Film Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Thread starter harshad
- Start date
But it's Disney.
Been a while since I've seen the film but as I remember it he just goes to confront Ren and momentarily considers killing him when he sees only darkness in him? Not really the same as premeditated murder, nor the same as the confrontation with DV where he actually sensed good within him. In fact it's almost exactly the opposite situation.
Not particularly convincingly which is part of the problem really. I doubt there would be as much criticism if it actually did a good job of playing with people’s expectations. Though in fairness the first film gave this one a problem by making the character run away and hide in the first place.
People, yourself included, complain about plots in films all the time. I’m not sure why that requires sarcastic responses.
Last edited:
it didn't load, but I assume it's when he is going into Jabba's palace to rescue Leia.
Yes, the point is that he is morally grey and being seduced somewhat by the dark side though out RotJ, but the character arc resolution is that when confronted with committing the evil act of killing, even when the person deserved it, he chose the 'path of the jedi' because he;
A) saw that he was becoming like Vader
B) could see that there was still chance for redemption for him
The film ends with Vader redeeming himself, the Death Star getting blowed up and a massive furry party with force ghosts chilling n' shit.
It is pretty poor story telling to undo a character arc, to then have him attempt a murder of his nephew cos he might be evil, when he's already resolved the internal conflict by refusing to execute his dad who was actually a fascist enforcer to the Empire who killed the only family he knew.
Explain how this is the case? Do you want some seriously black/white fantasy scenario where characters can't potentially 'fall' again once they've reached a certain point? I mean, it's a momentary contemplation from what I remember - he doesn't even do it. Hardly undoes anything.
It's this sort of nit-picking that annoys me.
Last edited:
Luke has shown he is prone to moments of anger/panic that cause him to react rashly like running off to Cloud City and beating the crap out of Vader then lopping his hand off to protect Leia. When he feels people he cares about are in danger he panics/reacts rashly. The same thing he did when he sensed how dangerous Ben was. In the end he regains control. It's not out of character at all. Luke was handled right. He could have turned up and killed Kylo, but in the end he chose peace just like with Vader. He went out with one huge display of Force power staring into the sun(s). He was handled well and passed the torch.
The issue is who he passed the torch to. None of the new characters are any good, they are all shit, especially Rey.
The issue is who he passed the torch to. None of the new characters are any good, they are all shit, especially Rey.
It's called resolution. Unless it's like a Coen Brothers movie or something, you expect (and feel positively about) the plot and characters to have progressed the story to a point where the efforts were worthwhile. By undoing the central point of resolution in the climax of the original trilogy it damages the original arc.
I bet all of the best character arcs you like are the same.
To use examples in the ASOIAF books there are a tonne of great arcs;
Jaime, Sandor, Sansa, Daenerys (excellent example of a secondary conflict - she went from object to agent in her first arc and now is conflicted over how to impose her power) Stannis etc etc
contrast that to Sansa and Jaime's arcs in the show, where they have resolution to their central conflicts, then it is undone to further the plot - is this better and more 'shades of grey' than the books? FECK OFF! it's just poor writing.
To be honest with you I've not been bothered about Star Wars at all outside of the original trilogy and even that I'm not obsessed over. I'm not sure how I've managed to be drawn into this.
If you think ASOIAF is a series with 'great arcs' I'm not getting into this (the cnut hasn't even finished writing the story yet in any case). I don't think you've proven how Luke's arc was undone at all. It wasn't - end of story.
Whether I did or didn't, it doesn't change that fact that a lot of the negative conversation on the internet is about that, rather than wanting Luke to be the main hero of this trilogy which was being suggested.
Given that Solo is currently projected to make a loss, maybe Disney should take more care in the future not to piss on the fans' chips?
This isn’t a plot hole, though. Or some kind of completely implausible deus ex machina, or any other kind of silly plot twist that makes no sense. It’s just a character turning out to be more flawed than his fans want him to be. If anything, it gives the movie a bit of depth.
It’s a million miles away from being the sort of movie-ruining plot twist it’s been blown up into by some Star Wars fans. That’s just a really strange way of looking at things, which goes above and beyond any kind of rational, normal movie criticism.
FWIW, the movie did have lots of plot holes. Some of the stuff leading up to the light speed spaceship collision made little sense, for example. If sloppy plot worries you, focus on that stuff. Indignation over Luke Skywalker turning out to be a flawed human being is just a bizarre hill to die on.
Last edited:
The Solo movie was a stupid idea right from the off. A completely unwanted film. I really don't see the connection people are making with regard to TLJ.
And why should Disney cater to hardcore fans? When has that ever been a good idea? Just make good entertaining films - feck the neckbeards and their 'head-canon'.
This is not a movie with depth. This is a movie that played for very cheap laughs. It didn’t do a particularly good job of making the character believable in my opinion.
It’s a character that people have known for many years. Of course people have grown an attachment to it. Characters were a very important part of the films appeal and one of the bigger issues in the prequels. That should be fairly evident. Instead you have people being told they’re weird because they didn’t like what was done with the character. They’re also continually being told how they should feel about the character.
No it's simply annoying that people can't get over how the director and the studio went in a different direction to what they expected.
