Solo, general thoughts
Jun. 4th, 2018 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOverall, it was quite fun, I enjoyed many parts of it, but I wanted a lot more of the parts I liked, even if I didn't dislike the other parts.
I enjoyed the first ten minutes or so, even if it was a bit all over the place, it felt like things were happening, and we were seeing Han's life in ways we didn't know in advance what was going to happen.
I enjoyed the lando cloaks, the gambling scenes, the droid rebellion bits, but I wanted lots more of all of that!
Rachel Manija helpfully summarises all the things that were bad about it, and I agree; I didn't dislike them as much as she did, but I agree, I wanted less of that. The dimness didn't bother me as much as some people, but it wasn't a positive either.
I was pleased to see Paul Bethany, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davies and Donald Glover appearing in a major film. They all had roles I loved, and I'd hoped to see more of them even though I hadn't recently. And Mindy Kaling (from The Mindy Project) in Ocean's 8 trailer.
Funnily enough, my main observation was that I had almost no quibbles -- there were things which were mediocre, but almost nothing where I was like, "O M G how could they do that?" And apparently that didn't make a big difference to my enjoyment -- as I expected, my enjoyment seems to be "how many things I loved" a lot more often than "how many things I disliked" (the opposite being films which break a barrier of put-up-with-ness in me, when something is obnoxious enough, I stop loving it however many good things there are). And Solo was still, "fairly good, but not great". But the good bits were well worth seeing at least for me.
I'm sort of sad, it seems like the Kessel run was the FIRST big thing Han ever did, and apparently, judging by his appearance in ANH and TFA, the ONLY big thing he ever did other than the rebellion. I sort of assumed he might have built up to that a bit.
OK, there have to be SOME quibbles
Yes, yes, you're very ingenious coming up with a way to do the kessel run in a number of "parsecs". I don't care! Just ignore that and have him have flown it really fast! If you must, why not pretend that people sometimes sloppily say "parsecs" for "parsecs per minute" or something.
It's a shame that everything has to be about this galaxy-changing macguffinium, apparently Han was never, like, a normal smuggler?
I think I owe one of the extended universe books an apology. At the time, I reckoned that interstellar smuggling pretty much had to be "hiding illict goods in existing transports" because the overhead of shipping a dedicated ship full of contraband between planets was too much to make it even vaguely profitable, and if a planet policed its borders at all, it could barely fail to notice a whole starship, so the "tiny ship moving contraband covertly" model wouldn't make sense. So the plan of "get Han to persuade smugglers to ship legitimate cargos in return for money" is pointless, as smugglers will almost always ship legitimate cargos anyway whenever the renumeration is worth it. But apparently, that IS how it works in Starwars-verse *shrug*
OK, this isn't a quibble, but it's a good example how to do a gambling scene well even without explaining what game they're playing.
This also isn't a quibble, but there were some nice "look at the variety of life and planets in starwars" design.
And *this* isn't a quibble either, but I guess, seeing Han's life, I can maybe see why he didn't believe in Jedi, even if they were still busily council-ing when he was growing up.
I enjoyed the first ten minutes or so, even if it was a bit all over the place, it felt like things were happening, and we were seeing Han's life in ways we didn't know in advance what was going to happen.
I enjoyed the lando cloaks, the gambling scenes, the droid rebellion bits, but I wanted lots more of all of that!
Rachel Manija helpfully summarises all the things that were bad about it, and I agree; I didn't dislike them as much as she did, but I agree, I wanted less of that. The dimness didn't bother me as much as some people, but it wasn't a positive either.
I was pleased to see Paul Bethany, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davies and Donald Glover appearing in a major film. They all had roles I loved, and I'd hoped to see more of them even though I hadn't recently. And Mindy Kaling (from The Mindy Project) in Ocean's 8 trailer.
Funnily enough, my main observation was that I had almost no quibbles -- there were things which were mediocre, but almost nothing where I was like, "O M G how could they do that?" And apparently that didn't make a big difference to my enjoyment -- as I expected, my enjoyment seems to be "how many things I loved" a lot more often than "how many things I disliked" (the opposite being films which break a barrier of put-up-with-ness in me, when something is obnoxious enough, I stop loving it however many good things there are). And Solo was still, "fairly good, but not great". But the good bits were well worth seeing at least for me.
I'm sort of sad, it seems like the Kessel run was the FIRST big thing Han ever did, and apparently, judging by his appearance in ANH and TFA, the ONLY big thing he ever did other than the rebellion. I sort of assumed he might have built up to that a bit.
OK, there have to be SOME quibbles
Yes, yes, you're very ingenious coming up with a way to do the kessel run in a number of "parsecs". I don't care! Just ignore that and have him have flown it really fast! If you must, why not pretend that people sometimes sloppily say "parsecs" for "parsecs per minute" or something.
It's a shame that everything has to be about this galaxy-changing macguffinium, apparently Han was never, like, a normal smuggler?
I think I owe one of the extended universe books an apology. At the time, I reckoned that interstellar smuggling pretty much had to be "hiding illict goods in existing transports" because the overhead of shipping a dedicated ship full of contraband between planets was too much to make it even vaguely profitable, and if a planet policed its borders at all, it could barely fail to notice a whole starship, so the "tiny ship moving contraband covertly" model wouldn't make sense. So the plan of "get Han to persuade smugglers to ship legitimate cargos in return for money" is pointless, as smugglers will almost always ship legitimate cargos anyway whenever the renumeration is worth it. But apparently, that IS how it works in Starwars-verse *shrug*
OK, this isn't a quibble, but it's a good example how to do a gambling scene well even without explaining what game they're playing.
This also isn't a quibble, but there were some nice "look at the variety of life and planets in starwars" design.
And *this* isn't a quibble either, but I guess, seeing Han's life, I can maybe see why he didn't believe in Jedi, even if they were still busily council-ing when he was growing up.