The Big Picture - 'Solo: A Star Wars Story’: Instant Analysis | The Big Picture (Ep. 67)

Episode Date: May 25, 2018

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and David Shoemaker convene for an instant-reaction breakdown of the latest 'Star Wars' spin-off movie, ‘Solo,’ to discuss whether Alden Ehrenreich lives up to Harrison Ford’s legacy, how the story’s timelines fit together, and whether the movie actually works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's mubi.com slash big picture for your extended free trial. This was in a lot of ways, as many people pointed out, it's a heist movie, and everybody is secondary to the plot. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the fastest smugglers in the galaxy. Joining me today is the Han to my Greedo, bringing his takes across the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. It's ringer, art director, writer, editor, and host of Westworld the Recapables, the Press Box, and of course the Masked Man Show.

It's David Shoemaker. What's up, David? I'm just sitting here processing Han Solo, man. So much Han Solo. That's why we're here because hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good podcast at your side.

And so we're going to guide people through Solo, a Star Wars story. And this is, you know, Disney's eagerly anticipated and complicated production of Han Solo's origin. We're going to be talking

through the pros and cons of this movie, spoiling throughout, I presume. And, you know, it doesn't really mean much, I think, because we already know what the Han Solo story is. And that's kind of the quagmire of this movie, right, David?

Right. Let's just start at the very beginning and say, what did you expect going in? And did you enjoy yourself? I enjoyed myself very much. And I think I, you know, I didn't go in with really specific expectations because as we discussed, I, you know, found out I was going 24 hours in advance. So I wasn't dwelling on it a lot. But I think this is about what I expected.

I think this is about the minimum that I expected. Yeah, that's a little terrifying, actually, that we have a minimum. I think that this is, we'll get into this more, but I think that almost any other movie Star Wars could put out, there's so much just like, there's so much assumed about a movie like this that it's hard for it to overachieve. Yeah, and I think also we knew quite a bit about the behind the scenes machinations, and we'll probably talk about that at length a little later in the show. But needless to say, there were some firings of directors, and there were some... Two directors who worked together. Yes.

Not multi-directors. Well, two directors at one time, and they were replaced by Ron Howard. It's Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who people may know from the 21 Jump Street movies and the Lego movie and Last Man on Earth. Brilliant comedy writers and directors. They and Last Man on Earth, brilliant comedy writers and directors.

They were replaced by Ron Howard, old hand, old friend of the Lucasfilm family. And there was also a lot of curiosity and potential undermining of Alden Ehrenreich, who fills in Harrison Ford Slott as young Solo. Before we get into the deep pros, and I think there are actually a lot of pros about this movie and there are parts of it that I really genuinely thought clicked. Did you think Aaron Reich was a good solo? I thought he was fine. I went in expecting him to be the weak part of the movie,

if only because all of the kind of horror stories that we have read about the behind the scenes, you know, the production of the film, seemed to, there were a few that sort of pointed him out and the ones that didn't seem to be avoiding him in a sort of inauspicious way. And so I went in expecting him to be the worst part, and he was fine. He was good. Yeah, is fine good enough, I guess, is an interesting question for the Star Wars universe. I don't know if fine is ever going to be good enough when you're dealing with a property like Star Wars, especially when we're the, you know, Harrison Ford came back to

be in the prequel. I mean, to be in the sequels. And so we've recently been reminded of his charms. And so we know what he looks and sounds like as Han Solo. And so there's something tricky there. And as much as George Lucas rightly gets lauded for creating this universe that, you know, everything, all of these movies have spun off of. And frankly, as like silly as Mark Hamill is sometimes in the original trilogy, you know, I mean, just sort of corny. Like the three core acting performances, the four, I guess, I mean, counting Darth Vader, everything rests on that. You know, like it's impossible to imagine this expanded universe without Harrison Ford. And so it's not just like, you know, a reimagined Disney character or something.

This is a really core like acting performance that now we're trying to iterate on. Or I don't, I mean, it's a tough job. It's really the first time that we've had to deal with this problem because I think one of the things that the new Star Wars films have done particularly well is find Rey and find Finn and find Kylo and find even Jyn Erso from Rogue One, which was one of these sort of spin-off Star Wars stories, but that was a new character that we had no relationship to and we'd never seen. So we don't bring any

preconceived notions. With Han Solo, Han Solo is like everybody's cool uncle. Han Solo is like the badass dude we wish would take us off and fly away on the Millennium Falcon together when we're 13 years old. Sure. And Alden Ehrenreich doesn't quite strike that tone. But we'll get into him a little bit later.

