I broke down last night as one of my buddies wanted to go. It’s better than TLJ but it’s also very meh. The Lando thing is just odd and makes no sense, it’s not terrible, it’s just dumb. Glover does a good job, actually everyone does but there is just nothing in the script. It’s just a generic and predictable. There is a lot of moments that are meant for a laugh that fall complete flat. There are a couple of moments that work and remind how great it could have been they are pretty few and far between. They play Han as kind of a tween romantic that didn’t really work for me. Couple times I was like is this supposed to be Han or Edward from twighlight. It’s not terrible it’s just a lazy cookie cutter studio film for your teenage to tweens demographic. The kind of movie you watch when you have nothing better to do and forget when you walk out of the theatre.

Great article on what Kennedy has done to Star Wars and it addresses this BS that there is “fatigue” for Star Wars.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/05/26/go-woke-go-broke-solo-crash-lands-at-box-office/amp/

I’m wondering why Kennedy was put in charge of SW. I’d love to see Jon Favreau for example take over.

EDIT: I now see why Kennedy was hired.

Here's something I didn't realize that the problem with SW is that white and straight men have directed all the movies.

can you believe this stuff?

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/star-wars/news/a851850/star-wars-fans-arent-happy-jon-favreau-announcement-international-womens-day/

You're either ignoring us or prioritizing these white dudes. Both are bad looks. Do better, Star Wars. Let women of color be in charge of major stories in the franchise, especially because I would trust them more to hire WoC/diverse directors, writers, producers.

I hope the Favreau hires inclusively. I don't even trust D&D from GoT to hire other white women, so they're out. I just... I wanted better for this franchise that women of color love and support with equal measure.

I love Jon Favreau's work, so this is not a knock on him, but @Disney announcing yet another white guy to head up a Star Wars project is pissing me off. And to make the announcement on #InternationalWomensDay is pretty tone-deaf overall.

shame on Disney for ruining women's day as well as SW.

Awww, man.....how could you?

2915c3977ffb29f9fb95346aef6efd58 (resized).jpg

From what I have been reading, the reviews for Solo run from decent popcorn flick to disjointed mess with a few decent set pieces.

What I think is ultimately killing Solo in the theaters is The Last Jedi has poisoned the well and Star Wars fans are responding by not showing up.

Production is in the $250-$300 million range due to extensive re-shooting (75% of the footage used was Ron Howards!) going to be a hard slog for this one to be profitable with the other costs involved.

Just saw a note that Billy Dee Williams is working out for his next roll, JJ Abrams is including him in the next SW movie.

Interesting.

I think this guy is on to something. Was the droid L3-37 (or LEET which is shorthand for elite) a proxy for making fun of Kathleen Kennedy and her out there SJW outlook? It very well could have been and the reason they were fired once she figured it out. Such people are notorious for not having a sense of humor or taking ridicule well.

My wife liked it but she also liked TLJ. I won’t see it until it comes out on Netflix.

It felt like that going into the theater. It is not doing well my buddy called me like an hour before showtime on Saturday night. I said if you can get tickets I'll go. We had great seats and it was only like 3/4 full, when I said yes I thought no chance he could get seats.

We went to see either Deadpool 2 or Avengers last night and they were BOTH sold out except the front rows (which I won’t do) for every showing at the four theaters we checked. Checked Solo availability for fun and there were TONS of seats available any time you wanted. Made me quite happy. We ended up going to A Quiet Place, which turned out to be a pretty good flick. No money for you, Kathleen!

I saw Quiet place, avengers and deadpool as well. Will not see Solo. I'm sure all 3 are going to be god's of movies compared to solo.

Just got out of Infinity War a while ago...man, it was awesome! Disney can still do things right with the right people in charge. There WAS a noticeable “all girls” fight thrown in there because you know, Disney. But it wasn’t atrocious and super glaringly bad like the entirety of TLJ.