There's no issue with people saying "I don't think it worked/didn't like the story/didn't like whatever". It's when they start talking about 'they've ruined Star Wars!' or 'Luke's character is now destroyed!'. That's just fecking nonsense. The old trilogy is separate despite what drivel is being said.
I ignore the prequels quite easily. If people hate TLJ, and all that comes with it, just ignore the new trilogy.
People do realise that...like, characters change, right?
The Luke that considers murdering Ren is no doubt a different person to the one who fights Vader. As he would be, a number of years on.
If he'd chopped him to pieces and displayed his corpse on show to warn anyone else against falling to the dark side...then, yeah, fair enough, but I'm not sure why people are getting so wound up over a character taking a slightly different direction to the one they hoped they would. Especially when the OT has Luke increasingly becoming a darker character as it progresses.
The Luke that considers murdering Ren is no doubt a different person to the one who fights Vader. As he would be, a number of years on.
If he'd chopped him to pieces and displayed his corpse on show to warn anyone else against falling to the dark side...then, yeah, fair enough, but I'm not sure why people are getting so wound up over a character taking a slightly different direction to the one they hoped they would. Especially when the OT has Luke increasingly becoming a darker character as it progresses.
No! Stop changing things dammit!People do realise that...like, characters change, right?
The Luke that considers murdering Ren is no doubt a different person to the one who fights Vader. As he would be, a number of years on.
If he'd chopped him to pieces and displayed his corpse on show to warn anyone else against falling to the dark side...then, yeah, fair enough, but I'm not sure why people are getting so wound up over a character taking a slightly different direction to the one they hoped they would. Especially when the OT has Luke increasingly becoming a darker character as it progresses.
The Solo movie was also, if anything, too focussed on pleasing the fanboys. An extended backstory to a much loved character(s) with very little new or interesting to add.
I’m guessing that a movie where Luke Skywalker gets as much screentime as Hans in this latest movie might have appeased the fans but if it was as lame to watch then it would probably also flop in the box office.
Can you not follow your own advice then and ignore that people were annoyed about it?
I can happily separate the originals from the rest. It doesn’t mean people can’t be annoyed that the character in the new film was a bit shit. It’s a fairly common reaction to something that somebody is invested in. In much the way people get annoyed about a football match they care about.
Personally I never really had much issue with him considering murdering Ren. It didn’t seem to make much sense and the film didn’t do a particularly good job of making it believable but that was just poor execution. Milking space cows like a deranged hobo was much more of an annoyance.People do realise that...like, characters change, right?
The Luke that considers murdering Ren is no doubt a different person to the one who fights Vader. As he would be, a number of years on.
If he'd chopped him to pieces and displayed his corpse on show to warn anyone else against falling to the dark side...then, yeah, fair enough, but I'm not sure why people are getting so wound up over a character taking a slightly different direction to the one they hoped they would. Especially when the OT has Luke increasingly becoming a darker character as it progresses.
On a different point, it's quite ironic that after all the outrage from woman-hating, basement-dwelling losers, the first of the new Star Wars films to flop was the one featuring a white, male lead.
Personally I hope the lesson Disney take from this is that they should double down on the success of the critically acclaimed, box-office hit that was TLJ by featuring even more "minority" characters.
Personally I hope the lesson Disney take from this is that they should double down on the success of the critically acclaimed, box-office hit that was TLJ by featuring even more "minority" characters.
The guy who didn't gave up on Darth Vader, a person responsible for killing millions (if not billions) in galaxy, somehow considers and almost kills in cold blood his young nephew.
Come on, it is totally out of Luke's character.
Why does it have to be that people who simply did not like TLJ have to be referred to in such a way? Why can it not just be that people think it wasn’t a good movie and some of the characters were not very well done?
Probably, but then so was running away and hiding in the first place. An argument can be made to say his character can change over a number of years. It’s up to the director to make that a believable change though. He doesn’t deserve credit for being different just because.
An idiotic argument, he probably feels wiser, stronger and cooler by writing that post.
People seem to forget that the opening weekend of this movie was significantly smaller than all of the other Star Wars movie. Which maybe shows that the failure of this movie has more to do with people being tired of Star Wars (and The Last Jedi might have played a part there) rather than the movie being shit.
People also seem to forget that The Last Jedi has an extremely large opening, but then had the biggest drop from first to second weekend in the history of blockbusters. Maybe it just wasn't that good, but people went to watch it cause TFA was decent (despite being a reboot), but then from word of mouth, less and less people went to watch it.
The whole angry white males thing was used as a deflection from criticism for the films and the terrible writing of Rey. Idiots fell for it. The politicizing of family entertainment is getting really tiresome.
@Revan I didn’t see Solo because I really did not like TLJ, and my normal group of friends who I see movies with also did the same. Like you I’m not sure if that was the reason, or if it was simply because of Star Wars overload, but I’m fairly sure there would have been other people who felt the same, even if it was just a small amount of people.