Okay. Let's talk about the things that work well. I'm going to go through some of the things, and you tell me if you agree. The elephant in the room is Donald Glover's Lando Calrissian, which I think is basically just the through and through success. He is slick and funny and a gambler and a charmer and a liar in all the ways that Billy Dee Williams is in the original trilogy. Yeah. And also he does do a thing that I think that this movie needs,

which is even though the story is set in the past, he modernizes the story a little bit. Absolutely true, yeah. Did you like Glover? Yeah, I thought he was great. I mean, of all of the characters from the original trilogy that we have seen or we will see new takes on, I guarantee Lando's at the top of the list of roles

where actors are just like, I would love to sink my teeth into that. You know, I mean, it was a fairly straightforward role, but there was, I mean, you know, there's also this great coolness to it, and there was a lot of, a lot more holes to be filled in with that character. But I thought, you know, Glover did it spot on. He was able to, like,

give it some depth. You know, if you're gonna knock anything about, I don't know if it's even Ehrenreich, or just the way that Han Solo was written, I think that, in a way, they succeeded with Lando in a way that they weren't able to with Han Solo. Yeah, that's very true. Just a very subtle depth. I don't know if you can do that with the amount of space that Han was obviously going to get in this movie.

Yeah, he's got to carry more weight for sure. And Lando gets to come in and he gets to be charming, as I said, and slick. But also, he gets to be the butt of the joke. He gets to be comic relief. He has a lot of, he plays a lot of different, he wears a lot of different hats. He gets to be human in a way that he does. And part of that is I think what Glover imbues. And I think he's just honestly a better performer in the role. And Enric's not bad, but Glover is, we're in a Donald Glover moment, truly in the last two or three months. Yeah. And he, and he brings a lot of that with him. So I don't know.

I mean, I don't know how easy it is to extricate. But I think that he was, you know, he was very good. And he wasn't, you know, he was both true to the character and also just sort of being himself and, I mean, not being himself, but doing his own little spin on it. He was a little bit, you know, broader than maybe you would have expected. I thought it was really good. I liked the amount of attention paid to his cost bit, you know, broader than maybe you would have expected. I thought it was really good. I liked the amount of attention paid to his costuming, you know,

his capes and all the clothes that he kept on the Millennium Falcon. And there was, I hadn't really given that any thought. But then when I rewatched Empire this week, I did notice that Lando's really, he's vamping. Oh, for sure. You know, he's got that sky blue cape and the cut down and showing his chest off. Yeah, I mean, you wonder how much of that is – I mean I don't know the behind the scenes of making Empire.

I don't know how those decisions were made. Of all of the sort of passing notes from Empire or the original trilogy that they decided to define for us or explain for us in this movie the sartorial choices I could watch that stuff all day yeah it's like when it's always silly but it's gratifying in a way

like when you find out I know this is kind of skipping ahead but we find out how Han Solo got his name and that was fine because they didn't

waste that much time on it but it was immediately felt unnecessary like the moment they played that card or whatever they were ticking some box

that they imagined they needed to yeah but I mean even though it's just as silly with the clothes I mean I flash back to felt unnecessary like the moment they played that card or whatever. They were ticking some box that they imagined they needed to. Yeah. But, I mean, even though it's just as silly with the clothes, I flash back to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where that opening sequence with River Phoenix explains why Indiana Jones dresses the way he does because that guy who was chasing him was wearing that outfit

and he gave him his hat and that whole thing. And that was just like so dopey, but it was perfect for that sort of, this is a dime store novel, you know? I mean, that's what, and that, and it made, it was, it filled in the backstory in exactly the right way. And I felt, and, and, you know, with Lando, they kind of did the same thing. So one of the other backstory filling things that I really liked about the movie, and it's not, it's not a very long segment, but I thought it was a very effective segment is when the movie just turns into a war movie for 10 minutes.

