Solo: Star Wars review- by Chris Stuckmann

Full text transcript of Solo: Star Wars review

It’s safe to say that Solo: Star Wars movie was one of, if not my most anticipated film of the year, I have lived and breathed Star Wars my entire life, ever since my dad sat me down with the original VHS tapes and made me watch the original trilogy. I have loved this thing since I was a little boy. I’ve played with the toys I have seen you guys know this. I love Star Wars. So naturally going to this film, I was on edge. I was trembling. My heart was beating. I was waiting to see just every little moment of this movie. I wanted to see how the very first ever Star Wars anthology film would open. Would they have a crawl or would they not have a crawl? What would they do differently with the score? What would the characters be like? How would everything wrap up? I’ve avoided all theories and speculation articles about this film. I have not read a single spoiler, which, by the way, this review will also be spoiler free. I will do a spoiler review for you guys later this weekend, but I’m trying to get the point across that I went into this film as a humongous fan, but also with an open mind who obviously knows what the majority of this film is going to be about. Because if you’ve seen episode for A New Hope, you know that Leah had Death Star plans. But how did these plans come into the hands of the rebels? And that’s where this movie comes into play. The character Jen Urso, portrayed by Felicity Jones and a team of rebels go out on a very small mission to attempt to retrieve these Death Star plans and hopefully turn the tide in the battle against the empire.

Let’s start with the pros first. I really like the fact that this was a grounded, realistic Star Wars movie. It was sort of like a very fun action film that takes place in the Star Wars universe. It feels suitably small scale, despite its massive budget and incredible special effects, despite the fact that they’re traveling all over the galaxy. To many planets, there was something that felt more contained about this movie, which was refreshing. The film also features gorgeous action, set pieces with mind blowing, really good CGI. And I’m talking about the space stuff, the ship to ship battles, the stuff on the beach battle that we’re all very excited to see. The CG here is virtually flawless. It is so well imprinted within this film that it feels completely seamless with the human characters. And there’s a lot of sequences, especially within the beach battle, where you see the walking around and it’s often shown from the perspective of the humans on the ground. And so you get a way of relating to it. And it also depicts the size very well, which is something that Gareth Edwards, who directed this film, did a really good job in with Godzilla making him look gigantic. You really felt the size of that creature in that movie. And you feel that with a lot of the CGI in this film, it’s very well incorporated with the people that are on the ground. The performances are all almost uniformly great. Felicity Jones is terrific. Diego is very good. Riz Med is great. In regards to the new characters that are in this film, I would say that Donnie Yen and Kata ESO the Droid are my favorite new additions to the Star Wars universe.

I thought Donelan was a complete badass in this movie. All of his fight scenes were really cool and I liked his character. There was a lot of good humor there. And speaking of humor, Katou Ezo is by far the shining example of it in this film. He has so many great lines. He’s such a fun and likable character. He’s easily my favorite part of this movie. In regards to the characters, I also appreciated the brief callbacks and references to other Star Wars films. They’re there, but they’re not overpowering. The film is wise enough to trust its own story and be fun in its own right. Well, not relying too much on things of the past that we appreciate, but they’re there in small doses. And if you pick up on some of them, it’s going to make the experience more entertaining for you. The aesthetics of the film are also beautiful. The production design feels used dirty, lived in the type of Star Wars. We like to see that sort of dirty, futuristic world where it feels tangible and real. And I love the prop creatures as well that were on display. A lot of really fun stuff. They’re also this film puts to rest a decades long complaint with Star Wars fans. I can’t say what it is. And so I talk about it in the spoiler video. But this film addresses a very specific complaint that many people have had with the Star Wars universe. And it did it in a very emotionally satisfying way.

And let’s talk about a certain character named Darth Vader that we all know is in this movie. He has an incredibly awesome scene, an extremely satisfying scene that gave me goosebumps.

It is great. It is great.

