And now: Quinton lightly paraphrases actual dialogue from Solo.
- What's your name? - My name is Han.
- "Han" what? Who are your people? - I don't have any people.
- No people, huh? Han... Solo.
[generic sitcom audience applause] - That's my name now!
- So what's your name, huh/ - Raawwwr!
- Chewbacca? That's too long! I'm gonna have to figure out a shorter version of that.
[canned laughter again]
- These people don't know you, but I do know you. And I know what you are.
- Oh, yeah? What am I then?
- You're the good guy!
- Heh, I'm not the good guy.
- No, you are. You're the good guy.
[shocked gasps]
I had a really big fancy intro, with a lot of analyses, and a lot of thesis statements.
Instead, I'm gonna say this: Uh, "Solo" is the Star Wars version of Suicide Squad.
"Solo" is cartoonishly inept.
Almost nothing went right, when they were making this, and the final product is an absolute travesty.
But the film's biggest sin, is feeling without purpose or weight.
Not only did I hate this movie, I honestly think that with time,
Solo could eventually earn the coveted title of "so bad, that it's good".
The film is insulting and embarrassing for everyone involved, but the entire time,
me and Caleb were honestly laughing our asses off.
This movie is like a satire of what we expected it to be.
"Spaceballs" is to Star Wars, as "Solo" is to Solo.
It should be said, that this video is going to be unapologetically stocked full of spoilers.
Uh, so if you care about the movie and you haven't seen it yet, don't watch this.
Also, if you disagree with me in this video, that's totally fine.
People often forget the reviews are nothing more than fancy-pants descriptions of personal experiences.
And I can't take away any feelings or experiences, that you had while seeing this movie.
But on that same note, expecting me to stop and define, whatever view is every 10 seconds in my video,
constantly pointing out: "this is an opinion" or "this is an opinion" - that's pretty unreasonable.
Anyways, here's my review.
Harrison Ford once said, that the reason that he has always been so excited to return to Indiana Jones,
while he's been very timid to return to Star Wars in any way,
is that Han Solo is not an interesting character.
[Excerpt from an interview] Han as a character doesn't really, uh, interest me that much.
And I don't think he's got as much depth, as we can bring to the character of Indiana Jones.
[Quinton] And I've always partially agreed with this sentiment.
Han Solo has always been there, he's always been "part of the team"!
But I've never thought, that he was worthy of stand-alone attention.
That was until The Force Awakens, when this was very much rectified.
The story of Ben Solo and Han's death by his hands, totally turned the tides, in terms of my investment in his story.
Solo's journey suddenly seems epic, tragic and Shakespearean,
and it's pretty easy to understand, why Ford wanted to end this way from Day One.
So, when some genius at Disney decided, that the next Star Wars standalone movie,
would be about Han Solo - before he had depth, before he had tragedy, and even before he met Luke...
I think we were all a little bit puzzled.
Han Solo starts off as a smug, uninteresting jackass who finds love and admiration
for his friends and family, entirely through his experiences with them.
I do not need, or want, a story set before that.
However, as more and more promotional material came out,
and we saw characters like Lando and Chewie come to life, I started to change my mind.
About a month out, I was seriously, unironically excited to see this movie.
I- I couldn't wait to see, how this story came to life.
And then on Thursday, May the 26th, 2018, I looked at the title again.
And that was a grave mistake.
Because suddenly I realized, I still didn't care.
But the thing is, I had already pre-ordered my tickets like a month before, when I actually cared,
so I reluctantly called an Uber and waited to see the movie.
And almost immediately, my Uber sent me this message:
"Are you going 10 miles? If not cancel. Too far"
So I canceled the ride and went to bed. I slept very soundly that night.
Okay, let's start off the analysis by going down the list of things, that I liked in the movie.
First of all, I think any scene with Chewbacca in this movie was really hilarious. Really killed me in the theater.
On that note, it did get to the stage, that I came to realize,
that probably, the reason that they didn't ruin Chewbacca,
is that it was really hard to. Because he just makes wookie noises.