I don't know that I, one, I had no idea that that was going to be a factor. Two, you know, we didn't know very much about Han as, you know, a pilot working for the Empire

who then broke loose and became a smuggler, became a bandit, a thief. And the way that they handled all that stuff I thought was very fun and it was a little shades of like,

I'm reluctant to say Saving Private Ryan, but it's a very intense kind of war dynamic that they handle a lot of that stuff I thought was very fun. And it was a little shades of like, I'm reluctant to say Saving Private Ryan, but it's a very intense kind of war dynamic that they're showing us. Yeah. I mean, I think I said to you when we walked out that in a lot of ways, this was a lot like Rogue One and more successful in some ways than Rogue One. There's something about not having it cast in the field of greys and actually having it be a big sort of like that Ron Howard, you know, Technicolor sensation and then have it go into, you know, have that consumed by

a cloud of smoke. Did you find yourself wondering what was Lord and Miller and what was Howard as you were watching? I didn't as I was watching. I did on the way out and it was kind of hard for me to separate the two. I don't know. You might have a better idea about that than me. I don't.

I mean, I think we can talk a little bit more as we move through some of the things that don't work as well and kind of what it means to be a Ron Howard movie in 2018, which is not quite the same thing as what it means to be a Ron Howard movie in 1988, for example. Sure. But I did like that war movie stuff. And then there's just kind of a, there's a collection of high level, high toned character actors that dot the movie. Emilia Clarke plays Kira. She is the love interest who is separated from Han and then eventually reunited with Han on this mission. They're joined on this mission by

Woody Harrelson, who plays Tobias Beckett, who's sort of smuggler-in-chief and trains Han in the ways of stealing. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who many people know from Fleabag, is also one of the creators, is the creator of Killing Eve. she plays a droid named L337

I really liked Paul Bettany Paul Bettany plays Dryden Vos he's doing the same thing that Josh Brolin is doing right now which is he's double dipping on franchise stuff in the same summer

but this one is to a slightly lower hum but Dryden Vos do these guys just have cabanas on the Disney Studio footprint? I think they can afford yachts of their own at this point. But yeah, Bettany, he plays an interesting villain who is essentially like a middleman. This is what felt like the most,

I mean, we have some Bettany content on the site, I think, when this podcast goes up. Truly. This feels like the most appropriate I mean, we have some Bettany content on the site, I think, when this podcast goes up. Truly. This feels like the most appropriate Bettany role that I can remember in some time. He's a better villain than he is a hero. I prefer him in this role than

his Vision, who is a character, you know, I think we talked about it on the last time we did a podcast, is a bit imprecise as characters go, but he's good as one of the heavies. Last night we noticed that there was a CGI character named Rio Durant, and we couldn't quite land on who handles the voice of Rio.

That is handled by Jon Favreau. Right. Not Pod Save America's Jon Favreau, but the Jon Favreau of movie directordom. What did you think of the collection of characters in this universe? I thought it was good. Is this a spoiler-free podcast?

I don't even know how we set this up. Yeah, we're spoiling. We're spoiling. Yeah, let's go. Full spoilers. With the exception of Tandy Newton, I don't think anybody was underutilized? Well, one person.

Who are you going to say? Just Tandy Newton. That's what I mean. Yeah, just Tandy Newton. And that's maybe only because her fame or maybe the ringer's love for her is greater than the role that she was given. You're one of the foremost chroniclers of Tandy's work. Yeah. But in a way, that was really effective.

We didn't expect her to pass on when she did. No. But everybody was sort of dispensable in the sense that this was in a lot of ways, as many people have pointed out, it's a heist movie and everybody is secondary to the plot. Yeah, I think that there's also something about, this was also true of Rogue One, where kind of if every character, with the exception of one primary character in that movie,

I think it's Darth Vader and in this movie it's Han Solo, if they all kind of die, it's okay. Because we're like, this is the past. We're not in the future anymore. We don't have to worry about what's coming next because we know that this is already over. And it gives you some liberty to kind of, you know, dispense with certain characters whenever you want to. And I think that there's something fun and freewheeling about that. But there's also something that makes it just feel completely stakes-free.

And I found myself struggling with it at times. It's like when Val, Tandy Newton's character, died, I was like, well, shit. I was just kind of getting invested in this person. And then you interrogate it for one more second and you're like, well, it doesn't matter. We were never going to see her again. Yeah, and the makers of this film,

at least in whatever combination you want to place them, were aware of this, right? Because they played with that. They played with those expectations when they had Han giving Kira the dice, you know, the golden dice

at the beginning. Your reaction was like, well, now we know she's not going to die. And it was, you know, it was like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like, we know that we'll see her again.

