It’s now been five years since Solo: A Star Wars Story was released, and it remains one of the most divisive movies in the franchise. Not only is it the only Star Wars movie to seriously underperform at the box office, it also scared Disney away from making any more ‘Story’ movies or even wanting to recast old characters. Was the movie really that bad, though?

Flying Solo

Solo did have a few big problems. It was never gong to be easy making a live-action flick about Han Solo. Not only is he a huge character completely embodied by Harrison Ford, but he also has a mythology to his past that could easily be damaged by anyone trying to fill it in. Yes, there had been comics and books that had tried, but many of these were either non-canon, or else not seen by many fans who only watch SW movies and TV.

Next, Solo was a little perfect in the way Han found his best friend, rival, gun, jacket, name, and ship all within this one movie. It does cut out the opportunity for these things to be explored in a sequel. There’s also the fact that Han seemed a little too good for someone so young. A New Hope Han had a right to be arrogant, but Solo Han hadn’t really seen enough of the galaxy, or been in enough scrapes to be so sure of himself.

These things alone didn’t make it a terrible movie, though, and it could be quite entertaining. It’s at its best when it stays away from anything too dark and remains more of a heist movie, where they have to find the Coaxium and make the Kessel run in time, keeping it more fun, rather than the occasional dark and sinister tones that creep in, like the inclusion of Darth Maul. It doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the story.

Solo, So Good

With these things out the way, however, there are a lot of good points to bring out of the movie. I saw the movie some time after it was released and had heard a lot of the hate for it, leaving me surprised at just how enjoyable it was to watch

Taking a look at the recast characters, there really isn’t a problem. Donald Glover is a perfect younger Lando and should serve as a model to Lucasfilm about how you can recast a popular character successfully. Alden Ehrenreich’s Han is good too. I can see why some people have a problem with him, but he fits the model of a younger Han Solo quite well and let’s face it, no one could do Han better than Harrison!

As for the new characters, Qi’ra is an interesting character, with a lot more story to tell, Beckett is a good mentor and anti-hero, and Dryden Vos is a great villain. All have satisfying arcs throughout the movie. I’ll be honest, L3-37 is one of the most annoying characters ever brought to the screen, but at least we wouldn’t have to suffer her in a sequel.

The action is good, the flight scenes excellent, and we get a lot of new things we’ve never seen in live-action before, like the train and seeing Imperial soldiers in a long, drawn out war against a strong enemy, much different to the usual Rebel skirmishes, and something that should be represented more in Star Wars.

Finally we get the fact that it’s just a lot of fun. It’s kind of similar to Episode IV, where everything happens quite fast, with plenty of action and a wide variety of characters and locations. Perhaps this is what made it so unpopular, as it looks back to an earlier type of Star Wars movie without actually being an earlier Star Wars movie.

In the end, I think a lot of things stacked up against Solo, including a bad release date, a difficult set of characters to recast, a lack of huge interest in a spin-off, and, I think, too many Star Wars movies too quickly. It’s true that fans will take several projects at once on Disney+, but movies are different. They need to make a lot of money to cover their costs, and getting people to pay at theatres isn’t as easy as getting them to watch on a streaming platform they’re already paying for.

Solo 2?

Lucasfilm sadly took the wrong conclusions from Solo, believing that fans wouldn’t accept recast characters or ‘Story’ movies, and has had a five-year break from cinema until Filoni announced his Mandoverse movie. Now that the characters have been established, there is the opportunity to expand their stories, filling in the gap between Solo and A New Hope. This could be done either as a movie or as a Disney+ show. Sadly, neither looks likely to happen. Even the long awaited ‘Lando’ series hasn’t come to anything. The open-ended nature of Solo makes it clear that there were plans for a sequel, but that seems to have been scrapped now. These characters have great potential and there is a huge amount of love for this movie, even with its faults. Clearly Disney are worried about making another flop, but with streaming there are so many new opportunities to give these characters more time, and some sort of ‘TV movie’ or miniseries could easily include them.

Maybe one day we’ll get something from them, but for now, are you listening, Disney? Make Solo 2 Happen!

Thanks for reading!