Second of all, I like Lando. However, Lando isn't in a lot of the movie.
It's kind of just an overblown cameo, in a way.
What I like most about Lando, is that his wardrobe is terrible. He puts on a Hawaiian shirt at one point.
I think it's a brilliant additional touch, to take a character from the 70s, give him new clothes,
and make them look worse, than something he would have worn in the 70s.
Okay, thirdly: there's a scene in the movie with a female droid, [who] entices a bunch of like,
vintage-looking 1970s prop droids, to sort of, do an uprising in a rebellion.
And they break free of their chains, and destroy the entire working order of this one planet.
And it's awesome, there's a scene of like, this trashcan droid, like, jumping on a keyboard and just stepping all over it.
The reason that I liked this, is that it felt like Star Wars written by Douglas Adams.
And I like that the Millennium Falcon looks super new.
So, the rest review is why this movie sucks.
Think back to the very first scenes in the original Trilogy, where we met characters like Han, Chewie and Lando.
Try to remember, how they acted and appeared in those very first moments.
Now pause the video, awkwardly cut those characters out of frame,
and make a two-hour movie, starring those still images.
No one in this film has any arcs or development. Characters do not learn, characters do not change.
Characters have twists - we learn things about characters, that we didn't know earlier in the movie,
but noone seems to go through anything.
The plot of this film doesn't come across like it contributes to the overarching story,
because, again - these characters are paused, frozen in carbonite, for the purposes of this feature.
And I get the feeling, that a lot of fans are totally satisfied to see characters that they like,
go on unimportant adventures, where they develop in no meaningful way...
But I just don't see the point in that.
Like I said, I walked into "Solo" thinking, that the character was very much one-note.
And I somehow walked out, feeling like they had robbed him of additional depth.
Because the film goes out of its way to claim, that the character traits,
that Han earns by the end of Episode VI, were always there.
In Episode IV, when Han runs off with the money that he got for saving the princess,
and then at the last minute, he comes back and helps out in the final battle and saves Luke;
that is surprising to us - because it is not in character for him.
But according to this movie, wanting to help out the good guys,
and being willing to give up money, in order to help the good guys,
are both things, that are in Han Solo's basic character motivations.
But hey, they made him shoot first, so I guess they really understand the character.
Without any ability to actually develop, or expand upon these characters, who have been frozen in one single frame,
the filmmakers will instead bank on what I like to call "Continuity Zingers".
They actually stop to explain, how Solo got his last name.
And when he decided to give Chewie a nickname.
And a lot of weird, small moments like that.
I was half-expecting someone to go like: "You know, the odds here aren't great",
and for Han to go: "I should really think of something to say about that".
Lines of dialogue like this are sprinkled all over the place,
and it continuously becomes more infuriating and more hilarious.
I was physically revolted by the dialogue in this movie.
Quite infamously, the actor who plays Han Solo in this movie, was given acting coaching during the reshoots.
And watching the movie, you come to understand why.
I honestly don't think he's a bad actor, but he's very awkward in this, especially during the first half.
Here's the problem, I think: it's one thing to be able to create a character and play him,
but when you're handed dialogue, that's been written for another character that's 40 years old,
and you have to play another actor playing that character - then it's very hard.
And when you watch this kid trying to imitate, how Harrison Ford mumbles,
and stands around, and makes poses - it's just so embarrassing.
The pace of this film is all over the place.
You know how in episodes IV and V, the worlds of Tatooine and Cloud City
are very carefully built up, by showing the worlds?
This is one of those films, where instead, will just cut to a scene on a planet,
and will have scenes of characters, discussing why the planet is important, or the characteristics of the planet.
And even then, once you've gotten used to that planet and why we should care about it, we move on to the next one.
This film has about 3 or 4 Third Acts, it has one Initial Act, it has no Middle Act.
One of the final acts is set on a desert planet, and I don't think I've seen a series of scenes directed this poorly since the prequels.
It's supposed to be like an old western standoff, but they're not filming it on a level area.