At the same time, you knew you were going to see her again. Why would you introduce Emilia Clarke in scene one and never go away? She's Daenerys Targaryen. Yeah, but they played with that

because they, you know, they had that exchange and then they, but that wasn't the first, that wasn't the last time they were exchanged, right? I mean, it kind of kept coming back, and the fact that he gave her that plot armor in the opener didn't really affect what happened for the rest of the movie. So they were kind of playing with those expectations a little bit, but I don't know that they didn't undermine them or anything. I mean, it wasn't like an overly wise cracking move or anything to do it that way. No, it wasn't playing with the archetype.

I don't mean to say that there's like a character apocalypse at the end of this movie either. Cause there's not, there's still, there's a lot of resonance stuff that happens and there's a lot of people that stick around. I just find it's a little bit, we're in a little bit of a,

like a nihilistic moment with these franchise movies, especially post infinity war, where it's like, you really want to show people to show people how to go to the next level. It's just like just kill all the people you fell in love with except for one. Yeah. And there's something weird about that. There isn't one more weird crossover with Infinity War here that I learned when I was reading about this after the fact, which is that at the beginning of the movie, we learn that Han is sort of indebted to a local gangster on his home planet

of Corellia. Uh-huh. And the name of that gangster who's voiced by Linda Hunt of NCISLA and kindergarten

cop fame is Lady Proxima. Uh-huh. And the name of Carrie Coon's character is Proxima Midnight in Infinity War.

You'd think that they would kind of get on the same page there at Disney and not overlap. Lady Proxima is not canon in Star Wars world. She might be. I am not the Star Wars expanded universe expert here.

Okay. One other thing I really liked. The Chewbacca and Han origin story is good. I thought that that scene was great. The way that they come together, they're thrust into a cage together. It's like shades of Luke having to do battle with a beast in a cage in the first trilogy. But in this way, Han makes a friend, the giant Wookiee.

Yeah. I dug that. Yeah. I mean, I think this is the line the movie walks. And like I said, I was fine with it. I mean, I really enjoyed the film. I think that we knew so much of this stuff. We knew we were going to find out about it.

I mean, you could have guessed. You're going to find out how he got his name. We knew we were going to get Chewbacca. You know, you knew the Millennium Falcon was going to be there. You knew Lando was going to be there. On the one hand, we've all been to opening nights of, like, I remember going to opening nights of the prequel trilogy. And every time a recognizable character came on the screen, it was a round of applause. Or going to see the, when they did the re-release of the original trilogy every admiral

akbar comes on the screen everybody stands up and applauds you know i mean these this ridiculous reactions that the diehard fans have and and so on the one hand maybe solo was coasting on those expectations a little bit you don't need to go too far because you know that you're going to get the these incredible reactions from the people who really care but on the other hand you know that you're going to get these incredible reactions from the people who really care. But on the other hand, you know, if they had made a bigger deal of any of this stuff, if it had been more dramatic, would it have been better? I mean, certainly they could have done it in a more memorable way. I don't know.

I think a lot of this stuff is tonal. We're going to get into the ups and downs. There are some downs. And just a minute, I have one more shout out, and that's for the game of Sabacc. Oh, yeah. Which I want to learn how to play and is crucial in understanding how Han and Lando begin

to trade ownership of the Millennium Falcon over time. This is both a nitpick and a praise. It's a card game, obviously. And there's a lot of gambling in this movie. I'm an avid gambler, David. I love to play poker. Understood, yeah. And this is a poker game gambling in this movie. I'm an avid gambler, David. I love to play poker. Understood, yeah.

And this is a poker game more or less. However, we can't read the meaning of the cards and we don't know how the game works. And so this movie creates all of the atmosphere of a classic poker scene in a movie. But we have no idea who's winning at any given time because the cards don't mean anything. Well, and also we're only paying attention to two of the characters. Right. And, I mean, if you want to, with all of the flack that, you know, characters like Rey have gotten for being flawless protagonists

in this new iteration of movies, Han's ability just to sit down and, like, destroy everybody at a card game, which he had played before, presumably, but still. We don't know. Han's just good at all the things he tries to do. I mean, an interesting part about the movie is for all of the backstory that they dug in on, they literally skipped the section

where he learned how to pilot things. And play cards. And fire a blaster. Yeah. Yeah, he's kind of the Mary Sue here, isn't he? For sure. I mean, I don't want to get too much into the bad stuff of the movie yet

if you don't want to go there. But to me, all of the anxiety surrounding the movie from a storytelling perspective, at least from my point of view, is that Han Solo doesn't need a backstory. Of all of the characters in the original trilogy, Han Solo is the one that's self-explanatory. He's the archetype. He's the, well, you see, he did a bunch of stuff and then he

fell in love and turned good. It's pretty straightforward. That dovetails very neatly with my theory that Ron Howard saved this movie and then maybe we'll get into whether this movie needed saving after the break. Hello! There's a new show coming to Adult Swim called Joe Parra

