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adamwatchesmovies · 5 years

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The Worst of 2018

Before we dig into my Worst of 2018 list, let’s make something clear. Making movies is hard. I may be criticizing people’s efforts but am fully aware that they’ve all accomplished far more than I have by making an actual movie. Even the worst film on this list is still a fully-functional production that someone somewhere might enjoy... theoretically at least. If you were somehow involved in anything made on this list, I know you can do better. With that said, I sat through all of these, some multiple times and suffered so it’s time for me to get my revenge. How many were on the list I made halfway through the year, and how many new entries have we got?

10. 2.0

I typically reserve my #10 spot for a movie so bad it’s good and 2.0 is just that. Part techno-horror, part supernatural thriller, part superhero adventure, part sci-fi action movie, it goes in all sorts of outrageous directions. This one’s a gem, a picture I’d like to bring home and show to my friends on our weekly movie nights to hear their screeches of disbelief. I had a blast with it but legitimately good? Nah.

9. Show Dogs

I have some affection for this film as well. It’s awful, even as low-grade children’s entertainment. The plot has no idea what it’s doing and can’t figure out its own rules. The special effects are dodgy, premise idiotic, and jokes bad. And yet, I treasure seeing it in theatres. Soon after its release, a specific scene stirred uproar within parents and critics alike. This prompted the studio to re-edit the film. The scene in question concerns Ludacris’ character, talking police dog Max getting ready for the dog show he needs to infiltrate in order to discover who has kidnapped a baby panda. His partner, FBI agent Frank Nicholas (Will Arnett) explains that part of the competition involves the dogs getting their genitals inspected by the judges. In real-life, it’s to ensure the animals are capable of breeding. Finding the idea of someone fondling his junk without his consent intolerable, Max is told to escape the situation by going to his “zen place”. I didn’t take offense to it but understand why others would. I doubt the scene is available in the home release’s deleted scenes menu so I count myself among the few who saw the original cut.

8. Selfie from Hell, Slenderman & Truth or Dare

I’m lumping these three together because they all suffer from the same problem. They were doomed from the start. “What if a game of Truth or Dare… was fatal?” What if you could only take 13 selfies before a supernatural entity came after you?”, “What if severe head trauma caused H.P. Lovecraft’s intelligence to plunge and he set “The Call of Cthulhu” in the 21st century?” seemed to have been the opening pitches for these would-be spookfests. None featured any scares or compelling characters. I doubt anyone will remember any of these by the time 2019 ends.

7. Robin Hood

Many of 2018's films ended by assuring us that more was yet to come. Robin Hood should've saved itself the embarrassment of being yet another aspiring franchise which failed to take off and been self-contained. It failed because it tried to be a superhero film when it should’ve simply been a movie about Robin Hood. This story by Ben Chandler steals so many ideas from Batman you almost forget to criticize the costumes, the impossible action sequences, and Jamie Foxx’s bad performance. It’s dripping with “tries too hard”.

6. Life of the Party

Boy does Melissa McCarthy need a new Agent. Her and Tiffany Haddish actually. Life of the Party is all-around lazy. It hardly has a plot. Instead, it throws one scene after another, praying something will stick. This film about a newly-divorced mother who goes back to college to reconnect with her daughter can’t even get its characters right. In some scenes, McCarthy’s Deanna is mousey and unable to give a speech to the class. In others, she’s such a partier she ends up wrecking everything for everyone around her. I hated the film’s conclusion worst of all, a deus-ex-machina of an ending which has nothing to do with anything and feels like it was hastily shot when director Ben Falcone and co-writer/spouse McCarthy realized the film they made wasn’t amounting to anything.

5. Fifty Shades Freed

Fifty Shades Darker was terrible. It began by immediately undoing the ending of the previous film but at least it was building up to something while introducing us its equivalent of the Legion of Doom, a trio of villains all of which would converge and attempt to ruin the relationship between Anastasia Steele, and Christian Grey… or not. This third and final chapter struggles to find something to do for the first three quarters and then suddenly introduces a thriller element before rapidly concluding it and showing us the end credits. The unrated version released on home video filled in a couple of holes (such as Kim Basinger’s disappearing character) but those holes shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Between the un-erotic sex scenes, we’re treated to lame melodrama and further proof this trilogy is completely oblivious to matters of love and relationship. Even if it had been well acted and gave fans some satisfaction by adequately tackling some of the bigger questions the series posed, it would’ve still been bad.

