'Solo: A Star Wars Story' Provides Fun Story and Stellar Performances

A lot of us Star Warsfans have been very apprehensive about the newest anthology film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, myself included. I feel like most of us have just been very hesitant about someone who wasn't Harrison Ford playing Han Solo.

But I recently watched the movie, and it was FANTASTIC.

So, I'm gonna be writing a little review. The first part will be spoiler-free, and when I reach a certain point with spoilers, I'll warn you. And I'll be assessing my predictions I had for Solo before I watched the movie and saying which were right and which were wrong.

Here we go!

First, we're gonna talk about the action.

This movie had some pretty good action scenes. All of them were exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat, but sometimes, it was a little bit difficult to tell what was happening because of how fast-paced everything was going.

Some of those action scenes had a little too many jump-cuts, but I'd say they were pretty fun, and I have two scenes in mind. One of them is the Conveyex heist.

And another is the Kessel run.

Yes, in A New Hope, we hear Han Solo make the dubious claim that he made the Kessel run in "less than 12 parsecs," and in this film, we see that Kessel run and how it took place. I don't want to tell you exactly how it went down, but rest assured, it was as epic as it seemed.

The story was awesome. All I can say about it is Han Solo and his crew have to steal some unrefined coaxium following the Conveyex train heist.

And this story was very entertaining. Something else I enjoyed about this movie was the respect they paid to Han, Chewie, and Lando. The actors they got were perfect.

I mean, I was critical of Alden Ehrenreich portraying Han in the film. When I first saw him, I didn't think he looked or sounded enough like Harrison Ford.

But when I watched this movie, I completely bought it. He looks enough like a young Han Solo, and though the voice isn't great, the mannerisms and the timing are all perfect. For example, throughout the OT, we usually saw Han do a signature finger-point.

And there are many times in this movie where Ehrenreich pulls off the same Han Solo finger-point. So, I guess we can say that his performance was on-POINT. Hee hee.

So, the point is, I totally bought Ehrenreich as Han Solo. One thing to note, however, is the Han we see in this film is much younger than the Han in the OT, so in this film, he's much less cynical and wants to prove himself as "the bad guy."

Chewie was also amazing. I mean, how did they get the Chewie actor to look so much like the original?

Ha ha. Just kidding. But seriously, don't EVER put a Star Trek meme in a Star Wars article. It's just wrong.

Anyways, Donald Glover was a perfect Lando Calrissian as well.

He looked like the original Lando, and he was definitely able to pull off the charm needed to play such a cool character. Everything about Lando was awesome in this movie.

We also have stellar performances from Woody Harrelson as Beckett, Emilia Clarke as Qi'ra, and all the supporting characters.

And on a separate note, throughout the trailers, we've always heard Beckett go, "Big-shot gangster putting together a crew," as if he is talking about the main events of the movie. Turns out he doesn't say that till near the end of the movie. So, that's some false advertising.

Anyways, I love this movie, I give it an 8/10. And if you've somehow avoided spoilers for this long, then there's an AMAZING cameo appearance from a certain SW character in this movie. Not gonna tell you who, but you need to watch to find out.

But if you haven't seen this movie, then that's it for my spoiler-free review. If you have seen this movie, continue reading, as the next part of this article will contain MASSIVE spoilers for the film. You have been warned.

Jumping right into the spoiler review, how f**king EPIC was that cameo appearance from Darth Maul?!

I mean, THAT is how you pander to an audience of bloodthirsty, ungrateful Star Wars fans. You give them something they're not expecting, but actually connects to The Clone Wars and Rebels. Hey, The Last Jedi! Take notes.

This cameo was perfect. Maul was portrayed by the same actor who portrayed him in The Phantom Menace, he had many more speaking lines in Solo than he did in the entirety of Episode I, and we saw his double-sided lightsaber again.

What DOESN'T get explained in the film is how Maul is still alive after being cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi and falling to his supposed death. But if you want to find that out, you're gonna have to watch The Clone Wars (TV show).

I also didn't expect the twist in which Beckett betrays Han. I mean, I did not see that coming.

So, that was a very good plot twist. But what kind of confused me is the character of Enfys Nest, who I really don't think was developed well enough.

And now, I'm gonna go through my past articles and look at all the predictions I got right and wrong.

A lot of us SW fans took note that the Falcon looked different in this movie than it does in the OT. Well, in my trailer breakdown article, I guessed that part of the Falcon's tail would break off, and the ship would take the shape we see in the OT.

Well, that happened. During a scene in the film, part of the tail (an escape pod) breaks off and we see the iconic split-nose shape left.

I ALSO correctly predicted that the tail would break off during the Kessel run. That's right, ANOTHER one of my predictions was that we would see the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. And this is when the tail broke off, as I predicted.

One of my earlier predictions was that Han would decide to drop out of the gang, and Dryden would lash out at him, becoming the film's main antagonist. That was wrong.

I DID correctly predict that this shot was Qi'ra in a disguise to help out the crew. This was a pretty good scene too, I have to say.

And from my knowledge of the EU, I was able to tell that Han would save Chewie from slavery, and that's how they would become lifelong friends and co-pilots.

I also predicted that Enfys Nest would only be a villain for the first act, like Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. But that's kind of a grey area. Her character was kind of confusing, to be honest. I was right in a way, and wrong in another.

In my "Everything You Need to Know About 'Solo: A Star Wars Story'" article, I (somewhat) correctly predicted the film would open with Han smooth-talking his way out of a situation, but I really wasn't expecting Han to pick up a rock and claim it was a detonator.

And I correctly predicted Han would learn basic skills as a pilot from the Imperial Flight Academy. But I was incorrect when I said that the Conveyex train heist would be a success.

I correctly predicted the chronology, in which AFTER the train heist, they would enlist the help of Lando and his incredibly fast ship.

And I also made a list of predictions in that article. I predicted that Dryden would kill Beckett and Qi'ra would betray Han, and neither of which happened.

But my three predictions AFTER were all correct: Han, Lando, and Chewie drop out of the gang, Qi'ra kills Dryden, and the Falcon makes the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

Here's where it gets REALLY good, though: I predicted EXACTLY how the movie would end.

Yep. Take a look at this paragraph from one of my previous articles:

Come on. You have to give me credit for that. The movie ended with Han and Lando playing Sabacc, Han gambling the Falcon and winning, and just as I predicted, the final scene featured Han and Chewie getting into the Falcon and jumping to light speed. I got it PERFECTLY.

Anyways, that's it! I feel like a Star Wars connoisseur right now.