Solo was fun. The lead character is an active protagonist who has an effect on the plot (unlike Rogue One) the movie pays off a lot of things the universe has set up (unlike Last Jedi) and it's not a remake of an earlier film (like TFA). There's also a love interest which is a breath of fresh air in this sexless universe.

But alas. Thanks to the Last Jedi pissing on its fans, this movie is made to suffer.

There's at least 2 "fans jump out of their seats" moments but sadly, no fans showed up.

Went into Solo expecting to be disappointed. Turned out much better than I expected. Great story, lots of twists & turns. Gets thumbs up from me. And I am a huge fan who became severely jaded after TLJ & how they disgraced Luke Skywalker. I think Kathleen Kennedy is ruining the franchise, and people should yell “you suck” whenever they spot Rain Johnson on the street.

**Spoilers***

I think they did a great job explaining the Solo backstory lore. The way Han met Chewy was great, the games of Sabacc, the “fair-and-square way” Lando lost the falcon, the dice, the Kessle run in 12 parsecs, how the new shiny falcon got trashed, Solo’s iconic blaster, how he finds his way to Tatooine, Chewy making exact same wrong move on Falcon’s video chess, the way Lando mispronouces Hans name, etc. Even included “The Maw” & the Black holes around Kessle from the expanded universe. Even spotted Manolorian armor & a reference to a fan favorite bounty hunter from clone wars. Cool new stormtroopers. And obviously the super cool unexpected reveal of THAT character at the end. There was no mention of the force & that was refreshing in a Star Wars movie. These types of gritty films can work. Damn, writing this makes me want to go see it again.

That said, Erenreich was not the best. Did not portray the essence of Harrison Ford at all. He is the main flaw of the whole movie. I suppose I will grow to accept him over time, but I wish they would have cast Anthony Ingruber instead. What a missed opportunity. Glover on the other hand nailed Lando. Voice was spot on. I thought he would be terrible. Glad I was wrong. Woody & Clark had great performances, and held the movie together throughout.

The bad? Lando’s robot was grating, annoying, and a device to push agendas that don’t belong in Star Wars movies. Jar-Jar Binks level bad. The scene suggesting Lando wants relations with a robot should have been cut completely. Of course there was an unexpected role gender swap in the film. This is what you get with Disney Star Wars, but the degree of SJW influence on Solo was overhyped IMO. Thankfully Lando did not grab Han’s ass.

I love these “A Star Wars Story” movies, because they scratch the itch for super fans. They focus on the things we want to see, and fill in backstory of beloved characters & historic events. I’m looking forward to seeing the Obiwan & Boba Fett movies. Boba delivering Solo to Jabba the Hutt? Maul hunting down Old man Kenobi to get revenge? Yes please!

The low grosses on Solo are clearly backlash from fans for the backstabbing we got from TLJ. For the first time, we didn’t show up in masses for a Star Wars movie opening. It’s not “Star Wars fatigue”. There is no such thing to superfans. This is a clear message to Disney, and specifically Kathleen Kennedy & her bullshit agenda. Fans don’t want it.

Money talks. I think Solo will do better at the box office over the coming weeks, as word of mouth will generally be positive. But the damage is done. Solo will not hit its expectations. Kennedy is to blame for the troubled production, and the general backlash of the new films. Hopefully Kennedy gets fired after Episode 9 gets released.

I will see Solo again in theaters

Nice! Looks great. We have a couple of Fetts in my garrison, and I wish they would show up at more events. Such an iconic character. I am satisfied with being a background grunt. My current lineup is a TIE Pilot, Snowtrooper and Biker Scout. I also retired a Zuckuss.

"‘Solo’ Box Office Disappointment is Wake Up Call for ‘Star Wars’"

Well I goddamn hope so

Everyone online has an opinion this morning why Solo didn't meet expectations. Excuses all over the map. The most prevalent opinion is that a five month gap between SW movies was too close, and combined with crowded competition at the box office & a story that didn't really need to be told, so Solo was doomed form the start.