4. Venom

I didn’t want to listen to people who proclaimed Venom would never work. The character has appeared in solo adventures before. There’s nothing to say a talented writer couldn’t make one of Spider-Man’s most well-known archenemies work on his own. Or maybe not. This is an appallingly written film full of plot holes, vaguely defined powers, bad humor, and illogical actions. In many ways, it reminds you of films like Ghost Rider and Catwoman. In a way, it’s worse than either because everyone involved should’ve known better. Making its flaws doubly apparent is the film Upgrade, released earlier during the year. It essentially did what this film wanted to but better, funnier and more inventively. It’s extra funny that Upgrade features Logan Marshall-Green, who looks a lot like Tom Hardy, making the pair a perfect double feature if you like to compare bad movies with good ones and discuss them with friends.

3. A Wrinkle in Time and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

These Disney films, the first directed by Ava DuVernay and the second by a combined effort by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston, wanted to be empowering female-led fantasy adventures. A Wrinkle in Time is historic in that it’s the first $100 million+ film directed by a woman of color. This makes it extra disappointing because it’s awful. Both tales are filled with developments who inspire you to say “but I don’t care”. Overrelying on visual razzle-dazzle, neither of these had any substance whatsoever. I blame the writers, who took the original stories and tried to make them into something they weren’t. Much of AWiT could’ve worked if the story had kept some of its novels' Christian themes. Then the evil black cloud who does evil for evil’s sake would’ve simply been Satan and wouldn't have seemed nearly as lazy and underwhelming. By attempting to force The Nutcracker and the Mouse King into the same mould as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (another bad film), you robbed the ballet of any potential charm. In many ways, these are worse than most of the others on my list because you keep hoping something would turn around and because they’re not obviously bad, at least not at first. They fill you with false hope.

2. Life Itself

I should’ve known this Dan Fogelman creation was trouble from the advertisements, which built it up as this epic tale containing all of the universes’ deepest truths. I sat there aghast as one corny development followed another. This tries to be poetry in motion, this grandiose tale about the bonds which connect us and not one second works. It’s utterly ridiculous, so bad it might be funny except you’ll be bored by its nearly 2-hour running time.

The Runner ups:

Nobody’s Fool & Night School

Both featured Tiffany Haddish who is rapidly burning through any goodwill she might’ve earned with her breakout role in Girls Trip.

Holmes & Watson

Bad movie but it made me laugh more than the other films on this list

Book Club

A film I’m kicking myself for not being harder on when I first reviewed it but take comfort in the fact it seems to have dropped off the earth completely.

1. The 15:17 to Paris

Agonizingly dull, The 15:17 to Paris was well-intentioned. That doesn’t translate to “entertaining”. Most of this film’s 94 minutes are spent watching the real life Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos vacationing through Europe, periodically flashing back to the time when they met and were the real-life non-actors were played by equally bad child performers. I hated this flat slab of propaganda masquerading as entertainment so much after it was over I had to turn to the other people around me and ask them what we just saw.

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fuzz1912 · 6 years

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I’ve got an okay feeling about this

A fan’s review of SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.

(Spoilers ahoy, matey. Proceed with extreme caution. Running on extreme low sleep, so this will probably be updated over the next day or so.)

I’ve been pretty clear about the parameters for what I consider to be a good Star Wars film. My initial concern has been that they should at least be internally consistent, and consistent within (let alone respectful of) the established lore of the Star Wars universe. Beyond that, my mind also turns to whether or not it merely repeats what has come before or extends the universe in logical and interesting ways. Is there a need for this story to be told, or does it excessively rely on (or trivially extrapolate from) a known backstory? And finally, does it strike the right balance of humour and fan service while telling a decent story that stands on its own?

So, having been quite critical of Disney’s previous Star Wars releases on that basis, how does this latest instalment fare?

