Star Wars. Solo

Locations
Call Number: Blu-ray Science-Fiction Star
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Wide screen (2.39:1).
Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Joonas Suotamo.
During an adventure into a dark criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his future copilot Chewbacca and encounters Lando Calrissian years before joining the Rebellion.
Blu-ray, DTS-HDMA 7.1, Dolby digital 5.1, Dolby digital 2.0 (DVS); requires Blu-ray player.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Love it! submitted by Rumshaker13 on June 18, 2019, 9:27am Great movie with some great twists at the end. Love the tie in they did at the end with some key characters from previous movies. Highly recommend

Good submitted by pepemama on July 11, 2019, 1:54pm Good for a prequel

Skip this prequel submitted by MH17 on July 16, 2019, 9:50pm Poor casting, cartoonish performances make this the weakest installment of the franchise. Young Han's mannerisms and speech do not match up with old Han, Harrison Ford. Disappointing.

fun but not required submitted by SaraP on August 4, 2019, 8:20am It's a fun heist movie, but nothing really surprises here. It's fun to see him do the things, but we already kind of knew what the things would be.

yjrtd submitted by BookStars on August 17, 2019, 8:27am ftrhrtjr6t6k

Huh submitted by maywang on June 18, 2020, 11:36am Not really good, but Han Solo is one of my favorite characters. His end was the hardest death on me in the Star Wars franchise.

hmm submitted by justurlocalspirit on July 27, 2020, 7:23pm when did this come out? I haven't seen it and i have seen most of the star wars movies

My expectations were high, now they're so low submitted by Will O on August 28, 2020, 2:37pm I'm not mad at this movie, I'm just disappointed.
The nicest thing I can say is that the cast is good to great.
Alden Ehrenreich as a young Han Solo brings his own energy to make the role his own with echoes of who he becomes later but doesn't do a straight on Harrison Ford impression. It's a tough job but he succeeds more often than not even if he doesn't quite replicate the Fordian charisma and bad boy charm, but of course no one really can.
Donald Glover is excellent as Lando and I honestly would love a movie about him. He's as smooth as Billy Dee Williams but also brings a younger, cockier vibe to the smooth talking man of many capes.
Emilia Clark as Qi'ra is tough, smart, vulnerable and believable. Really good in what could have been a stock role.
Woody Harrelson can do no wrong and as Beckett, mentor to Han in the underworld brings a worldly (galaxly?) and burned out husk to life, he's the real cynic who Han only pretends to be later.
Thandie Newton is gone too soon as Val, the best character after Lando but since this is the 90's we have to kill the woman off to make the stakes real.
Paul Bettany is good but underused as Dryden Vos the big bad, he brings his usual Bettany-ness and is equal parts charming and menacing.
The rest of the movie is just... sigh.
I think they tried to cram 2-3 movies worth of plot into 1 slightly long movie. Han at the imperial academy/pilot could have almost been a whole movie, the heist that then leads to another heist that turns into the Kessel run could have almost been a movie.
The music is boring bordering on bad.
There're also just way too many nods and winks in this movie: how Han got his last name, how he got his blaster, how he got his gun belt, how he got the Falcon, how he met Chewie, the Kessel run...
I'm also genuinely not sure if L3 was supposed to be making fun of feminists/people who care about other people but it came off that way and was bad.
And when Enfyn Nest took off her helmet and the way that reveal was shot I thought "Oh shit, she's Val and Beckett's daughter!" But no, she's just a random woman, this being the 90's it's a huge deal for a woman to be leading a band of marauders.
The Maul reveal was fine I guess, I know he survived and all but when he used the force to call his lightsaber and then lit it up for no reason just to show the audiance that he was Maul, that was lazy filmmaking.
And why was this movie so dark? Not tonally but visually. It was hard to see what was going on fairly often even during the day which is a bad thing in a visual medium.
This movie can really be summed up to just being a very formulaic been there done that and the choice made by Disney to hire the Kasdan's and Ron Howard to make an origin story in a safe and predictable way was not what I wanted to see. I would have preferred the Lord and Miller version if only to see something a little different. Instead we got what looked a lot like a very expensive fanfic from dudes who stopped being daring decades ago.
I do like that Han shot Beckett first though!
And since Han gave 60-ish million credits worth of coaxium to the very young rebellion does that mean he's kind of like a founding member? I feel like he would have brought this up a few times to Leia in Empire, if only to annoy her.

One of the better movies in the franchise submitted by aec on August 7, 2021, 9:51am Creative enough without relying on settings from the original trilogy as happened with earlier sequels. Liked that the Alden Ehrenreich was able to portray a credible younger version of Harrison Ford's more mature character.

Awesome! submitted by Gamera on January 17, 2022, 8:54am Amazing. Just amazing!

It was good! submitted by Abbie D. on August 21, 2022, 4:36pm Not the best, but i enjoy a good origin story

Another decent Star Wars film submitted by timbresson on August 22, 2023, 8:40pm Not the best. More of that action goodness. I have nothing really to add other than give it a watch