Which leads me into my negatives, because this film is not perfect, Roeg One, I think is an enjoyable film. I do not think it’s a great film. To be honest, I left the theater a little underwhelmed. I was kind of disappointed, mainly with the characterization. Jin Urso is really the only character that we’re given a reason to root for or care about. The majority of the other characters are set up in a very sloppy fashion for the first act of this film. There are aspects of the first act that did feel messy. This film underwent extensive reshoots. This was very well publicized. A lot of people were concerned about that. And it does show there’s an intriguing friendship set up between Donegan’s character and when Zhang’s character. But there’s never a reason given for why they’re friends. We actually learn nothing zero about either of those characters. They’re just funny. And the script has some good lines for them. And they felt unfortunately safe. There just wasn’t anything there beyond the let’s make some funny jokes. And I liked Donnie Yen because he’s the bad ass side character. He can be that cool character who comes in and kicks ass and you’re like, yeah, you’re cool. And also can be that cool droid character who comes in and tells jokes. And you’re like, yeah, you’re funny, but there isn’t much else to them. The characters that really needed focus like Diego Luna, except for one real outburst that he has, we learned nothing about him either. Instead of more characterization being given to these characters and more reasons for us to care about them, we get strange out of place scenes like a mind reading tentacle monster.

I don’t really know why that was in the movie. Forest Whitaker is an actor that I really like. His character in the film is based off of a character who appears in the Clone Wars animated show. His voice in this film, I can tell you, is probably going to polarise a lot of people. My best way to describe it would be if someone stepped on my throat right now and I just start talking like this all the time, like, that’s I’m not exaggerating. That’s really what he talks like. And after a while, I was just kind of like, I don’t know about that either. There’s a character in this film that is full CGI. It’s a motion capture face. It is something that had to be in this film. I expected it. I figured it would be involved in some way. I just didn’t think it would get as much screen time as it did. And it was very distracting. Which leads me to Darth Vader. Now, Darth Vader is one of my favorite characters of all time. In fact, I think if you went out in public and polled, say, a thousand people who the greatest movie villain of all time was, I bet you Darth Vader would be at least number two and probably number one.

He’s amazing.

Darth Vader is like the greatest person ever. I love Darth Vader is what I’m trying to say. So the fact that Darth Vader is in this movie, I went into the theater like, oh, my gosh, I’m about to hear James Earl Jones talking as Darth Vader. And he’s in the movie for about four minutes maybe. Look, I enjoyed the newest Godzilla film, which was also directed by Gareth Edwards, but I think the majority of people wanted more of Godzilla when they left that film because Gareth Edwards, for whatever reason, was like, hey, I’m making a movie with Godzilla, let’s just not show him.

And for whatever reason, again, we have a film that has Darth Vader you’d like. He literally has the opportunity to show Darth Vader for this entire film and he chooses to show him like a couple times.

Why and I know what you’re thinking, well, you’re just being a fanboy for Star Wars and you want everything to be old, like the way it was, you don’t want anything new. I loved The Force Awakens and I went into The Force Awakens expecting Luke Skywalker to be in the film. And if you’ve seen Force Awakens, you know, it’s not really the case. He is in there, but not really. And I loved it. Why? Because I loved the characters. Ray Fin, Po, Han Solo, great characters kept me invested. Kylo Ren. I love Kylo Ren. These characters kept me invested in this story. There isn’t a character in row one that I like more than Darth Vader, especially Kronick, portrayed by Ben Mendelsohn, who is suitably over-the-top and I enjoyed his work in this film. But as a character and as a villain, he just does not stand up to Darth Vader. So I constantly I’m like, where’s Vader? Let’s get some more of that, because the other characters in the film aren’t as cool or interesting. And there’s nothing really to them to make me more invested in them. Like I was invested in the characters and Force Awakens because when I left Force Awakens, I was like, I actually don’t mind that Luke wasn’t in that movie because there are other characters are great. I don’t have that feeling with Rogue one, which is why I wanted more of Darth Vader, which brings me to that CG character, which I’ll talk about in the spoiler video.