The first point is nonsense. If I have to read "star wars fatigue" again, my head will explode like a thermal detonator. That's such a lame excuse. But I bet the immediate end result will be just one Star Wars movie a year, released at Christmas, for the foreseeable future. This is an easy solution for Disney to execute. Too bad it's not the real problem. And with 10+ movies in the pipeline, it's not feasible to release one movie a year.

I don't buy the competition at the box office either. Solo was the only major release over the holiday weekend. It was competing against Deadpool (an R-Rated movie) and Infinity War (already grossed $2B & in release over a month). That's banta fodder. Fans made a conscious decision not to show up in droves as usual. Plus the fans & general audiences still have bad taste left over from TLJ. Disney still doesn't get this.

Disney reps are saying the year & a half gap between Solo & Episode 9 will help to solve their problems. Too bad that they still don't realize they did irreparable damage to the new trilogy with TLJ. What will be the excuse when Episode 9 fails to meet expectations? Which it will.

You have a Zuckuss costume? That's awesome, never seen one in person. I've always wanted to do a Dengar costume, but I need to finish up & adjust my sandtrooper build first.

You're right about those popular characters though. You will get attention at events as a stormtrooper, but those guys showing up as Boba Fett or Vader get mobbed!

My guess is the Disney people do get it they just don't want to admit it publicly. In the end, Disney understands the bottom line, they will just keep their true opinions to themselves. The RJ trilogy series will never see the light of day in my opinion.

Excuses two and three worked in my case (at least so far). I haven't lost my mind about TLJ and Disney's evil schemes to travel back in time to 1983 and retroactively ruin my Jedi-themed 5th birthday party. But I also don't care for the approach of filling in "gaps" in George Lucas' original storytelling that don't need any filling.* They put their screenwriters in the terrible position of writing toward a conclusion that everyone knows (gee, I wonder if Han and Chewie are going to survive this one), and if one of these "A Star Wars Story" films ever turns out great it will be a miracle. If it was a slow month maybe I'd have gone, but with Deadpool 2 out (it was great BTW, one too many slow-motion shootouts set to slow jams of the '70s but tons of laughs regardless) there was no way I was going to Solo last week.

* I heard a clip on the radio the other day and apparently they discuss why Lando says "Han" different than everyone else in the galaxy, so there's probably 30 seconds of worthwhile backstory in there. Otherwise, they got nothing I need.

How come we’re not seeing Marvel fatigue?

How come every PotC movie has gone down in box office in subsequent releases even when they are spaced years apart? It’s not how close together the movies are released it’s that they are not good movies.

Those specific examples point more towards foreign markets which do huge numbers compared to SW. Take shit movies like Transformers that still print monies because so much % comes from outside the US.
Marvel universe rakes in an average of probably 65ish+% non domestic compared to SW maybe 52ish%

EDIT: I mean that's other than the fact that R1 I think was a big letdown, TLJ need not be more discussed here, and there was literally NO good news aboot Solo. For fans like us hearing "main actor needs voice work original directors kicked out" etc does not fill us with any hope (ha), if we had any.

If the Star Wars product was better it would do better over seas. Bad product is the problem.

That's why I specifically mentioned Tranformers.

But we already know how we each feel ....over and over

Ha I don't mind if people repeat themselves, I enjoy the discussion

Oh I don't either , hard NOT to repeat in this one, I just meant that we will never agree on that point.

EDIT; There's also the thing of "what is tanking?" Solo tanked, everyone agrees, but why is this a tank and Marvel is not?

Solo made what, 103 US opening? And maybe the point is counting the extra holiday against them? I don't know, anyway, without going too far back with infaltion and all this beats out the openings of
doctor strange, winter soldier, GOTG 1 (maybe some inflation there but close in numbers), & Ant Man.
With the exception of Strange maybe (?) all these of course were getting sequels and everything was cool.

Dr Strange, Thor, Ant Man Captain America etc.. are minor movies with sub $200M budgets with the exception of Civil War $250M which was more like Avengers lite. Black Panther $200M budget, Ant-Man $130M.

