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Solo review


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Solo a Star Wars story
Lucas Films Disney
PG 13.                  135 min


Hi folks just wanted to mention the spoiler alert, you’re on your own.
Like Marvel and DC are the two biggest comic book empires in the world the two biggest science fiction franchises would most definitely be Star Wars and Star Trek. And similarly to the comics aficionados seem to be lined up by age. If you were too young to remember the 1960’s television series you’ll probably be more inclined to bond with Obi Wan, Luke and Darth. The two big differences between the franchises, as I see it are the Star Wars has different characters blowing up the same Death Star while Star Trek has the same characters in all sorts of different situations.
Now in a way Star Wars is following suit with of a prequel centered on the franchises most popular protagonist, Han Solo, as a younger man. Folks you can bet your thrusters that the legendary Harrison Ford is going to be a tough act to follow.  I waited until the Memorial Day weekend wrapped up before I ventured into a theater full of kids but word at the box office was that the numbers have been a  soft especially for as much press as this has gotten, and a dearth of competition. My guess is that Ford is still working and pretty fresh in the minds of the American moviegoers, so if this is going to be a 4-star success Alden Ehrenreich is going to have to really nail the Han Solo role.  He’s okay; that’s about it. 
Still with a solid supporting cast and an interesting story packed with enough hooks to carry you along, not to mention the Lucas magic and Ron Howard at the helm, okay is plenty good enough. 
Like any good origin flick we start out finding our hero as a young kid, kind of an Oliver Twist, making his living space ghetto by his wits and his ability to fly and drive futuristic vehicles. He dreams of making enough money, honestly or otherwise, to buy his own ship and make his own destiny with his girlfriend Kira (Emilia Clarke). Unfortunately fate will separate the two and he vows to come back for her rescue. In order to put that plan into action he hooks up with a Rogue by the name of Beckett (Woody Harrelson) who’s working on a plan to steal some super-powered stuff and sell it to interplanetary bad guy, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany). When the super stuff is stolen again by a band of marauders the Sheet hits the proverbial matter-antimatter reactors and Han is swept into action and intrigue along with his new acquaintances Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover filling in the Billy Dee Williams role) and his stalwart sidekick Chewbacca. I was a little worried that the action might overshadow the story but it never does. And the story is fun even at 2 hours and 15 minutes with plenty of intrigue seasoned with a sizable helping of good old ‘who do you trust’ sauce. There are also a couple new characters, including Lando’s sharpe tongue robot girlfriend and a kind of a crab monkey pilot, much more enjoyable than, (dare I mention his name) Jar Jar Binks. And I gotta tell you as soon as Han finds out Chewbacca is actually a damn fine pilot when an emergency forces him to take the second chair and they cue up the Star Wars theme…  Some purists have complained about a lack of strict adherence to the Star Wars timeline but I’ve never personally gotten into that. I think they just make it up as they go along anyway.
It’s romantic, exciting and fun, and best of all, there’s no frigging Death Star to blow up. 
A-
WSS
 

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Well....as I mentioned on the other thread....the timeline thing IS a big  continuity problem.  

It would be kind of like Khan showing up to battle Captain Picard.   

I mean...the guy was killed.   He was Darth Sidious's first apprentice.  Sidious later had Count Dooku, then  Anakin/Darth.

So....unless they were able to achieve reincarnation....or unless this is the son or grandson of the original Darth Maul...it makes absolutely no sense to the overall story line.

But yes, just like Rogue One....this takes us back to the events merely referenced in  the Original Star Wars (later to be give the "A New Hope"  tag)...and in the Empire Strikes back.   Making the Kessel  run in 12 parcecs  (the Cody Kessler run)....and the acquisition by Han of the Millenium Falcon.

As for the "soft" numbers, the thing I figure is that now that Disney has their hands on the franchise, they, as usual, want to pump it for all they can. So they are coming out with a new movie in the franchise every 6 months or so.  While I appreciate these stories...it does just seem, as I said, like Disney wants to milk it for all the money they can grub from it....and its novelty/uniqueness is not quite the same when you have to wait a year or two for the next "episode". 

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1 hour ago, The Gipper said:

Well....as I mentioned on the other thread....the timeline thing IS a big  continuity problem.  

It would be kind of like Khan showing up to battle Captain Picard.   

I mean...the guy was killed.   He was Darth Sidious's first apprentice.  Sidious later had Count Dooku, then  Anakin/Darth.

So....unless they were able to achieve reincarnation....or unless this is the son or grandson of the original Darth Maul...it makes absolutely no sense to the overall story line.

But yes, just like Rogue One....this takes us back to the events merely referenced in  the Original Star Wars (later to be give the "A New Hope"  tag)...and in the Empire Strikes back.   Making the Kessel  run in 12 parcecs  (the Cody Kessler run)....and the acquisition by Han of the Millenium Falcon.

As for the "soft" numbers, the thing I figure is that now that Disney has their hands on the franchise, they, as usual, want to pump it for all they can. So they are coming out with a new movie in the franchise every 6 months or so.  While I appreciate these stories...it does just seem, as I said, like Disney wants to milk it for all the money they can grub from it....and its novelty/uniqueness is not quite the same when you have to wait a year or two for the next "episode". 

And to us astronomy geeks, I always get a ??? On the 12 parsecs. A parsec is a distance, ( technically a little more than 3 light years) not a unit of time. :)

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3 hours ago, hoorta said:

And to us astronomy geeks, I always get a ??? On the 12 parsecs. A parsec is a distance, ( technically a little more than 3 light years) not a unit of time. :)

Well...if I recall from the show,  they did go through like a wormhole or a maelstrom or some such thing that significantly reduced the difference they had to travel to the Kessel mines.

And to be honest, I always thought that a parsec was just a made up term.  But, you are saying that it is a real thing?

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5 hours ago, The Gipper said:

Well...if I recall from the show,  they did go through like a wormhole or a maelstrom or some such thing that significantly reduced the difference they had to travel to the Kessel mines.

And to be honest, I always thought that a parsec was just a made up term.  But, you are saying that it is a real thing?

Absolutely Gipper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec

To make it simple, a parsec (short for parallax of one arc second) is the distance at which the diameter of the earth's orbit around the sun would appear to be one arc second. FWIW, the moon or sun's average diameter in the sky is 1,800 arc seconds. And if you want some more boring trivia, the resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope is 0.1 arc second. It could split the left and right headlight of a car at a distance from New York to San Francisco.  :)   

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