The majority of his scenes, I was like, you could just have Vader be in those scenes, like, I don’t need this motion capture guy. I just have Vader do this stuff. I understand that you need this specific character to be in the film because he’s integral to this whole story. Have him being like one scene. I figured he’d be like in one scene, but he was in like five or six and for whatever reason, Vader was in literally two. And I’m like, I need more. Please, to be completely honest, if you told me that the reshoots that were done for Rogue One were to add the character of Darth Vader to this film, I’d say that makes perfect sense. That’s how little he’s actually in the movie. Full disclosure, my biggest issue with Rogue one is that nothing surprises me now. I did not read a single Internet article about speculation, theories or spoilers. I stay away from all of that because I’m not really a fan of that, because it’s like, oh, this could happen. This could happen to me. Maybe Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker. What if that was true? Wow, that would be weird, seriously. But still having read none of that information, nothing in rogue one took me off guard, nothing surprise me. There wasn’t a single moment where I was like, wow, I didn’t expect that save for that. One thing that I told you addressed a flaw with the Star Wars universe that people have complained about for years. That was the one thing where I was like, that’s awesome. I love that. Other than that, everything basically played out the way I expected it to, except for the fact that I thought there’d be a lot more Vader. I know you’re thinking. You’re thinking, man, he really hates Ragavan. Actually, no, I enjoyed watching this movie. I think it’s good.

It’s just that when you are a giant Star Wars fan, when Star Wars is special to you, when it means something to you, when it has impacted your life in an emotional way, positively. The things that aren’t great about the Star Wars films are going to stick out to you and they’re going to hit you on a deeper level than I think most. And so that’s one of the reasons why you get such rage over the prequels and the fact that people flipped out that Force Awakens was similar to a new hope because we expect so much out of these movies and that’s not wrong. But at the same time, I must reiterate that I did enjoy Roeg One and I want to see it again. I thought it was a terrifically exciting and fun action movie, but as a Star Wars film, I expected more out of one very specific thing.

The thing that makes me want to watch Star Wars over and over and over and the thing that’s going to make me show Star Wars to anyone I’ve ever met or future children if I do have them.

The characters, the characters of Star Wars are what keep us all watching it and the characters in Rogue One Let Me Down, there wasn’t a sense of urgency or intensity with them. They were just funny and likable. And Jin Urso did have a background and there were reasons to care. But I wanted more from characters because as a huge Star Wars fan, that’s what keeps me coming back. And not the space battles, not États, not Darth Vader’s light saber. It’s the characters. It’s the fact that I would like to go to the cantina and have a drink with Han Solo. That’s what makes me want to watch Star Wars. The action sequences are amazing and so on, and it is definitely worth seeing. And I will buy the Blu ray. It is a very fun, exciting Star Wars movie, but the characters for me were lacking.

I’m going to give Rogue one a Star Wars story a B, as I said, guys, I will do an in-depth spoiler review very soon, discussing a lot more, which will be up this weekend. If you’ve never seen my other Star Wars reviews, I have reviewed every Star Wars movie, including the Clone Wars animated film and the holiday special, which, of course, we all know is the best movie ever made and know there’s going to be a link for that play list in just a second here if you want to check out those other videos. Also, stay tuned to my wife’s channel. In a few days, I’m going to have my initial reaction to the film. I filmed myself driving to the theater and leaving the theater. That’s going to be up on her channel soon. And if you missed my Shmo Down debut, the movie trivia show, I had a lot of fun going head to head with Jeff Snider, answering some cool movie trivia questions. There’s a link for that below. Please do check that out and send them some love. You guys are the best. I hope you enjoy Star Wars Road one as I did. I must reiterate, I enjoyed the film, but it’s not a perfect movie and I wasn’t going to sit here and act like it was just because I love Star Wars.

Thanks very much for watching, guys. And if you like this, you can click right here and get stuck Marni’s.