Greedo and Jabba’s Excellent Adventures (in which they never shot first).
Didn’t X-Men Origins already show that plucking a popular character from successful movie series and showing their early days in a prequel, doesn’t excite people much?
You’re probably right. And I realize I’m being a bit glib. But if the movie had made a gazillion dollars he would have been given the lion-share of the credit, so I think it is fair that he gets a good deal of the blame for turning in Solo: A Sanitized Star Wars Story.
He came into a troubled production and made a basically competent movie. Yay. This movie should have been the Deadpool of the franchise, or at the very least the Guardians of the Galaxy. How they didn’t learn from the success of those movies, and then take an irreverent character and make an irreverent movie, is completely beyond me.
Look, there’s a reason the marketing campaign was short and bad. That is because they were not enthusiastic about the movie at all. They didn’t magically decide, “Eh. Let’s not really market this thing.” It was a simple cost-benefit analysis because they knew they basically had a dud on their hands.
Again, it’s competent, so maybe dud is too strong a word. But they should have gone for crazy. And Ron Howard ain’t bringing crazy.
-xtien
“I’m not the good kind. I’m definitely not the good kind. I’m terrible.”
You’re right, he needs to take some blame, though arguably he gave Disney / Kennedy exactly what they wanted. After their experiences with Miller & Lord, I figure they required something compentent and not crazy or “daring”.
Overall I’m pretty “meh” about the film, its fine, but pretty boring. I don’t like Emilia Clarke, Ehrenreich was ok, but felt rather bland. Chewie once again was great and I really hope he gets to do something in Ep9.
My biggest gripe really is the terrible choice in cinematography. Everything felt muddy and dark. Like the Half in the Bag guys, at times I was wondering if the projector in my cinema was broken or something, as everything was just black and I could hardly see any details in the images. (the RM guys talk about it here for about a minute - this video links to the moment where they talk about it)
I guess the team took the words dark & gritty waaaaay too literally!
Yes. I think that’s probably true. So the choice was bad and he took the job and delivered what they wanted on time. Which is no mean feat. Making a movie any size is difficult work, and to do it competently is to be admired.
I’m just saying, you get what you pay for. And that’s what they got. So I’m not just blaming Ron Howard, but the folks who decided to hire him to play it safe. I should have put it more that way, instead of just making a glib statement.
Yes. I’ve heard that said on another podcast as well.
-xtien
That’s one thing that finally clicked with me – hey wait, Han Solo is a complete smartass, so why is he being played as such a responsible and earnest type in Solo?
You mean, it’s not because the lead actor is the movie’s weakest link?
I’ve been trying to think who I’d cast there instead. I really love the way Clayne Crawford plays Martin Riggs on the “Lethal Weapon” series. I’d love somebody like him. Of course he can’t play the origin-story Solo because he’s forty, but somebody with that sense of humor and chaos. They went with an actor I really liked in the one movie I saw him in, but he just doesn’t have enough…I don’t know…Toshiro Mifune in him.
Maybe Anton Yelchin could’ve handled it, were he still alive.
-xtien
Fun fact, he was nearly cast as Obiwan. How awesome would that have been?
That’s a funny spelling of Ewan McGregor.
Well I mean, Ewan MacGregor would have been maybe five or six, but whatever floats your boat!
Wait. What?
-xtien
Oh, I thought you meant the guy who played Han in the new movie nearly was cast as Obi Wan for some solo movie. My bad.
Toshiro Mifune! He was considered for the role of Obi-wan! And Darth Vader too, apparently.
Maybe they should cast his daughter as Han.
Holy cats. I had no idea! I just thought his spirit/energy would work perfectly for the character when I said that, mainly because of Seven Samurai. Whoa.
-xtien
Unsurprising given that Lucas was assembling the Star Wars script out of various Kurosawa films. If you are at all interested, Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars goes through draft-by-draft identifying the elements that get locked in with each iteration.
There is a cheaper paperback version.
… And The Searchers, and Dam Busters and The Battle of Britain and The Wizard of Oz, and Casablanca (Han is Rick Blaine) etc. etc.
I just saw this last night and really enjoyed it. FWIW, I’m not a hard core Star Wars person and I thought that The Last Jedi was kind of boring. Solo was a lot of fun - a lightweight romp with some mostly-fun characters. Chewbacca was great - his best movie yet.
I don’t understand the hand wringing with Darth Maul. Why do people care about that? The only thing I wondered about it is whether they’re implying that Darth Maul turns into Snoke? or whatever that old guy’s name is in The Last Jedi.
They aren’t. I can 100% assure you they are not.
Maul is the antagonist, note I did not say villain, of season 3 Rebels. He is obsessed with Obi Wan, and wants to find him. He eventually does, they have a brief duel, which ends with him skewered and dead, and his dying words are basically ‘so is this boy the son of Skywalker, and can he stop the Emperor’. It’s a well done completion of his arc, as well as a lesson for Ezra in how revenge ruins a man.