The only Marvel movies close to Solo are the Avengers movies with a half dozen major stars. Solo had a colossal production budget and won’t probably pass Dr Strange in worldwide box office. Partly is like the director fired and rewriting and all which is never a good sign. I’m sure the budget was way more than they were initially starting with since R1 was also $200M and Solo is not a major movie like the trilogy so should be more in line with the minor Marvel movies like Black Panther and Thor etc.

I haven’t seen Solo but I’m betting it’s better than TLJ but that is not saying too much.

It would be hard not to.

Yeah I was trying to find out Solo budget...looks like maybe 250 but I don't know if that is adding in all the re-jiggering they had to do.

I read $300M Solo budget but it’s not official that I can see.

I think Solo did $10M in China while Avengers Infinity did like $170M opening week in China.

I really like the snow trooper costumes, they always looked scarier than the regular storm troopers to me as a kid. I love the TIE Pilot helmet too!

Zuckuss is a great one, other than Fett you don't see too many of the other bounty hunter costumes. I can say regarding trooping as Fett, the costume is a pain to put on and takes quite a lot of time. You obviously need a second person to help and it's useful if they have dressed you previously in it, particularly when putting on and adjusting the jetpack. Perhaps that's why they don't troop as often.

It's an interesting case study. "What is the value/quality of these movies AS MOVIES when you remove the nostalgia?" China allows a glimpse into this.

I think if the new SW movies adhered to classic archetypes as much as ANH did they'd have a better chance (obtaining new markets) The farmer who becomes a General. The rogue you can't trust. The wise old man. The princess. The evil knight.

Instead we get Super Amazing at Everything Rey (who needs a Hero's Journey?) bumbling fool Finn, Poe "I never get to do anything" Dameron, Leia Organa (not actually Leia just Carrie Fisher playing Old Carrie Fisher) and a bunch of bumbling Mel Brooks spoof Nazis as the First Order.

Agree, and Infinity did over $330M in China the most ever by a foreign film while it's all but impossible for Solo to break $300M for total world (minus US market).

http://deadline.com/2018/05/solo-a-star-wars-story-opening-weekend-deadpool-2-avengers-infinity-war-china-global-international-box-office-1202398686/

this standalone spinoff had a disappointing overseas bow of $68.2M in 54 material markets which represent 88% of the offshore footprint
Rogue One opened in December 2016 with $178M in like-for-like markets and at today’s rates. Solo came in $110M below that.
Disney/Marvel’s juggernaut added $32.5M in 36 material markets this weekend to bring the offshore cume to $1.283B and the global take to $1,904.7M.

I hope Disney is not too dumb to see the results. Not saying one movie is a trend, but if the last part of the trilogy bombs, I hope they can reboot the franchise. I don't expect Disney to give up, I mean this is still a good name brand franchise and probably has good merch for them.

It's too early to give up on SW but I hope they can learn and get better going forward.

SW did survive the infamous Christmas special and hopefully in time we can ignore or forget some of the lesser movies they are making like TLJ.

Hated TLJ but gave Solo a chance and thought it was really good. Enjoyed it thoroughly

Saw Solo. Predictable and enjoyable but for the love of God Disney throttle back on "droids with attitudes." Yeah yeah I get it R2 and 3PO had attitudes but not "SO GLAD WE TOOK THIS JOB" or "You've gotta do that thing to me later" attitudes. Yikes.

Oh and now I've got Woody Harrelson fatigue as prior to Solo recently rewatched The Hunger Games, War for Planet of the Apes and Zombieland. Looks like I'll have to dig out my VHS tapes of White Men Can't Jump and Kingpin pretty soon.

