Everyone’s favorite Intergalactic Smuggler arrives at the theaters with his origin story after having met with hmmm… Spoilers? After all this time you haven’t watched “The Force Awakens“? Are you sure you want to read this knowing so? You’re brave!
Synopsis
Han was just a kid when he was taken off the streets of Corellia and onto the custody of Lady Proxima, a Grindalid who controls Corellia’s black market alongside an operation where she sends young kids into the streets to steal whatever they can find.
Throuhout the years Han forged a bond with Qi’ra and after the young man managed to fool Lady Proxima about a deal that went wrong but supposedly went well, Han was planning to sell a unit of Refined Coaxium (fuel required for hyperspace traveling) to leave Corellia and fulfil their dream to travel the Galaxy.
Not everything goes according to plan, and Han finds himself surviving in an endless loop where is life is risked more often than he wished to. But the young pilot was not destined to be a slave towards his own survival until his demise, and the opportunity soon presented itself, for his life to take a turn.
Analysis
There’s this formula in most Star Wars movies, mainly in the standalone films and the first episodes of each trilogy, therefor Episode IV, I and VII, that you either love until the end of your days, or you’ll kinda begin to hate it until you can’t stand it any longer. I’m talking about the pacing of the movie and the general direction that most of these episodes have in common. The movies listed above all begin with a character living under unfavorable and dire circumstances with no hope for a better future until something out of the ordinary happens to them, thus changing their lives with a dose of adventure enough for an average human lifetime.
The storyline is pretty straightforward and we barely lose sight of Han at any time during his adventures. There are some sad parts, which to be honest, I was not expecting! But ei, ever since what happened to Han in The Force Awakens…
Here’s a little bit of truth in my opinion. The movie does not outshine the others, even Rogue One, in both action and plot. About humor, sure, it exceeds some of them. Han is funny despite the precarious situations he founds himself most of the time. There isn’t a grand purpose for this movie besides Han’s motives to reunite with Qi’ra and fulfil their dream, although there’s a faction of the Rebel Alliance present in the movie, trying to fuel ideals to stand against the tyranny of the Empire and the ruthlessness of the Criminal Syndicates like Crimson Dawn.
Big surprise! Darth Maul is later revealed to be the ruler of Crimson Dawn, in a time and age of the Empire, years after he was cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi and having fell to oblivion. If you watched the animated series, The Clone Wars and Rebels, you get to know what happened to Darth Maul after his first confrontation with Obi-Wan and how he brought himself up after that. But then… I don’t really know what’s cannon anymore because Darth Maul shouldn’t have appeared in the movie! I haven’t watched Star Wars: Rebels though, so I might be wrong about something… However if you search for Darth Maul in Rebels…
TL;DR
Solo: A Star Wars Story is everything you could hope to watch in a movie of the franchise, depicting the origins of Han Solo, Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian whom most fans were already familiarized in past movies.
All in all, we watch a little bit of everything! Romance, drama, space craft chases, a little bit of tension with blasters firing everywhere, suspense and stealth infiltrations, betrayals and a couple of surprises, the most intense one being the appearance of Darth Maul. That’s about everything actually.
Definitely worth to watch, but not a must watch, you know what I mean?
Through Fantasy and Reality 