Talks With You. It's a quiet show about Joe Adult Swim called Joe Parra Talks With You. It's a quiet show about Joe and his friends and the things in his life, like breakfast foods, rocks, weddings, being woken up by thunder, grilled chicken, pumpkins, fall drives, and more. Now here's a personal request from Joe. Please watch Joe Parra Talks With You, Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim. Okay, we are back on the big picture with David Shoemaker. Shoemaker, we're talking solo. Yeah.

We're a duo talking solo. Yes. And we're going to talk about. We're a duo talking solo. Yes. And we're going to talk about some of the things that don't work in this movie. I feel like I've been downbeat for the whole podcast. I really enjoyed this movie. You're going to talk positive stuff about the negative stuff? Maybe we can counteract each other? Yeah, let's flip it.

I'm just going to share with you some of my broad feelings. I think Ron Howard saved the movie but also failed the movie. David Scoff has a profile of Howard in the New York Times today. And here's what Kathleen Kennedy, who is the Lucasfilm honcho and producer, told Dave that the movie needed. Somebody who was going to be non-threatening and very collaborative, and most

importantly in this case, somebody who really deeply understood actors and performance and the cast could feel very quickly comfortable and safe with. Now, is non-threatening really the number one phrase you want used about your filmmaker on your franchise property? Oh, God, that's tough. That really put my antenna up.

I mean, clearly that had more to do with the people that came before. Certainly. I mean, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, as we said, were the filmmakers who originally signed onto the project. And they didn't write this script. The script is written

by Lawrence Kasdan and his son, Jonathan. Yeah. And Lawrence Kasdan famously is the Han Solo whisperer. He wrote some of the very best Han lines

around. He's been an integral part of the new trilogy of movies that they're making. And he's been a consigliere to JJ. And listen, I mean, regardless

of what you thought about the movie overall, the script here was... I mean, regardless of what you thought about the movie overall, the script here was, I mean, this has to be one of the best scripts. I mean, for...

I neglected to mention that but I actually was going to say that when we talked about them. I think the dialogue is really good in this movie. Dialogue is spot on contra every Star Wars movie

that's come before. At least the core, the core movies. I think Last Jedi has a very good script, but this is right up there. Last Jedi has a very good script, but the entire plot is built around a slow motion space chase. Yes.

And you spend the whole time imagining ways around it. The two action set pieces of this were so easy to follow for what they were. The stakes were very clear throughout the movie. There was not a moment in this film where I was just like, now why are they flying this spaceship to this place? It's a great point, and that gets lost because we have such admiration for the earlier films. But some of it is just inscrutable or poorly told, even though we get very involved in it. So I agree with that

but I there's something in the directing that is flat and if you look at Ron Howard's last I don't know

10, 15 years worth of films we have this great vision of him as like he's the man behind Splash and you know he's the man behind

Beautiful Mind which was an Oscar winner and Apollo 13 one of the best movies in the 90s. He's made a lot of very resonant, important movies. He's also made a lot of movies that are just kind of like prestige-y fluff.

Yeah. You know, the Cinderella Man of it all. And there is a little bit of Cinderella Man perfunctory look and storytelling to the movie that I worry kind of drags it down. I mean, I don't know how far afield you can really go in the current Star Wars universe. When we saw the first trailer for this that was released in Ron Howard, this was after, you know, Ron Howard was deeply involved at that point. My reaction on, you know,

ringer slack was that this might be the most visually interesting Star Wars movie yet. And how weird if that was Ron Howard that pulled it off. Well, the cinematographer is Bradford Young, who might be the most exciting cinematographer in Hollywood. He shot Arrival. And the movie, when it looks beautiful, I think it looks beautiful in part because of him. You know, he's bringing in these shades of like westerns and shades of contemporary sci-fi. Lawrence of Arabia, all these like. I mean, there were backgrounds in this movie.

I will buy that coffee table book to stare at. Yeah, there's some beautiful stuff for sure. But even still, I think there's like basically a pace and a way a story is told and the way the camera moves that a cinematographer can only do so much and a director has a style. Yeah, and the second half of what I was going to say is the movie itself was not nearly as visually stunning as the trailer was. Yes.