May the month of May be with you

There’s something right about Star Wars in May. Despite the attempts by all and sundry to turn a stupid dad joke into ‘Star Wars Day’ (May the Fourth - get it? No, Cinco de Quatro is much better), in fact the month of May has its own enduring significance for the franchise. Each of the original and prequel trilogy movies were released around the mid-May Memorial Day holiday. In the US, this means summer, when kids are on break and sitting in an air-conditioned cinema is preferable compared to just about anything else. For us on the other side of the world, it is on the cusp of winter, just as the weather really starts turning for the worse - the wind picks up, the chill sets in, and darkness falls before you know it.

It’s those memories of fighting to stay warm while making it to midnight on a dark, crisp winter’s night that have always accompanied first watching a new Star Wars film for me. For some entirely silly commercial reason, Disney has thus far eschewed the traditional May release window instead choosing December for its premieres, which has never felt right to me - December is for Christmas movies and Lords of the Ring, not Star Wars. So if nothing else, there’s some small satisfaction for me in being able to enjoy a new Star Wars movie for the first time again in the cold of May - perhaps its karma, but it feels like that’s translated to my reaction to this second anthology film.

Why make a movie about Han Solo?

Here is a character who is infamous for his intrigue. Many so-called fans criticise George Lucas for adding context to Star Wars where they believed none was necessary - see the “Han shot first” controversy (the real objection being that Greedo shot at all - which changes nothing about Han himself)(1) - in which case, why sacrifice the ultimate lamb and give him an origin story? That being said, I am loath to be too critical of the raison d’être for the ‘Star Wars Story anthology’ films (this and ROGUE ONE) - they have to date been somewhat respectful of Canon, made some generous nods to what is now ‘Legends’, and taken some interesting new directions in filling the gaps in the existing story. We don’t necessarily need them (much like we don’t need the Saga to continue an already concluded story), but that doesn’t mean they don’t have anything interesting to add to the stories we already love.

Back in the very early days of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (what would now be called ‘Legends’) there was a series of novellas by Brian Daley about a pre-Yavin Han Solo and his adventures with Chewbacca and (you guessed it) a couple of droids on the Millennium Falcon, as he tried to eke out a living as a white hat smuggler in the Empire-lite Corporate Sector.(2) They were some of the first EU books that I read, and simple though they were, I enjoyed them because they were episodic tales set in a different part of the world of Star Wars established by the films. They weren’t high stakes, and didn’t give Han Solo an origin or back story - they just gave a glimpse into some of the sort of swashbuckling adventures that we assumed the character we met in the Cantina Bar would have had.

This movie is nowhere near as light or insignificant as that - much like ROGUE ONE before it, it takes a throwaway line mentioned in the original film and turns it into a definitive origin story about how Han Solo became that guy who shot first.(3)

Now the story of a film that lost everything and the one director who had no choice but to bring it all together

From what little has been made public, this film has not had an easy gestation - even more so than ROGUE ONE, whose ending was completely changed (undoubtedly for the better). THE LEGO MOVIE directors were fired during the shoot due to “creative differences” with writer Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote the brilliant EMPIRE (but also the lackluster AWAKENS). Apparently their take was too humorous and not the sarcastic selfishness that characterises Han Solo - which I guess is a good thing considering how ridiculous the obvious jokes in the Disney ‘Saga’ films have been. Their replacement is none other than early Lucas protege and all-round pretty damn talented Ron Howard of Imagine Entertainment (not Orange County Imagine), whose voice is embedded in many of our heads thanks to his shoddy narration of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.(4)

Ron Howard reliably makes good movies. He might not have the most stylistic flair, he may not be the most innovative or creative, he may not use the most challenging source material, but it would be difficult to suggest that any of the movies he’s made are anything less than solidly watchable - and most of them have been, in their own way, pretty great. He now runs a director’s masterclass, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better teacher from whom to learn the craft.

George Lucas had offered Howard the opportunity to direct previoud Star Wars films over the years, but as with Lucas’s other bestie Steven Spielberg, Howard didn’t want to take the reigns from his longtime friend. Now that Lucas has rather foolishly handed the keys over to the Walt Disney Company, that reluctance seems to have diminished. I’ve been disappointed with the direction Disney has been leading the franchise enough times to have serious doubts about this film, but the one thing that kept me optimistic about it was that it was ultimately left to Howard to deliver the final product.

