plan to escape on transport ships, I don't understand how Rose and Finn could have known, which means there is no way del Toro's character would have been like "Hey, First Order, [stutter stutter] if you let me go, I'll tell you that you should scan for cloaked ships!"

On some level, I do like that Rian Johnson set up the entire movie as a way to flip the Star Wars hero-saves-the-day trope on its head. All the hero shit essentially fails. Purposefully. The journey to Canto Blight was pointless because it's meant to be pointless. Sometimes the heroes don't save the day. And, to be honest, the way that Luke's character goes out is badass, just not heroic. The SW fanboys that are pissed off about Luke going out like he did are idiots. It was a great evolution of the character. He sacrificed himself while remaining true to who he'd become. Old and tired and full of regrets. He couldn't "face down the First Order with a laser sword" but he fooled them into thinking he could long enough for them to escape, which is keeping with the best part of who Luke was.

 

I remember when they first put the original Star Wars on HBO. It was in 1983, six years after the movie was first released in 1977. Actually, it as just a few months before the theatrical release of Return of the Jedi. It was a huge deal. HBO had related programming on for hours. I couldn't wait to see it again. I have lost count of how many times I've watched the original movies. I own them on DVD, but still find myself stopping to watch when they are on television. I understand part of that is nostalgia, but they also hold up to being watched over and over again.

Compare that to the new ones. I had The Force Awakens on my DVR and watched it once. The Last Jedi is now on Netflix and I haven't watched it yet. I just saw it the one time in the theater. My daughter has no interest in watching it again. Unlike me, she will see something she likes in the theater multiple times. We were talking the other day about how we want to see Infinity War again as soon as it is available on DVD.

It isn't the darkness of The Last Jedi that makes it less interesting to watch again. Infinity War is every bit as dark, perhaps moreso. It's not that the new ones are bad movies. I enjoyed both in the theater. But they just don't hold up like the originals.

 

I saw the new Sicario the other night, and looked up Benicio del Toro on imdb after, because I couldn't remember seeing him lately. I had completely forgotten that he was in The Last Jedi. That's a bad sign.

I need to watch it again, but right now, I feel like Rogue One was as good as any of the Star Wars movies except maybe Empire. I've only seen the prequels once, because Lord knows I hated them, but I would put Solo down there with them somewhere. I think Disney has to be really careful about the stories they choose to tell. The universe isn't good enough on its own. The plot really matters anymore.

 

That is absolutely true. I haven't even seen Solo yet and I should be a guaranteed audience for any Star Wars movie, especially one about Han Solo, by far my favorite character in that universe.