@Art Vandelay The demonizing of Star Wars fans is truly depressing. The same people who are being called racist, sexist, basement dwelling nerds are the same ones who contributed to Star Wars being the icon that it is. The people who over the years have bought books, games and other paraphanelia that made Star Wars the cash cow that got Disney interested in the first place are being blamed for the movie’s not being loved. Blame the toxic Star Wars fans, it can’t be for one second that the movies weren’t good.
@Art Vandelay The demonizing of Star Wars fans is truly depressing. The same people who are being called racist, sexist, basement dwelling nerds are the same ones who contributed to Star Wars being the icon that it is. The people who over the years have bought books, games and other paraphanelia that made Star Wars the cash cow that got Disney interested in the first place are being blamed for the movie’s not being loved. Blame the toxic Star Wars fans, it can’t be for one second that the movies weren’t good.
Well if you cherry pick your data you can prove most things. Like if I said TLJ had a far lower third weekend drop both in percentage terms (how the industry actually measures these things) and money terms than TFA (both true) to prove that it had greater staying power, it would be misleading.
When looking at the whole picture, it took in just under a third of its overall US take on its opening weekend. That looks to be pretty much how Infinity War will end up as well. Not exceptional by any means, but far from evidence of masses of pissed off fans either.
People who just didn't like TLJ are absolutely fine. I was specifically referring to those who took issue with its supposed liberal values. I thought I had made that clear enough by including signpost phrases like "on a different point", "woman-hating", "white, male leads" and "minority characters" but perhaps I failed to take my superior wisdom, strength and coolness into account. My bad.
I'm not sure how you could possibly ignore the angry white male element given that very same angry white male element is currently claiming credit for driving the film's asian, female actor off the internet by way of a sustained campaign of sexist and racist abuse. That's a thing that actually happened specifically for those reasons, as was a campaign to lower the film's rating on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, a campaign to boycott subsequent Disney films and a campaign to target Marvel's Black Panther.
Not sure people are idiots for pointing to that as a source for the unusual level of outrage rather then the "terrible writing" that managed to attract such acclaim from critics
Last edited:
That's a twitter account with 40 followers and the replies to that tweet are fans telling whoever posted it he's an idiot.
I'm sure there are morons who posted horrible shit to KMT's social media, but the 'unusual level of outrage' as you put it is focused on TLJ, Rian Johnson & the direction Lucasfilm is going in under Kathleen Kennedy.
What proportion of these people do you think never had a problem with diversity in sci fi such as Alien and Aliens?
Star Wars fans are very protective of the series. They got upset with George Lucas a long time before Disney got involved - look up The People v George Lucas for reference.
In terms of bigots, in the same way you shouldn't go on tumblr and read an extremist feminist discussion then attribute it to all feminists, you shouldn't do the same to white male Star Wars fans. That said there are people who are pissed off with the tone coming out of the studio, ' the force is female' then look at the direction the new movies are going in and consider that they are trying to push an intersectional feminist agenda. Thats where you'll find your 'Soylo' arguments being made.
Those are the people he’s talking about. Weirdos, basically.
Anti-sjw is a pretty big thing on the internet. Do you think you can be anti-sjw without being racist sexist etc or a weirdo?
On YouTube you mean - where populism is given a space to live and breathe.
Back in the real world - I've never seen or heard an SJW (certainly not in any place of importance) and most others haven't either. So yeah, anti-SJW types tend to be weird backward types subscribing to popular right-wing bullshit. And they most definitely did brigade the TLJ with bad reviews.
So Luke went from trying to kill his father, helping to redeem him, being at peace, went to train the next group of Jedi, sensing Ren was evil and contemplated doing something which he didnt do, but being there caused Ren to go apeshit and kill everybody. Which in affect caused Luke to go into hiding cos of the outcome, until he was called out by Rey, who then taught Ren a lesson before being one with the force and fading away.
Honestly, no real problems with that. No films were destroyed by having that as the character arc for Luke
Honestly, no real problems with that. No films were destroyed by having that as the character arc for Luke
Not really, no.
Yep and they're exactly the basement-dwelling idiots I was referring to. I can't see how anyone could find the "message" of TLJ objectionable unless they had a distorted view of how women and minorities should be portrayed in films. There's clearly a significant enough number of them given Kelly Marie Tran was driven off instagram by sexist and racist abuse, not by critiques of how Luke Skywalker's character was developed.
Laura Dern's purple hair triggered them. I wish I was making that up.
And I wish I believed you were making that up. Yet here we are.
It genuinely beggars belief that - in 2018 - anyone could push back against the idea that blockbuster movies viewed by millions of kids should at least make an effort to include a few decent roles for female actors (that doesn't involve wearing a skimpy gold bikini and a chain around their neck) and people of colour. Never mind grown men freaking the feck out on the basis that these casting decisions are "ruining their childhood" because they didn't enjoy said movie as much as they hoped they would.
He only doesn't give up on Vader after he's chopped off his hand and has almost killed him. Luke's character throughout ROTJ veers towards the darkness but just avoids it. But even then he's clearly a much darker and altogether more solemn figure than he is at the start of the trilogy.
And...again, as I said, characters change. People change. The Luke we see in TLJ is 30 years older than the one we saw in the originals. And people make mistakes, some of which can sometimes seem out of character or different to how you'd expect them to act.