That faith was well placed - this was the first Star Wars film in some time that I really enjoyed.

“You’re the good guy”

The fundamental premise of the film appears to manifest itself in this line of dialogue that Qi’ra casually throws away towards the climax. This information will spoil the payoff of A NEW HOPE, just like knowing who Darth Vader is spoils the reveal in EMPIRE. But it’s nevertheless true to the core of the character of the Han Solo that we know and love - despite being a selfish cad and a scoundrel, he is a softy underneath.

Given the context above about the importance of the tone of the film, it would appear that the decision made by Lucasfilm to bring in Howard was on the money (though really, the question is why he wasn’t there from the start). Moments of over the top humour have been toned down (at least from what I can recall of one of the early trailers showing Han being interviewed to join the Imperial Academy). That’s not to say there aren’t any funny moments, but for the most part they feel earned and not simply played for easy laughs (like *ahem* Poe/Hux).

There are some call-backs in the dialogue to the original films that might go a little too far (L3: “They don’t even serve our kind here”), but they are mostly effective when they subvert our expectations (“I hate you”/“I know” and “I’ve got a GOOD feeling about this”) which is nice when the film itself is a giant call-back. On the other hand, there were a couple of lines of dialogue that strayed towards uncharacteristically real-world expletives - especially Han’s use of the phrase “Bantha crap”, when we all know the correct terminology is “poodoo”.

Visually the film was just as much of a treat as any Star Wars movie, exploring some new frontiers with the Maelstrom / Maw surrounding Kessel, as well as the WWI-style trench warfare and snow train hijacking scenes. What I loved about each of these was that they created new unfamiliar environments with their own mechanics that drove the plot and the plight of the characters, as Star Wars does at its best. The Kessel Run - in particular the climax with the Millennium Falcon trying to escape both a hideous space monster and a black hole / gravity well at the same time - was both spectacular and incredibly intense to watch, despite the fact that you know that the chracters you’re invested in are going to survive (and that the Falcom reliably has trouble making the jump to lightspeed). From that perspective, it far exceeded anything in the last couple of ‘Saga’ films (two hour long chases of fuel attrition, anyone?).

The music was serviceable and on par with, if not a little better than, Michael Giacchino’s score for ROGUE ONE. It was used effectively and enjoyable, with impactful use of the well-known themes and leitmotifs. While I wouldn’t have called it as memorable as John Williams at his best (he was only partially involved), it was adequate if not decent - and unlike the ‘Saga’ films, it didn’t have to be any more than that.

Finally, the performances were for the most part quite good. Alden Ehrenreich faced the near impossible task of stepping into Harrison Ford’s shoes to recreate one of cinema’s most iconic characters, and he did it pretty well. Rather than attempt to mimick or channel Ford’s trademark smirk or swagger (let alone be forced to undergo make up or CGI as was done rather poorly in ROGUE ONE), he simply stayed true to the character and made it his own. Within a few minutes, I was on board and completely accepted him in the role, made all the easier by not constantly being reminded of how Harrison Ford would have played it. To each of their credit, Howard and Ehrenreich have created a perfectly believable young Han Solo that stands on his own two feet, not in the shadow of a legend.

Similarly, Don Glover (aka Childish Gambino) perfectly captured Lando Calrissian and at no point did I feel like I missed another legend in Billy Dee Williams (though I feel like Glover may have had some prosthetic teeth put in). Having to portray the dashing Lando in his prime provided Glover with the opportunity to bring greater depth to the character than Williams, who pretty much just played himself. Woody Harrelson and Thandie Newton were both solid as far as their roles allowed them to be - as was Joonas Suotamo, for the first time reprising his role as Chewbacca (despite the subtleties of the Wookiee costume, not for a moment did I doubt it was the same character created by Peter Mayhew). Paul Bettany chewed the scenery as the slimy crime boss Dryden Vos. Wherever there is Bettany, Jon Favreau can’t be far behind, giving a short but charming life to the personable alien pilot Rio (bonus point for giving the universe a little more needed diversity). Also bringing her vocal talents to the fore was Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who created one of the more sympathetic droid personalities in L3. Perhaps the only slightly disappointing performance came from the otherwise brilliant Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra, through no real fault of her own - despite playing a duplicitous badass, she wasn’t given much meaningful to do.

“Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointed.”

The film is at its essence a heist movie, and a good one at that - it effectively uses the tropes of the genre, and though largely predictable it subverted them enough to keep me engaged the whole way through. The number of double crosses was just right enough to reflect that none of these characters were naive, but they all had their fundamental weaknesses.

I feel like Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan did a pretty decent job with the script. Having said that, while the plot overall was thrilling, the story itself was a little disjointed. Other than Han’s relationship with Qi’ra, there was no real thread that wove all the way through and connected the somewhat disparate few escalating heists that resulted in Han’s independence and acquisition of the Falcon. Perhaps that’s enough, given most of the second and third acts focused largely on the famous Kessel Run and its consequences - most amusingly, how the Falcon goes from Lando’s souped up, sleek hot rod, into the bucket of bolts we’re introduced to in A NEW HOPE.

The side plots involving the competing crime syndicates and the mysterious motivations of the marauders weren’t particularly compelling until they each revealed their secrets towards the conclusion - but they did an effective job of believable world building, and setting up things that we already know will follow (like the Rebellion). However, the ‘droid rights’ concept inspired by the new character of L3 seemed a little underdeveloped and out of place.(5) It actually reminded me more of Hermione Granger’s Elf welfare from Harry Potter mixed with Korg’s ‘revolution’ from Thor Ragnarok, though I’d love to see the idea more fully explored within the Star Wars universe.

The film introduced the concept of ‘hyperfuel’ (also known as coaxium) as the primary MacGuffin for driving the plotting of the heists. This acted as a deus ex machina at several points with some interesting results in the execution of the Kessel Run itself (Where were the spice mines by the way? Was Disney afraid of being sued by the estate of Frank Herbert?). While fine in isolation to this movie, this did also feel a little bit on the nose given the central role fuel bizarrely played in the plot of the last ‘Saga’ film (not to mention the ongoing focus on Han’s lucky gold dice, which was overplayed in that film and introduced here as if they were far more significant to Han’s established identity than they actually are).

But there was one final touch to the plot that got the kind of ecstatic reaction out of me that I haven’t felt in years - it genuinely shocked and thrilled me, but more on that later.

“I’m putting together a crew? Are you in?”

A good heist requires the building of a good crew that brings a variety of talents to the table. To be frank, the actual Kessel Run heist in this film itself was somewhat anticlimactic. Other than the diversion created by L3 and the subsequent fire fight, the stakes involved in boosting the coaxium from Kessel were not particularly high. On the other hand, the escape and ensuing ‘Run’,(6) as well as the inevitable series of double-crosses and competing moral and selfish imperatives after pulling it off, were full of thrills and gave the characters an opportunity to really shine through - and this was nothing if not a character piece.

The Anti-Hero: The eponymous Han Solo. Well, this is his movie, you can hardly expect us not to start with Han - who is for the first time the sole protagonist of a film. As this is an origin story, he’s not going to be leader of this pack, but he’s hopefully going to show us why he will be when he meets the Skywalker family. Despite a stray reference to his father being a shipbuilder on Corellia, we never get Han’s true family name or any other indication of his lineage; he was dubbed ‘Solo’ by the Imperial recruiter quite literally for being on his own.(7) We meet him as a street kid with a conscience and a mouth - who’ll happily point out to a superior officer in his company that they are themselves the hostiles, not the natives of the planet they’re invading for the glory of the Empire. Much like his father-in-law before him, he starts off idealistic and a little bit twee in his oft-repeated desire to become the best pilot in the galaxy (the title actually held by said future father-in-law). Also like Anakin Skywalker in PHANTOM MENACE, we don’t actually get to see a lot of those skills before he slips into the role; Anakin at least was a Force-sensitive pod racing child (let alone the Chosen One), but other than the pretty nice speeder chase opening the movie its’s not until the Kessel Run itself that we actually see Solo’s exceptional skills. Han in this film is very much driven by the loss of Qi’ra right at the start, and his quest throughout is to first find her and then win her back. Having seen his cynicism while Luke is under Obi-Wan’s tutelage, it’s a nice change to see him as the earnest student trying to learn the game from his own mentor, the master con-thief Tobias Beckett. He slots easily into the role of rogue, deserter and mercenary, and through Beckett and his crew he also learns never to trust anyone but himself - with one notable exception. And the fact that exception exists, is also why underneath all that bravado, Han truly is still the good guy - when given a choice between a quick score or the greater good, he chooses the latter. Han may start off street smart but somewhat naive, but by the end he demonstrates empathy and a canny insight that lays the foundation for the scruffy looking nerf herder with a heart of gold that Luke meets in the Mos Eisley Cantina. At the very end of the film, we can see conclusively why Han had to shoot first.(8)

