Good rant and I agree the movie was a disappointment overall. Simply a cash grab.
Quoted from Brijam:Worst Star Wars of the lot. Some stories don't need to be told.
I've seen all the films on opening day, including the original. I knew Solo was going to be bad going into it, and it was. Ron Howard saved it from being a total crash and burn, but he rushed in when the budget was basically blown and was forced to reshoot a bunch of scenes against green screen. It shows.
The guy who played Solo did a bit better than expected, but I expected him to suck. Lando was great. There are some funny moments. The art direction was superb.
But it was shallow, boring and predictable. Almost no time spent on actual character development (vs. the original 3).
So many lost opportunities. How did Solo learn Wookie? What was it like in the naval academy?
But did they have to make him the frickin founder of the rebellion like that? What did that add?
Did his girlfriend have to turn out to be a Sith lord? Solo doesn't even believe in the force, but we find out his ex-girlfriend is a mistress of the dark side?
Darth Maul? Seriously? We can't come up with a new bad guy?
And so now the Falcon has a #meetoo 'droid that's 'part of her now' ? Really?
I mean WTF?
So I guess they are planning a few more Solo movies, because there is no connection between the grizzled, "I'm not in it for your rebellion, sweetheart, I'm in it for ME" attitude in the original Star Wars and the "oh, you're a freckled teenage girl who wants to start a rebellion, here just take this 60 million credits I just about got killed a dozen times for... never mind you spent the entire movie trying to kill me except for the last 10."
And Chewie? I always thought the best part about Chewie was that he was actually a chicken shit - he runs away from the garbage compactor monster, won't jump down the garbage chute because it smells bad... and that Han was actually lying about the whole 'tear your arms off' thing to play up the joke. But no, come to find out he spent time, you know, chained up feasting on live people that stormtroopers threw down to him. So now Chewie is an EFFING HUMAN CANNIBAL! WHAT THE EFFING EFF! I'm sorry, that just doesn't match with his character one bit. The beast. Give me a break.
And I do not understand why they used Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clark (arguably the lead actress from the world's most popular show), and one of the leads from Westworld -- all wildly recognizable people. I just can't look at Clark without thinking Game of Thrones. The charm of Star Wars lies in using largely unknown actors. I mean why not throw in Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Downey Jr. and Jennifer Lopez too?
At least he shot first.<sigh>