Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind)
	Actors: Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!, Twixt), Woody Harrelson (Ed TV, Zombieland, The Hunger Games 1-4), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones TV-series, Terminator: Genysis)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 18.09.2018, in-flight entertainment 8" screen.
Synopsis: The adventures of a young Han Solo (Ehrenreich), dreaming of escaping his planet to become the galaxy's best pilot and smuggler.
Review: On we go with Star Wars spin-off movies that Disney will keep on feeding us in the next decades until they have sucked the last dollar they can out of the franchise and we are sick of it. But I was so wrong with Rogue One that I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt for a couple of more movies. They may once in a while hit the jackpot with a good combination of writer and director that will make me remember why I loved Star Wars. Solo is definitely not it, and I am not the only one thinking it, as it turned out to be the least profitable Star Wars movie (adjusted for ticket price inflation, source Box Office Mojo). Even the Special Edition re-release of the first Star Wars made more money! Of course it was tempting to show the origins of this beloved character (expect by the actor who played him, Harrison Ford), but it is disturbing to grasp the time elapsed between this movie and A New Hope, it seems so short and Han Solo must have lived so much in between...  As expected the mandatory fan-service is provided, showing us his introduction to Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian (well incarnated by Donald Glover) and the Millenium Falcon. More subtle details are included and I rather enjoyed those, like the long-debated meaning of the Kessel Run done in 12 parsecs (a unit of distance, not time), or how Han learned to shoot first. All those details are nicely listed in this YouTube video. But the satisfaction of seeing this origins-story didn't compensate for the fact that the movie is rather flat and didn't excite me at all. Maybe because it is too detached from the Star Wars Universe ; what links it the most at the very end of the movie was probably long debated on the internet, and requires watching the season 4 and season 5 of the Clones Wars TV-series. Where is the Empire while it should be omnipresent? And the fan-service is sometimes heavy, like is the use of trendy actors (Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany). The movie is obviously well-done visually but nothing screamed "Star Wars", like even Millenium Falcon scenes in The Force Awakens, except for one image of an Imperial Cruiser blocking a cloud vortex (see picture below) than made me open my eyes wide. December 2019 will see the release of Episode IX, and the next "A Star Wars Story" solo movies are rumored to be about Obi Wan Kenobi and then Bobba Fett.
Rating: 4 /10