The Brawn: Chewbacca. The one notable exception to Han’s rule is his future trusty co-pilot, who we’ve never yet seen not by his side. Here we get to see how they meet for the first time and forge their lifelong partnership. While I was fully expecting Chewie to show up at some point, I must admit to being misdirected by the set up leading to his meet-fight with Han. Howard’s staging suggested that the ‘beast’ the stormtroopers were feeding Han to would be something like RETURN’s Rancor and the muddy fur that was our first glimpse of him also echoed EMPIRE’s Wampa. Hearing that familiar growl was both thrill and relief, as Chewie engaged Han in ferocious combat until we hear Han speak Wookiee for the first time in order to persuade Chewie that he can devise a way for them both to escape.(9) The two are literally bound together until Han tracks down Beckett - who immediately recognises that Chewie, not Han, is the prized recruit. Han learns of Chewie’s desire to reunite with and free his tribe / family, something he can and can’t relate to at the same time. Chewie appears initially skeptical of Han, but circumstance conspires to keep them together from one job to the next and along the way they continually pull each other out of the kind of pickles that would well establish the life debt he later owes to Han (but nothing specific is singled out here as the sole cause for it). At a critical moment, we see Chewie choose to stay with Han rather than return to join others of his own kind. This cements the fact that Chewie isn’t simply sidekick, but that Han and Chewie are in fact partners in crime. It’s also probably the most agency we’ve seen Chewie use throughout the saga - except perhaps for the moment that we’d all been waiting for (and had been teased at least once with Beckett), when he finally pulls someone’s arms out of their sockets. He’s also the first to throw cold water on Han when he starts bragging about making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs - as Chewie points out, he was already rounding it down.

The Money: Lando Calrissian. When we first met him on Cloud City, Lando presented as a smooth-talking, responsible administrator with shades of a dark past. Lando is just as charming as he ever was, but in his younger days we can see more of the conniving, selfish operator he needed to be to survive as a renowned smuggler in the galactic underworld. However, as with Han, a glimmer of his true nature shines through his relationship with L3, his partner in crime (and possibly life). While Lando’s side of that relationship wasn’t that well explored at first (other than L3 suggesting that he may be what Futurama would call “robosexual”), and it’s not clear how sympathetic he was to her robot rights crusade, it is clear following L3’s death just how much she meant to him.(10) In return for an ever-diminishing cut,(11) Lando provides the getaway vehicle for the heist - his highly-polished and specially-modified freighter, the Millennium Falcon. The Falcon we see for the first time(12) is pristine and complete, including the escape pod completing its front that we’ve as yet not seen. Having cheated Han out of his first opportunity to take possession of the Falcon, we see the foundations of the mistrust underlying their chummy rivalry, and the guile that Han brings back to the table to finally win it fair and square. Given the considerable damage Han does to the ship through the maelstrom to turn it into our beloved hunk of junk, it’s somewhat ironic that in RETURN Lando promises Han to bring the Falcon back from the Battle of Endor “without a scratch”.

