I Still Don't Know How To Feel About 'Solo: A Star Wars Story'

Smack dab in the middle of WrestleMania on Sunday night, Lucasfilm went and released a new trailer for ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ during American Idol. First of all, not fair, Lucasfilm! Not fair. My interests shouldn’t have to fight for my attention like that. Secondly though, you’re better than using American Idol as a promotional tool in 2018, Star Wars.

Much better than that.

The trailer itself is pretty awesome, as all Star Wars trailers tend to be, but I still don’t know how to feel about this movie. On one hand, it’s Star Wars, so I’ll be the first person in line on opening night and likely love it and cry and all of that. On the other hand, I’m not nearly as hyped about this as I was for ‘The Force Awakens’, or ‘The Last Jedi’, or even ‘Rogue One’. I was even pretty against it happening when it was first announced for the same reason a lot of die-hard fans were: there’s only one Han Solo…and it’s Harrison Ford. I have no desire to see anybody try to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle charm that first hit the screen from him in 1977. It’s nothing against Alden Ehrenreich – it’d be the same way with anybody.

Another thing that just doesn’t do it for me is one of this film’s main selling points: that we’ll “finally” get to see a YOUNG Han Solo and find out what he was up to before the original trilogy…meeting Chewbacca, winning the Millennium Falcon off of Lando in a game of Sabacc, completing the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs…all things I’ve always enjoyed there being some level of mystique behind! Part of the reason ‘A New Hope’ was so magical when it came out was because the viewer gets thrown into an insanely intricate, vast, and lived-in universe and sees it through the eyes of a clueless farm boy – it’s essentially a spin on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ – and if you start over-explaining EVERYTHING about those worlds, you’ll run the risk of removing their wonder.

Could it blow my expectations away and be great? Of course. I’d still rather Lucasfilm take the ‘Rogue One’ route when it comes to spinoffs than the ‘Solo’ one, however. Make movies in the Star Wars universe…don’t make Star Wars movies. Rooting for this to succeed though!