I mean, it was fine, but it felt like, I said this to you when we walked out, there's a sort of very crisp technicolor flatness that a lot of the sort of great directors of the 80s have. You know? And they evolve and the cinematographers change

and all the other people working on the film roll over at some point with a lot of these people, but it's still, to me, in 2018, it is what prestige television looks like.

You know, it felt very much, it felt more like, it felt more like an episode of The Walking Dead than it felt, I mean, visually, than it did, like, a major motion picture, like Blade Runner 2049 or something, you know? Absolutely. That's a great comparison point. It's like a contemporary kind of sci-fi opera, which is, you know,

I think actually probably a less quote-unquote watchable movie because it's so slow and it's kind of arcane in the story that it's telling and it's less interested in the traditional modes

of like crowd-pleasing. But, man, it's just a way more impressive accomplishment than this movie, which is like a popcorn movie

and fine. Sort of related to that, one of my major criticisms, I think, of the movie in general is the just deep sameness that it has to every other Star Wars movie. It's like there's a big scene in the desert and there's a cabaret act

and there's a speeder race and there are creatures. Yeah, there's some of those you forgive, right? The cabaret act is a deliberate wink. Totally. The rest of it, I mean, it's hard to know. I mean, are they working off of a, you know, the diagram that they need,

that they're honor-bound to stick to or something? I'm not quite sure. I don't know. Is there like a checklist that they have market tested where they say, like, this movie needs a speed erase? If we don't get a speed erase in here, we're not being Star Wars canon. Yeah. I mean, I think you're we're not being Star Wars canon. Yeah.

I mean, I think you're talking about the beginning of the movie. Yeah. I mean, I think that that served a purpose. That served more of a purpose than a lot of the other stuff. Just kind of, you know, it echoed what came later, but it was the small version. It was the gritty, down-and-dirty version. Tony Scott described it as sort of a living embodiment

of a Bruce Springsteen song at the beginning. You know, two teens kind of blowing town in their Harley or in their racer. Yeah. Their ages. Are we going to talk about their ages at some point in this thing? Yeah, not yet. All right. We're going to get there.

We'll close with that. I take issue with the teens, but you can move on for now. Maybe they're not teens. That's a great question. I think also related to that is, before I saw the movie, Chris Ryan, our colleague, said if this is a neo-western, I want to know. There's this great shot in the movie where

there's a showdown near the end where they're toe-to-toe with the marauders who are trying to get this hyper-fuel, which again is like one of the dumber kind of central points of interest in the movie. Yeah, but at the same time it was like, it's a MacGuffin, but it's still like, it actually had some identifiable characteristics,

and it wasn't for them to decide what was valuable. This is a thing that another person wanted. And it does connect us ultimately to the Rebels and the future of the Star Wars universe. I liked that part of it. I thought it was well handled. But anyway, there's a showdown with the Marauders and Han and Tobias and all of these characters

that we've come to know. And there's this beautiful shot of Han kind of fingering his blaster. And in the distance, we have a high noon vision of the Marauders. And it's like, it's real classic American, like John Ford Western stuff. Really nicely told. That is like not what the movie is. And the movie really has no genre. It doesn't even have, and something I wrote down is like, you know,

it's one part Western, it's one part teen rebellion, it's one part war movie, it's one part heist movie. Yeah. But it's like, is it like ultimately no parts Star Wars?

I mean, in the sense that like, it was grounded in a way, and this goes back to what I was saying about the script being very precise. I mean, it was grounded in a way,

not always literally, that made it, that did make it seem different than the Star Wars movies that have come before. But Star Wars has always been a sort of, you know, street-level science fiction. Not entirely, but there's always been elements of that. You know, we got battles in forests and stuff. It's never been, like, quite so puckish, you know?

There's something, like, under so puckish, you know? There's something, like, underdog-y about the way that this is positioned. Despite what I said before about Han Solo not needing a backstory, I do think it's, I mean, it's interesting that, like, this is what, this is in so many ways the movie that I would have asked for when Disney bought Lucasfilm.

You know, I mean, I would have wanted just little dalliances in the genre. That's it. I mean, maybe I would want something a little bit more on the nose. I mean, not on the nose, but a little bit like something that's more specifically a Western

or more specifically a heist movie or something. But I don't mind them doing a mashup of those genre things. I think it felt like a letdown because our expectations for a character like Han are so high. I think it felt like a letdown because our expectations for a character like Han are so high. I think that's perceptive, but I do worry that they've worked so hard on the last three movies before this to make them events.