The Beauty and the Brains: L3-37 and Qi’ra. I feel terrible conflating these two, particularly between the two female members of the crew, but unfortunately that’s the sort of movie this was. Qi’ra may have conceived of part of the scheme, and been the mastermind who ultimately ended up on top, but she didn’t actually have a whole lot do other than drive the plot. It’s arguable that she may have used her emotional leverage over Han to ensure that she always had the upper hand throughout most of the film. Perhaps hers is a character that has scope to grow over the course of a greater story, but in this chapter alone she felt a little underdeveloped; you never got a sense of why Han was so besotted with her, to the extent that he would spend years trying to get her back - and her convenient reappearance at just the right time was a little contrived. But I find it more interesting to look at L3 as the one who used her appearance and/or emotions most effectively to create a robot rebellion diversion to allow the heist to proceed, despite the fact that it was literally her brains that ultimately enabled the getaway. Unlike the prissy C3PO and the sardonic K2SO from ROGUE ONE, L3 is the first protocol droid we’ve encountered that is idealistic and empathetic, and she tolerates no nonsense from her beloved Lando or the rest of the crew. While her demise was somewhat inevitable, she’s probably the most ‘human’ droid to date across all of the Star Wars movies. The other resonant feature of L3 is that she literally becomes part of the Falcon, and is as such retconned into the Saga itself as the ‘peculiar dialect’ that always seems to bring bad news to C3PO.

The Leader: Tobias Beckett (and his partner Val). Beckett also doesn’t have much to do beyond driving the plot and be a representation of the mercenary that Solo would become - his Fedora Man - without the redeeming qualities. When Val vainly sacrifices herself to try to help Beckett settle the score to end his indebtedness to the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, he loses what little remaining connection and trust he had with others (at least, that’s what Beckett would have us believe). The challenge for Han will be not to do the same when Qi’ra walks away from him (or at least, not until he rescues a princess from a hidden fortress). Beckett is a ruthless mentor for the hungry young Han, but his commitment to making sure Han learns his lessons ends up being own weakness, resulting in his ultimate demise as Han catches him monologuing. Truly the student does become the master, with some regret but no hard feelings.(13)

The Competitor: Emphys Nest. Now this is an interesting character. Initially set up as a brutal marauder captain with a proto-Ren mask, it turns out that in fact she is the leader of a group of outcasts dispossessed by the Empire, who are not in the game for the money but for survival - and ultimately, rebellion. I found the the portrayal of the marauders and their motivation a little hard to follow at first, but ultimately far more believable and earned than the ‘resistance kids’ in the ‘Saga’. Also, I love the realism of the idea (reflected in the REBELS series) that there are disparate cells of resistance across the galaxy fighting their own wars against the Empire, who eventually coalesce into the organised Rebel Alliance. The fact that Warwick Davis’s PHANTOM MENACE cameo character Weazel returns as one of Nest’s lieutenants is icing on the cake.

The Heavy: Dryden Vos. I was fully expecting the boss of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate to be a Hutt, so it was a surprise to see an apparently humanoid villain instead.(14) Vos appears recklessly tyrannical and limitless in his arrogance. It’s hard to believe that he’s effectively just a middle manager, though he alludes to that fact along the way, setting us up for…

The Big Bad: Holy poodoo. Darth F’ing Maul (sorry, simply ‘Maul’ now that he’s ceded the mantle of Sith to the little brat watching him from the fighter cockpit). I could not contain my glee when I saw his horned face reappear. Now this is probably going to be confusing for the casual viewer, because most would have assumed that Maul was dead after Obi-Wan bisected him in PHANTOM MENACE. But those who have had the benefit of watching CLONE WARS and REBELS know that Maul survived and has tangled with our heroes (and even his former master) a number of times, all the while plotting his comeback and revenge against his almost-murderer Kenobi. Along the way, Maul and his brother Savage Oppress took over the alliance of criminal syndicates known as the Shadow Collective (of which Crimson Dawn is one part) and took control of the planet Mandalore (in the process killing Kenobi’s beloved Satine - yes, just like in MOULIN ROUGE). We also have had the benefit of seeing his final rematch with Obi-Wan on Tatooine, possibly one of the most meaningful duels of the saga. So with context, given CLONE WARS and REBELS are technically Canon, it’s unsurprising in a way that Maul would be revealed as the ultimate villain of the piece. Nevertheless, the reveal of seeing this iconic and criminally-underutilised antagonist once again in live action was simply breathtaking. Maul was portrayed by original PHANTOM MENACE actor Ray Park, and voiced by Sam Witwer. I was somewhat disappointment that the amazing Peter Serafinowicz didn’t return to reprise Maul’s voice, but given the substantially greater amount of work Witwer has done for the character since in CLONE WARS and REBELS, it’s fair to say that Witwer is now to Maul as Hamill is to the Joker.