So everyone's trying to do like a badass pose, but everyone is also really close to falling over.
And there's this dramatic music playing over it, trying really hard to compensate, for how awkwardly this sequence is filmed.
You can tell, that the people who did the music, were trying really hard to over-compensate.
Every once in a while there's a scene, that should be important, but it's done badly.
So they'll just blast the Star Wars theme at you.
♩ ♫ Duh duh, this is a good scene! ♬ ♪ ♬ ♪ Please don't hate this scene! We tried our best. ♩ ♫
After "Solo" was done the first time, Disney was so unhappy with it, that they had Ron Howard go in and reshoot a bunch of scenes.
Now, if you know anything about filmmaking, you'll know that reshoots are not super uncommon.
But it is uncommon for directors to be fired, right before reshoots happen.
Because of this situation, "Solo" not only feels like a subpar film.
It feels like two subpar films, that have been stitched together really, really badly.
There is absolutely a distinct disconnect between certain planets, certain scenes, and even certain characters.
Just as an example off the top of my head:
There's a moment, where two of the characters are talking about the potential of assassinating the main villain,
and one of them says, that "he has an army of bodyguards".
And then in the next scene, when they go to assassinate him, he has like two bodyguards.
Okay, so Ultimate Spoiler here: I have to talk about the return of an iconic prequels character.
I, of course, am talking about Weasel.
Remember Warwick Davis' cameo character from the Phantom Menace?
He's in this movie! He dies.
No, seriously, at the end of the movie, Darth Maul appears as a hologram, to...
...reboot Sarah Connor.
And it basically turns out, that he's been the Overlord of the whole movie, and it's all been his plan.
This scene is awesome, it's great.
And it just blows your mind in the theater, it's a really great moment, but I don't think that justifies the movie.
Like, if you're telling me, that I should sit through this horrible, boring waste of a film,
to be shown, what is essentially an advertisement, for an actually interesting idea for a movie...
That sounds like a DC film to me.
You walk out of "Solo" feeling, like it wants you to think that it's important.
It's setting up something new and exciting, a new trilogy of standalone films.
Meh.
The most I can say, is that I'm excited to see someone make actually good movies about Lando and Maul.
But even that sentiment is diminished, directly, as a result of me having seen this film.
I feel so bad for the people involved in "Solo", especially Ron Howard.
Because what you have here, is a train wreck: from the concept, to the scripting, to the filming.
And then you got Ron Howard, running around with a pack of band-aids, trying to fix it at the last minute.
And I honestly think the movie is a lot better, directly because of his intervention.
I mean, it's still terrible, but it's not his fault.
Final thoughts: I feel like Disney wants Star Wars to be their immortal, evergreen franchise, that will last a 100 years.
But their problem is, that they're quickly running out of stories, that most people are invested in.
All of the success stories, that Disney has had with Star Wars so far, are directly connected to the original Trilogy.
Whether it be a sequel or prequel.
Disney wants it to be the case, that they can make a Boba Fett movie, a Yoda movie, a Chopper movie,
and people will see it entirely off of the basis, that "Star Wars" is in the title.
But I'm just not sure that that's the case!
After "Episode IX" and "Kenobi" are inevitably made,
I have no idea what is going to happen, in terms of the mainstream investment in this franchise.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong, you know. I'm wrong about a lot of things, whatever.
Alright, thanks for watching, guys. Sorry that I've been releasing so many hot takes in a row.
I've been working on the next Fallen Titans, and I hope to have that out in the next week.
The support you guys give me, means so much, and I really cannot thank you guys enough.
I will do my best not to let you down. That's all you need.
Quinton: I can't believe how bad this movie was, Caleb.
Caleb: It was- it was remarkable. My mouth was a gate for the first 20 minutes.
Quinton: I kept looking at you, to make sure I wasn't going insane.
And sometimes, you weren't- you were just stoic, and just staring, you know?
And I was like: "Am I going crazy? Is this actually happening? Am I in a psych ward"?
[Caleb laughs]