I regret to report, the first official trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story is neither titillating or memeably bad. Instead it’s a flat, industrial looking, collection of Frank Kelly Freas facsimiles set to an admittedly rousing if not cursory sci-fi track. Surprisingly, the only bit of footage we have to go on before the film’s release, (a little less than four months out, mind you) serves only to scream “hey, this actually might have been cool if it were in the right hands.”
I think I’ve been mischaracterizing my disdain for this project. I thought my antipathy towards a Han Solo prequel was rooted in my cynicism. A month ago, I would have postulated that irrespective of the quality of the film, the mere idea of a prequel film centered around a young Han is offensive enough to warrant censure. Having watched the trailer, a few images stand out, namely a shot of a young leering Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and a shot of Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and Chewbacca negotiating in the middle of a sea of space gangsters, which made me think I could stand to see a few more seedy adventures of the cosmic maverick introduced back in 1977.
That said, only one thing that made me fear the worst. Ehrenreich may look the part, but he does not make for a convincing Han. What’s worse, I think the studio is well aware of this. Saying nothing of the reports claiming Disney was disappointed by his performance enough to bring on an acting coach, in his own trailer Solo is noticeably terse. The few lines he does get to quip are clearly written with a sort of roguish charisma in mind, but Ehrenreich doesn’t quite sell it.
Hopefully there’s still some touching up to be done, but as it stands Solo is the first of the new Star Wars films that has been unable to milk the iconography for everything it’s worth. The Millennium Falcon reveal shot wades awkwardly in muddy tones and uninspired framing. Everything is dusty and arid. Not in a gritty kind of way, either. It looks cheap.
“I’ve been running scams on the street since I was ten.” Fucking boo dude. I swear to Revan, if we get one flashback sequence of little baby Han Solo running around with a little baby vest on, I’m gonna rank this movie two slots below the Star Wars Christmas Special.