“You look good. A little rough around the edges, but good.”

The rather unsurprising conclusion to all that is that this film has managed to meet and perhaps surpass, the bar I’ve set for what makes a good and enjoyable Star Wars movie.

Simply by virtue of the fact that they aren’t recreating the figurative wheel, Disney seems to do a much better job with these Star Wars anthology movies than the ‘Saga’ they are unnecessarily trying to continue (but in fact are simply rebooting). I really hope they take advantage of the favorable ages of Ewan McGregor and Daniel Logan to tell the Obi Wan and Boba Fett stories that are dying to be told, let alone find a way to bottle a tiny bit of Don Glover brilliance before he becomes bigger than Yeezus and stops acting altogether.(15)

At this stage we know that there will be at least two ‘spin-off’ trilogies, by Rian Johnson (ugh) and the Game of Thrones showrunners (Qi’ra returns?). If each of those manage to continue to follow the trend set by SOLO, and to a lesser extent ROGUE ONE, rather than the tired tropes of the ‘Saga’, then my outlook is optimistic on the future of Star Wars on the silver screen for years to come.

So for now: I’ll happily go see another Star War.

Notes:

(1) I’d add that despite sketching out a potential back story and cameo for an orphaned young Han Solo adopted by Chewbacca and present at the Battle of Kashyyyk in SITH, Lucas exercised restraint and omitted it from the shooting script. While not begrudging the creator his licence, it appears in hindsight that this was probably a wise move and certainly created an opportunity for this film.

(2) Actually, now that I read that back with decades of hindsight, I can totally relate!

(3) In this case, that line was Solo’s reference to the Falcon making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs - long maligned as an incorrect reference given that parsecs are units of distance not time, though there have been some novel explanations of how that might still work that were Canon-ised by this film.

(4) Actual narration may be brilliant, please see a theralyst if doubt persists. Speaking of which, I wonder (did someone say WONDER?) which still life image he used as inspiration for this movie?

(5) I feel like the galactic resentment towards droids was signposted a little more effectively indirectly by the prequels, given the years of destruction caused by the Separatists’ droid armies.

(6) Lando set the bar at 20 parsecs, which is way higher than what Han eventually claims he achieved. It makes you wonder about the significance of the “less than” part of the claim.

(7) It may as well have been “Corellian” or “Corleone”, for that matter.

(8) But let’s not blind ourselves to the fact that that says nothing about whether or not Greedo would have taken a shot too - Greedo already delivered his verbal coup de grace and allowed Han to get a response in before Han shot (back). Han’s mid-monologue blow to Beckett was more along the lines on Indiana Jones’s similar shot against the swordsman in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. As I said before, whether Greedo shot or not changes nothing about Han, who had already been preparing for the shot himself.

(9) It’s a shame we didn't get an allusion to how Han picked up his stuttering Wookiee language skills or knowledge of their Imperial enslavement - particularly given the fact that the reason probably would have further demonstrated his empathy - hat tip to my friend Justin Scott for that one.

(10) I’ll be honest - as a COMMUNITY fan, it’s always a joy to watch Don Glover cry hysterically.

(11) He can’t seem to avoid deals that get worse all the time!

(12) Technically we did see the Falcon briefly in SITH, but let’s say that Lando has done a bit of a refurbishment since then.

(13) There hasn’t been such an effectively executed succession plan since the soon-to-be Darth Vader got ‘ahead’ of Darth Tyranus.

(14) It appears that the Hutts are being set up as the antagonists for a future Solo movie.

(15) I still vainly hold out hope for #SixSeasonsAndAMovie.

#han solo #solo #star wars

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