To make them events, but events that like, I mean, I love them all, but 90% of the complaints about them were justified. If your only complaint about this one is it like it's not, it wasn't as much of an event as the other ones, but like everything else went off smoothly, then I think that's the kind of success or that's the kind of failure I want more of. I have two sides of my brain working on this one. I have the side of my brain that just wants to have fun at a movie

and then the other side of my brain that's like, what does this mean for the future of Star Wars? And what is, not brain that's like, what does this mean for the future of Star Wars? And not only that, but what does this mean for the future of Hollywood? Because so much of the stuff that I've been writing about for the last couple of years and so much of what the center of the industry is about is whether these movies succeed and fail and how

much they succeed and how much they fail. And my gut tells me that Han Solo, that Solo A Star Wars Story will be the lowest grossing of the four Star Wars movies that will have since come out since the new Enterprise. It's going to do worse than Rogue One. Rogue One made a billion dollars internationally. Han Solo, man. I don't know.

I mean, you've probably seen projections that I haven't seen. But I would have, I mean, I think that they could just have, they could have spent this whole movie with him, you know, frozen in what's it called? Carbonite? Yeah, carbonite. Yeah. It's possible. I don't sleep anymore. I'm just saying, they could do nothing and people would go out to see Han Solo.

I could be wrong, but the buzz is medium, the reviews are medium, the fan excitement seems medium. You're right. The expectations are a tepid, but I wonder how much that matters for the international audience. Well, I think Rogue One actually worked really well for the international audience, in part because of the way they cast that movie, the main characters that they created. It was a huge movie in Asia,

in part because two of the primary characters are Asian or Asian-American actors. And this doesn't do all of that as well. It certainly has the Donald Glover thing in its favor, and it certainly has Game of Thrones in its favor. Both of those are very savvy tactical choices. Maybe also Paul Bettany for all the Vision heads out there. They're bringing in the MCU fans.

But I have some doubts, and that's part of what is clouding, I think, my take on the movie. We don't have to slag it too much more, but we do have to talk about the thing that cropped into my mind, basically, right at the end of the movie, which is we get a guest appearance by a notable character that we've seen before. And that character is not Greedo.

No. And he is not Boba Fett. Mm-mm. And he's not Jabba the Hutt. Nope. Three core Han Solo story characters. Sure. You gotta wait to see them. It's Darth Jabba the Hutt. Nope. Three core Han Solo story characters. Sure. You gotta wait to see them.

It's Darth Maul. Yes. Darth Maul last seen split in two by Obi-Wan Kenobi and thrust down, I don't know, some sort of shaft where he exploded at the end of The Phantom Menace. Right. Darth Maul is introduced in this movie when Kira makes a choice to align herself with Crimson Dawn,

which is also somehow in league with the Sith and probably the Empire. I don't understand the Darth Maul thing, and for a very simple reason. How old are all these fucking people? The answer is that... Then stop asking those questions. Darth Maul...

The answer is sincerely that Darth Maul, the answer is sincerely that Darth Maul survived being cut in half. You think that that's true? No, no, I know that that is true. All of the Clone Wars animated series, I mean, he's appeared in canon Star Wars after he was cut in half. Is that true?

Yes. Okay, that's very confusing because when I walked out of the movie, I was like, at this exact moment, if Darth Ma that's very confusing, because when I walked out of the movie, I was like, at this exact moment, if Darth Maul's still alive, that means Han Solo is how much older than Anakin Skywalker, who is Luke's father?

Yeah, I was having trouble doing this, because at first I was trying to, getting Luke and Anakin confused when I was doing the math. The whole thing becomes really problematic. I actually have a Star Wars age chart pulled up somewhere on my browser. Oh, how exciting.

