{"id":5504,"date":"2018-05-28T06:58:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T13:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=5504"},"modified":"2018-05-28T07:10:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T14:10:19","slug":"daily-dose-the-trouble-with-solo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=5504","title":{"rendered":"Daily Dose: The Trouble with Solo"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s wrong with you Han?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hovering around 70 percent on Rottentomatoes.com, \u201cSolo: A Stars Wars Story\u201d could be considered a critical success. But relative to the other releases in the \u201cStar Wars Saga,\u201d you\u2019d have to go back to the original prequels to find reviews as dismissive.<\/p>\n

But while \u201cSolo\u201d received mainly favorable reviews, it was the tone of them that should be alarming to Disney. For example, in giving the film a \u201cfresh\u201d rating, critic\u2019s like Creative Loafing\u2019s Matt Brunson only gave it a \u201cmodest recommendation;\u201d pioneering internet film critic James Beradinelli gave it a \u201crotten\u201d rating saying that the movie was \u201cmade without any distinguishing qualities;\u201d and Atlanta\u2019s own Collider editor Matt Goldberg in giving the film a \u201crotten,\u201d \u201cC\u201d rating said the movie was fine but that \u201cRon Howard’s direction is staid, stolid, and completely without personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"I too bemoaned the film\u2019s lack of risk-taking, but recognized that it found some level of success trading largely on the good will of the \u201cStar Wars\u201d universe. Going back to well to connect nostalgically each new film to the ones that came before is a technique that is beginning to wear paper thin. My \u201cfresh\u201d review was not a ringing endorsement.<\/p>\n

The rather tepid reaction that critics had to \u201cSolo\u201d no doubt further contributed to its relative failure at the box office. There was just no groundswell needed to make it an event film. It certainly didn\u2019t help that there was significant carry over competition. Let\u2019s face it, \u201cSolo\u201d would have been no match head-to-head with most anything Marvel. And compared to Deadpool, Han Solo looks positively dated and not the least bit fly. Even to millennials, Han is their father\u2019s brand of cool. Today, the potty-mouthed Wade Wilson is the hip hero of choice.<\/p>\n

Articulating the Deadpool\/Han Solo divide wonderfully this weekend was Variety critic Owen Gleiberman, whose sharply worded essay<\/a> entitled \u201cIt\u2019s Official: Deadpool Is Now Cooler Than Han Solo\u201d quickly made the Twitter rounds.<\/p>\n

Without focusing on Gleiberman\u2019s comments on modern masculinity, it\u2019s enough to say that \u201cSolo\u201d did nothing to make Han dirty enough to be taken seriously. The character always had a dark side to him, just one hair shy of switching sides, especially, if that meant a financial reward. And he may have even shot first in the cantina. Of course, that was \u201csettled\u201d when Lucas released the 1997 special edition of the original. But the Lucas\u2019 tinkering may have hinted at the weakening of the character, whose personality couldn\u2019t be left morally ambiguous. And spoiler here, Han does shoot first in \u201cSolo,\u201d but this unceremonious act lands with a leaden and muted thud.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the only present franchise character that has approached this level of conflicted allegiance is the code-breaker DJ played by Benicio Del Toro in \u201cThe Last Jedi.\u201d DJ is scary, but with the potential to be heroic. Even Oscar Isaac\u2019s Poe, who staged an actual mutiny in \u201cJedi,\u201d isn\u2019t edgy enough, because his decisions aren\u2019t clearly motivated by personal gain. What made Han work was his impulsive, unpredictable nature. And no matter what Lucas attempted to explain, Han ruthlessly shoots first.<\/p>\n

\"\"So, what does this mean moving forward for the \u201cStar Wars\u201d universe? Nothing. That\u2019s right, the trend is clear: \u201cStar Wars\u201d is and will continue to be \u201cfun\u201d for the whole family. Expect more porgs and cheekiness, as a franchise that is sliding into cartoon refuses to soil its clean reputation. Eschewing the crudeness of \u201cDeadpool,\u201d \u201cSolo\u201d still could have been the \u201cStar Wars\u201d film that injected some additional mature elements into what may be a series on the decline. Instead, under director Howard\u2019s sure, but boardroom guided hand, it made Han look more like everything else on screen, and in doing so, the beloved, cocky, space gun-slinger faded further into the background.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does “Solo’s” relative box office failure hints at the future of the franchise?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[459,210,316,458,441,259,436,70],"class_list":["post-5504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-a-star-wars-story","tag-box-office","tag-deadpool","tag-han-solo","tag-ron-howard","tag-rottentomatoes","tag-solo","tag-star-wars","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5509,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5504\/revisions\/5509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}