I forgot to put Solo and Rogue One into the timeline as I went along with my “Five Favorite Things” series. So here’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, a seriously underrated Star Wars movie, in my opinion.
Favorite Scene
The Train Heist Scene. This whole sequence is just exhilarating. Han and Chewie have wormed their way into the employ of Tobias Beckett and his crew (Val and Rio) to steal raw coaxium from the Empire. It’s being transported on a mag-train winding around a snowy mountaintop. Han, Chewie and Tobias jump onto the moving train to secure the coaxium as Rio pilots their stolen freighter above. Everything is going according to plan until Enfys Nest shows up–a gang of masked thieves that always seem to know the group’s next move. Things go down from there, Rio and Val are killed, Beckett is furious, and they lose the coaxium, putting them into the debt of Dryden Vos. Big pickle. But a really fun, exciting scene.
Favorite Battle/Duel
The Maw. There are no lightsaber duels in Solo, but there are plenty of battles and action scenes that I could choose from. All of them are terrific, but when the crew flee from Kessel with the hot coaxiam, they need to get it refined, like yesterday, before it blows them up. When the Imperials show up to make things worse, Han decides to go off the beaten path and find a shortcut through the Kessel Run. Not good, as they encounter a giant space monster (a summa-verminoth) and an enormous gravitational-sucking maw that wants to pull them into oblivion. They manage to survive, Han finishes the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs (yes, distance, not time–finally figured that out), and they get the coaxium to the refinery in time. The Falcon is pretty banged up in the process, though, which leads to…
Favorite Line
Lando: “I hate you.” Han: “I know.” This is a great twist on the famous “I love you, I know” lines from Han and Leia in Empire. I also love when Han says, “I have a really good feeling about this,” on the Falcon during the Maw crisis, another twist on a famous line. It’s nice to have good feelings for a change, rather than bad ones, lol.
Funniest Moment
There are SO many funny moments and lines in this movie, it’s almost impossible to pick just one. From nearly everything that comes out of L3-37’s mouth, to the way Lando deliberately mispronounces Han’s name, the chuckles are frequent and delightful.
Most Impactful Character
Han Solo. The movie is called “Solo,” so of course it’s all about Han Solo. The movie is about what made Han into the man we meet in A New Hope, an older, cynical man who nevertheless has a heart in there somewhere. Q’ira sees this in him when she tells Han he’s “the good guy,” while he blusters about being an outlaw. Q’ira is also the one who breaks his heart and sours him on love (until he meets a certain princess). The movie is filled with the people who influenced Han in his youth: not just Q’ira, but Tobias, who turns into a mentor and cautions him to not trust anyone; Lando, who loses the Falcon to Han and becomes a kind of frenemy until the events of the OT solidify their friendship; and of course Chewbacca, a lifelong and dedicated friend, and the only one Han trusts (despite what Tobias says). So yes, the movie centers on Han, but all the supporting players impact him in so many important ways.
There are so many things I love about this movie. The cast is excellent–Paul Bettany as the Crimson Dawn villain Dryden Vos is particularly wonderful, and Donald Glover as Lando is just a joy to watch. The movie is fast-paced and fun, and I think Alden Ehrenreich did a great job as young Han, capturing his youthful zeal, ambition, and devil-may-care attitude. For a Star Wars movie with no Jedi or lightsabers (the closest thing is Maul’s brief appearance at the end) I just love this movie.
What did you like about Solo: A Star Wars Story? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Star Wars and Other Obsessions 
My favorite thing in this one was Qi’ra. I hope they do something with her in the future 🙂 (Though it won’t ever make up for the waste of Thandie Newton!)
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Yes, I loved Q’ira too! I wrote quite a bit about her in some other posts of mine. Wish they hadn’t killed off Val so soon, as well.
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What? Maul? Lightsaber? Spoiler! Just kidding I know these things.
I have to say I was apprehensive about Aiden playing Han but after about 10 minutes I forgot it was Aiden and just saw Han on screen – so my hat off to him for such a great job.
Paul Bettany as Dryden was also a good casting choice (though from my understanding it was a last minute decision) as Brits always make the best villains in movies – I think it’s our accents!
And one little tidbit of trivia – I believe the mag train is called a HyperConveyex.
Conclusion – SOLO is a real solid movie that I really enjoyed.
p.s. Isn’t Mr Solo’s first name Ian? (check out the Lego Yoda Chronicals series to see what I mean 😁)
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Yes, you’re right, FT, HyperConveyex. Too lazy to look it up properly! And Brits are EXCELLENT villains due to that impeccable accent. I’ll have to look into the Yoda Lego Chronicles–you’ve piqued my curiosity, lol.
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Hi there, yes in the episode where C-3P0 is taking the Padawans on a school visit to the Senate building you will see what I mean about Ian.
And did you see the behind the scenes video about how the Heist scene was created? It was phenomenal – the CGI that was used was incredible, the team photo surveyed a whole mountain range then made a digital model of the mountains (a bit like how I make my sabers) then they pasted the photographs of the mountain scenery onto the digital model. If only I had the type of computer ILM have to do that stuff!
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No, I haven’t watched any behind the scenes stuff, but that sounds awesome! It’s incredible what movie-makers can do, I’m constantly impressed, lol.
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It is impressive what they can recreate but that Coaxium explosion….it was real!
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The only thing I liked in this was Darth Maul and I can’t comment any further lol I consider this film one of my least favourites but I can understand why fans like it. Qi’ra was a nice character but I felt something was off about it, I can’t put my finger on what. I’d have to watch it again to do be any more specific. But I enjoy reading why others like and enjoy things 😀
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Well, at least you got one minute of Maul at the very end, lol.
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LOL and it was awesome though. I remember just sitting there and then woooo Darth Maul lol it was the highlight of the film for me 🙂
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I hope we someday get some kind of follow-up story with that scene–how Maul is running Crimson Dawn with Q’ira working for him.
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I somehow deleted your reply to my last comment, you were talking about how Maul was so underutilized in The Phantom Menace. I agree. At least we got some good Maul material in the animated series, but some live action with him would be great.
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Yeah I just think he had so much potential and so many of the villains are killed off because they’re “bad”. That is why I loved what they did with Maul in the animated series because we got to see such a different side to him as an actual, fully fleshed out character. Marvel are onto it with what they’re doing. They’ve given one of their best villains his own show lol and I love that they did that with Loki 🙂 The Star Wars franchise could learn a little bit from them taking their villains to the next level and allowing them the freedom to expand as a character.
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I think I saw one Marvel movie with Loki in it, and I liked him, lol. When you put a villain in their own show, they cease to be “villains” and become protagonists in their own right. Perhaps protagonists who make bad choices, lol, but as you say, they’re more fleshed out and become sympathetic characters.
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