Finally, just throwing this out there. With Star Wars and Marvel it's pretty clear that Disney will have zero interest in ever reviving the Tron property. I think there are still some decent stories to tell in that world and would like to see another studio buy the rights. Plus we might get another pinball out of it

Solo' s budget is reportedly higher than 300 mil, according to the different outlets over half the movie was reshot. They need 400 mil to break even with the added marketing costs. Also, I don't think there is such a thing as SW fatigue....this is backlash coupled with a lackluster story. The main character's casting was wrong. The story line is not compelling, just look at the trailer what is it telling us? Atleast R1 dovetailed nicely in the SW major storyline and answered a question on how the plans for the DS was received. Solo told us how he got his name and famous blaster, just not enough for me. One last thing I heard about a cameo about a crime boss, when I found out who they wrote in I laughed out loud...talk about bad choices.

The studio only gets like 50% of the box office so they’d need $700M to break even but will have other merchandise and disc sales and streaming lisense. But it’s really a bad showing when it won’t likely pass Dr Strange worldwide.

In China the film is called ‘Ranger Solo’ which is a really bad name, the Star Wars story was dropped from the title because of how bad SW flopped there apparently, but I can not believe it would have done *worse* than it actually did there.

That’s the number I read: 700-800M to break even. They’ll get it in merchandising and disc sales for sure, but man I hope they get the message.

I had read they were putting Chinese actors in to get more international audience like R1 had but the characters were not great and they all died anyway. I wonder if that was why they put in the Asian girl in TLJ or not.

Well, yes I was pointing out the cost of the film. The 400 mil is what Disney needs to come out even.

Wouldn't be so sure. Have you been to a toy store lately? Overstocked expensive Star Wars toys everywhere. You wouldn't believe the amount of crap merchandise out there that does not sell, mostly items related to Episodes 7 & 8. The product doesn't even sell when it's significantly reduced. Tons of porgs, Rey, and Rose Tico garbage, and all so over priced. Who buys this stuff? Apparently no one. Not the collectors, and sorry but little boys don't want to play with girl action figures. Never have & never will. That's why GI Joe is for boys & Barbie is for girls. Maybe the Solo stuff will sell, but I seriously doubt it. Disney created this toy mess all by themselves.

That's 100% why Rose Tico, the worst SW character ever, was put in Episode 8. To appeal to the Chinese market. How'd that work out? Every studio today does this practice to some degree, with mixed results. You just have to look for it. And yes she is worse than JarJar & LE-E7.

Man that's tough. She's goddamn abysmal no one will deny it, but worse than JarJar I can't get on board with. Hard to take this in a vacuum though (unlike the vacuum of space which cannot affect Mary Poppins), like if Rose was in the prequels.
At this point we've been so beaten down having an all time horrible character isn't as much of a shock to the system.

She's worse than Ep 1 Annikin & Grevious though.

She's pretty lame, but worse than Jar Jar? You picked a bad day to quit sniffing glue.

lloyd-bridges-on-glue (resized).jpg

My long-winded thoughts on Solo (and background)..

First, I wasn’t as offended by TLJ as some. I hated Luke tossing the saber, the extra 45m dedicated to Finn and Rose, and the plot holes, but the overall arc for Luke didn’t bother me as much as it did others. It’s the first time I’m not looking forward to watching a SW movie in the home setting (as evidenced by not even purchasing it to date), and I would consider it my second least-favorite (behind only Ep2).

Solo – I had really high expectations from the trailers. Solo is probably my favorite fictional character ever. Lando is the the character I’d most like to see more. Donald Glover wearing fur in a stoic pose in the trailer made me think it really had a shot.

I avoided most material leading up to the movie. I saw the trailer, and I thought it looked promising. We lined up a babysitter and made our plans. We were committed. While bored, I checked to see the reviews the movie was receiving. Low 70s, and the worst reviewed SW movie since whatever. Yikes. My expectations were shattered, and I went in expecting to be disappointed.

Our timing was poor, and we ended up having to eat dinner at the theater rather than going out before the show. That meant eating lackluster over-priced cinema fare, but it also meant that we would be able to see the camaraderie at the theater before the showing!… wait… where is everyone? The environment felt pretty stale when we walked in. Darth Vader and 2 Storm Troopers were there, along with a character I didn’t recognize (later found out he was meant to be the main villain from this movie). There were so few people to demand their attention that I actually feared for a minute that we’d have to interact with them while we used the kiosk to grab our preordered tickets – but we must have done a good enough job ignoring them. It felt like there had been a half-hearted effort to create some excitement, and it just didn’t take and felt very forced.

The theater wasn’t even full. We were in the Ultra Screen theater at 7pm on a Friday night opening weekend. The 2 seats to my right were both empty, and there were other scattered empty spaces throughout the theater. This was in the Madison areas newest, most cutting-edge theater. Non-sequitor: I hate most previews, as I feel like it’s seeing a (often better) 2-minutre version of the movie, but the Queen movie looks great! The guy adjacent to my wife let out the theater’s only “woo!”, which one other excitable fan echoed in reply. That was it, except a few grumbles.

The movie opens and I feel like the first thing everyone is watching for is whether we’re convinced that Alden is Han Solo (or Harrison Ford). I think the first scene does well to make us believe he is Solo. I spent most of the movie watching mannerisms and speech patterns very closely. Overall I think he captured Han Solo, and (probably to his credit) refrained from trying to do a Harrison Ford impersonation. To that point, it was less distracting than I expected, and he never allowed me to persuade myself that I was watching an imposter.

Lando was good, but to me it felt like Donald Glover was doing a bit of an impression, but still did capture the style of Lando. L3 was pretty annoying as a character, but thankfully she was really the only one, and didn’t have a huge role. I actually found her equally annoying to the droid from R1 (but most people loved him).

I had fun. It was a good ride. My annoyances lie in things others tend to like – mention of the Tanaka sisters and Bossk.. cool and everything, but it also makes the world feel that much smaller to me, and takes me out of the moment for a second. The mention of Teras Kai on the other hand was pretty cool! I think I was one of a dozen people that played that game growing up. I’m inconsistent on what easter eggs I like, I suppose, so that’s on me.

In contrast to TLJ, I can’t wait to get this movie into my home. The theater experience isn’t one I particularly enjoy. The sound is usually pretty great, but the seats where the effect is best felt are at a premium. The picture quality to me is lackluster, especially for space scenes. Maybe it’s where I’m sitting, but the colors look washed and the blacks are gray and poorly defined. My $600 TCL at home (love it) does a much better job of producing a quality picture. I can also control the volume to my liking, and I don’t have to pay $8 for a beer. SW is the only movie I’ve gone to the theater for over the past 4-5 years. I don’t have fatigue. I want more, but I want them to be high-quality.

I can’t believe that I enjoyed this movie as much as I did, and I can’t understand how they would have let their keystone product suffer at the hands of Rian Johnson. He does seem hell bent on “tearing apart the past” or whatever, and hasn’t been subtle in that message. I’ll take more Ron Howard any day.

Someone shared a similar sentiment, but when people say new SW offerings are “decent” it just reinforces the fact that the helium has been outta this balloon since 1983.

in all fairness to Transformers. Transformers 3 isn't a total piece of dogshit. It's the closest out of all the Michael Bay shitstorm, that has a story that would be closest to something from the TV show, cartoon movie or comic series. But all the rest were complete pieces of garbage and M.B. should be banned from directing. Hasn't the movie industry realized that, when you find directors that are actual fans of the subject matter they are filming, they pay attention to detail? Care about the script and direction the movie is going, and actually try to keep the feel of the movie in scope of the spirit of the subject matter?

Our sad Toys R Us is pretty much picked over, but the Star Wars section looks fully stocked, even at 50% off. I don't think this stuff has been moving well for the past several films.

Are you kidding me? There is a shower scene with Han and Chewie?

Watch the video while you can, I'm sure it will get yanked! SPOILERS!

40 years from now when Rose Tico is a the rarest most valuable toy ever you'll kick yourself for not buying them all up.

The Han and Chewie shower scene makes sense within the context of the movie.

no amount of showering can wash off the taint that SW has been covered with for the past 19 years.