But no, the Clone Wars stuff was afterwards. He has like robot spider legs. And this was basically them saying, I believe that like the Clone Wars, the cartoon series is canon and Darth Maul is still alive. This really makes my head hurt. That's easier than the direction that you were taking before. What did you think

in general of like 30 seconds of hologram Darth Maul? Were you like this is cool or this is perfunctory or what? I think because

it asks so many questions it's a little bit less cool. I mean for so many of the people watching it it's a less of a moment than Darth Vader showing up. I don't really know who else you have to work with at this point. I had that exact thought too, because Rogue One, I think some people feel like is good or maybe

just mediocre or, you know, it doesn't necessarily always do all the things that we want it to. And that movie also had a fascinatingly complex production history where Gareth Edwards, the filmmaker, was removed and Tony Gilroy was brought on for rewrites and reshoots. And they kind of changed a lot of that movie, including the ending. And I think one of the things that they added to the end of that movie is this button scene with Darth Vader, where we see Darth Vader really like in all of his evil glory and power. And I am a 36-year-old man, but when he came on screen and started throwing people around, I was like yes yeah

this is I'm here I'm ready for this I'm excited by this I like it and the Darth Maul callback is meant to have a similar effect

it's like sure we're in an origin story but don't forget there's cool shit that's gonna happen because of like cool bad guys or the pain to come

yeah and this didn't really do that for me no I mean, if they were going to leave the audience, leave so much of the audience

leaving asking questions, they should have just given us something wacky. Just like, is that evil Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or like, you know,

just something weird, you know? I would have been down with that. Have Sam Jackson survive or, you know, something like, just like give us, because Darth Maul was just...

Once you understand that we're accepting the Clone Wars, accepting the spider-leg story, then the mystery's gone, sort of. I mean, it's cool to see him, but... I mean, I guess in some ways it could be symbolic of them sort of fixing... Feeling like they're fixing the problems with the prequels. Do you want to see more of Kira and Darth Maul's team up in the future?

Oh, yeah. Do you want to see more young Han Solo? Sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That seems mildly enthusiastic. I was getting at this earlier. The whole thing felt, as much as I enjoyed it, it felt like, this felt like an eight-episode TV series. And I mean, you know, if they did this with the Disney over-the-top channel or something, just gave us six episodes of Han, that would get me watching. I think that's fair.

You know, the movie that we know we're going to be getting is Lando. Is the Donald Glover Lando movie. Oh, yeah, because they've more or less announced this one. More or less announced that. Is that interesting to you? Like, is it worth sacrificing a season of Atlanta or maybe every season of Atlanta going forward and Childish Gambino to get a Lando movie?

I mean, do you think we're going to have to sacrifice anything? I do. I actually do. Because he'll be so involved? Yes. I think it'll be very hard to make a Lando movie and do a season of television. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if we never get another season of Atlanta anyway. It just feels like it's a huge emotional drain on him,

and if he finds something else to do, that's fine. Maybe we'll come back like some other shows in three years or something and do it again. It's a lot of money in Lando. Yeah. That's what they used to say back in the 19th century. No, but I'm excited to see it. I think that it would be, there's two ways to do it.

I mean, I'd like to see Donald Glover just get total carte blanche. I kind of find it hard to imagine that's going to happen. If it's not going to happen, then I would love to see, you know,

a sort of Marvel Comics Universe version of this where we get 20 solid minutes of Han in the movie, you know, in a Lando movie, or just some other crossovers.

Make this, this can be the, you know, have him teaming up with somebody else that we know and love from another movie. That would be, that would be cool too. Final question for you. All right. In the past, talking with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald to some extent,

they're very team Wedge Antilles as their ancillary Star Wars character. For some reason, they've got a real hankering for the Wedge story. Is there like a Star Wars character story that you'd love

to see a movie for? I feel like I've spent more time checking people off my list than I have just pining for a specific person.

I mean, I was definitely like, I would have been Boba Fett if you would ask me before the prequels. Yeah, me too. And even after the prequels, I think you like, I would have been Boba Fett if you would ask me before the prequels. Yeah, me too. And even after the prequels. I think you kind of came down from that or, you know, recovered from those.

And I still love him. But I don't know. I mean, I'm more interested in, I mean, I think Lando could be done. I mean, I think the comic books that Marvel has done since they took over the thing. I mean, the Darth Vader comic book has been just fantastic, or at least the beginning was. And the Lando comic book has been really cool, too. I'm still more. I mean, I think that there's a lot of cool stories they could tell.

I'm not partial to anything. My vote is for Michael Haneke's Sarlacc Pit. It's a very specific take. You think that would be good? No, that would be terrible. Okay. Well, this has not been terrible. This has been The Big Picture. This is David would be good? No, that would be terrible. Okay. Well, this has not been terrible. This has been The Big Picture.

This is David Shoemaker. I'm Sean Fennessey. Thanks, David. Thank you next time. Talks, weddings, being woken up by thunder, grilled chicken, pumpkins, fall drives, and more. Now here's a personal request from Joe. Please watch. Joe Parra Talks with you, Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim.