Han Solo Anthology Film - "Solo: A Star Wars Story"*

You know, I thought L3 was a funny and clever idea: an obnoxious pilot/navigation robot that also has amorous capabilities.

It's a standard "Blame Game" thing at studios that when a big picture fails, they blame the marketing guys and everybody gets fired. Some of that happened at Warner Bros. when Batman vs. Superman and Justice League didn't do too well, and yet the same marketing people handled Wonder Woman... and that movie went through the roof.

 

Apology accepted, no worries. I was lazy and hit reply and not quote on that post. But again, I know some racist people who don't identify as alt-right, and vice versa. Anyways, enough of this back and forth. I have a feeling we'd be able to get our points across better over a beer or something rather than on a message board!

I still think that if you sign up to be part of or star in a film franchise like SW though that you should be ready for all sorts of fan backlash. That doesn't make it right, and those kinds of people are certainly d**ks, but I think it comes with the territory.

 

The marketing folks DID have two high-profile goofs with Solo-- the original character posters that brazenly plagiarized some Sony LP comps, and then the brouhaha over international posters sans blasters.

How much of that played into Solo's actual BO performance is beyond me.

 

Honestly, I think that would've been awful - how could they put Harrison Ford in the movie as a different character?

The only way they could've feasibly used Ford would be to do the "Young Indiana Jones" thing and have him intro the film as part of his "reminiscences". And that would've been weird, too, since the character's now dead!

 

I doubt there will be a Solo sequel too, but I would be up for seeing one. I can't believe they're really considering a Boba Fett movie. Like you say, he's just some guy in armor. What's intriguing there? He's a complete blank slate. Yeah, I know we saw his dad and young Boba in the prequels. That certainly didn't' make the character seem intriguing. to where I want more.

As for the characters we know, I think there would only be interest in a young Obi-Wan (which we already got in the prequels) and a young Leia.

I'd be up for something with Darth Maul, and I loved seeing him at the end of Solo. Too bad there isn't likely to be any more of this story.

 

Didn't they try this with the Young Indiana Jones series? A framing device where an elderly Indy tells the kiddies about the adventures of his youth? I didn't think that worked too well, IIRC.

 

Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues. I loved it! I was a huge fan of the short-lived series and movies. I enjoyed them as much as the theatrical movies. Great fun!

 

I would have been all about a Boba Fett movie until the prequels so lamely ruined that for me.

 

I guess I'll never get that "The Last Days of TK-421" film I'd been hoping for.

 

They could easily use that cameo as a launching point for an Obiwan standalone movie as well. Set after the Solo film, but before IV.

 

You know what may have worked? A framing sequence as a prologue and epilogue. One of the biggest complaints of TFA and TLJ is that they really didn't have any time to mourn Han and one of the complaints I've heard of this one is that it doesn't tie in to the sequels trilogy in any way. So, have the film open with a sort of wake for Han set shortly after the events of TLJ with a few characters from the last two movies (maybe a Finn and Poe cameo, R2D2, C3PO a few others) holding court with Chewie...and Lando Calrissian played by Billy Dee Williams. When it starts they are all sharing stories about Han...and then Finn asks Chewie and Lando how they met Han...and then Chewie and Lando start telling the story. Sort of like the introductions of the young Indiana Jones show. It would have been a nice way to work in a surprise Billy Dee cameo while sorta kinda making it consequentual to the sequels in a tenuous way.

 

It would've been better with Carrie Fisher in the intro, but that ain't gonna happen.

 

Personally I thought Kasdan’s script for TFA was one of the very best parts of it. I absolutely believed the returning characters would talk the way that they do (Han & Leia’s reunion scene especially), the new characters instantly felt familiar and given that I beliveve the whole ‘pattern everything after ANH’ skeleton of the plot was something that came from Disney rather than Kasdan, that he did a fantastic job in making it all feel organic. This is the guy who managed to make set pieces in Raiders and Empire feel like an organic part of the story, rather than something the plot stitches together then stops to allow the set pieces to happen.

When it comes to Solo, I’m of the opinion that not even someone with Kasdan’s writerly powers could make the bullet point requirements work. If he’d been given freer reign and less corporate restrictions, the story and script could well have been better.

I may well have a different opinion once I’ve read JW Rinzler’s Making of the Empire Strikes back, but for the moment I don’t believe Lawrence Kasdan’s writing itself is a significant factor in Solo’s reception.

Is TYIJC worth seeking out? I remember them coming out way back when. Whilst I wasn’t expecting Weekly-Raiders-For-TV, I only saw one or two eps and remember them as being stiff, ham fisted history lessons dressed up as drama. Having enjoyed one of Rob MacGregor’s IJ tie-in novels (for what it was), I’ve occasionally thought about getting hold of a DVD set to watch.

 

The problem is that these large "social" media companies are all funded and run by Ayn Randian hypocrites who are all in favor of a complete free-for-all, except in their own gated communities. So you aren't going to see any sensible controls or standards of decency. Although I wouldn't be surprised if someday a mob that self-organizes on their platforms shows up at their gate, rips it down, and makes them victims of their own bankrupt philosophy. History is replete with clueless elites hoisted on their own petards.

 

After the runaway success of Black Panther, nobody in Hollywood gives two craps about these basement dwellers. Hollywood is a lot more concerned about cracking the Chinese market - especially since the Chinese are likely to buy a Hollywood studio at some point in the next decade. Expect to see far more Asians in mainstream American flicks going forward, including more leads.

 

I think it would be tricky to write - how do you squeeze a middle-aged Obi Wan film in between the last prequel and A New Hope? But conversely, we know little about that period before Rogue One, so it opens up a galaxy of possibilities. And he's a great actor, so there's plenty for the filmmakers to work with there.

 

He didn't fare any better because it all got too convoluted, and because the original Alien was very much a team effort. Who they should have brought back to revive the Alien franchise was Cameron. He's actually smart enough to pull that off on his own. But he's busy filming 50 Avatars or whatever, so...

 

I think an Obi-Wan Kenobi standalone would be a safer bet. I've seen a lot more fans wanting that than a Boba Fett standalone... but it doesn't seem as though Kathleen Kennedy is too concerned about what fans think or want. Or at least, not as concerned as she ought to be.

 

Honestly, I have no idea how I would feel about it now. I loved it at the time, but I started streaming an episode on Amazon Prime awhile back and shut it off after a few minutes. This was one of the episodes with the child actor. I enjoyed the episodes with Sean Patrick Flannery back in the early 90s, but as much as I enjoyed the series back then, I wasn’t enthralled by the episodes with the much younger child actor. I suspect that that was the general vibe among the few viewers who bothered to tune in to the short-lived series, as the episodes with the child actor were quickly dropped in favor of the Sean Patrick Flannery episodes.

 

To think that Chinese/Asian actor/character in a Hollywood movie would help for a better box office in China is a delusion, IMO. I don’t think that Chinese in general are having this complex, they actually love to be entertained by white actors, musicians etc., and I don’t think that they expect from Hollywood to mechanically and artificially typecast Asian characters in order to appeal more to them (I even think that this is a bit offensive). They have enough local production and celebrities, so they don’t need or expect from a foreign movie to “cleverly” implement Asians, especially when it’s obvious that those characters don’t serve any other purpose except to supposedly appeal to certain ethnicity. When you check the biggest Hollywood box office successes in China you will see that there are not many (if any) Asian/Chinese actors in them.

 

Wow I didn’t think this was actually making headlines but thought it was just talk between the fans of Star Wars.

Don't fire Kathleen Kennedy over Solo

 

I think she needs to go. The Star Wars franchise is more important than her being in that job. Solo has been a disaster. On top of that, the whole social justice agenda is a bit much.
When the bad guys are almost all white males in these movies, and the good guys are diverse, that's bringing your agenda into the movies (which are supposed to be escapism) a bit too much, and in the wrong kind of ways. There ought to be diversity on both sides, and it shouldn't appear forced.

 

Yes, they did - which is why I referred to it as "doing the 'Young Indiana Jones' thing"...

 

I'll be going to see it on Fri.
I would go today, but.... I'm seeing "Deadpool 2" first!

 

Sorry, replied in haste. Pay no attention...