Going Solo

The title of this piece is actually a misnomer. As much as it surprises me to be at this right here, I realize it had to happen. Before you jump to all sorts of odd conclusions, let me put you a bit at ease. The whole of this thought is actually about the Solo movie. I honestly wasn’t sure I would bother with it at all. But… and this is a big but… I did see it twice recently. The first time was to find if I liked it, and the second was to wrap my head around it and see what I found interesting within the story itself.

The basic conclusion here is, I liked it. Granted it wasn’t earth shaking. It didn’t blow me out of my seat. And I really would have liked to have seen this one on the big screen. A bit of that is the same reaction I had to Rogue One. Both of these movies that play a bit outside of the main storylines, were something that Disney would have been better off working with than the directions they have gone with their trilogies.

And yes, I have said in the past that I know that these new movies aren’t really for me (which is sad, great way to lose your loyal fans over the past 40 years). But that’s the thing, they could be creating new content that has the same sense of adventure as the original movies and still bring in new fans as well as feeding the cravings of the older fans as well. But without going down the roads of toxic culture we shall just accept that they chose a different approach. But that is part of the issue with anything like this now. The elephant in the room is out there, and no matter how much of a blind eye we turn toward it, we can’t quite unsee the thing.

It becomes a reason why I liked this movie and Rogue One as much as I did. Hell, even the prequels (that caused their own version of hate and vitriol. I liked them and still like them. They had a similar appeal to them that these new movies lack). It all comes back to building legends and myths, without crushing the origins of said myths. This is something that the new trilogy has failed to do. Instead of building on the myths of old it pillaged the desiccated bones and wore the skin of the beast as a cape. And this sounds bitter. Yeah, there is a touch of bitterness within me still.

I think that might be one of the things that the Solo movie highlighted for me more than anything else. A bitterness and sadness of what lies just beyond it. After all these years of loving something, putting money and time toward things that pleased me within the worlds of their creation (games, toys, memorabilia, books, the list goes on). And after all that, I don’t have something that I would want to share with those who come after me.

Of course, there have been some things that crop up from time to time to bring back a taste of the old magic. I have enjoyed watching the rebels cartoons with my grand kids on occasion. I have even considered picking up the seasons on dvd so I can return to them from time to time (I still haven’t had a chance to watch the fourth season). And then there are the movies like Rogue One and Solo, just different enough while increasing the story world and giving us something to enjoy that has the flavor of what we expect. You wouldn’t think creating something along those lines would be so hard.

I mean if you looked at the failure of Solo in the box office, you could think it is harder than what it should be. But I tend to think that this was more a back lash against the failures that came before it. Solo like Rogue One would have done much better if they had been left by themselves instead of surrounded by the other two Disney monstrosities that came with them.

And I realize this doesn’t really give you much to go on outside of it being different than the movies I won’t name. Maybe that could be enough. If you were like me, sitting on a fence, afraid of being burned by the productions you don’t really trust any more. Is it the fear of emotional abuse? Does that fit in this case? Yeah, maybe I’m grasping a bit. It’s that bitterness coming to the front again.

So, we travel down a different road. What I should have opened this with is where I feel this movie draws me back in. At its core, it’s a heist movie. A classic con job of criminals wheeling and dealing and hoping to come out on top. In a way that is a bit disjointed from where the stories came from. The original Star Wars was essentially a cowboy story in space. But maybe that is where we do go back to the roots of it all. We are looking at the lawlessness of the old west and seeing the rustlers trying to do what they can to steal some cattle (or maybe I’m being a bit too literal here). Because you know, the scene of the train robbery(a bit on the nose), fits so perfectly with an old west heist story.

Solo takes us back to the roots of the stories. It fills us with nostalgia of something we didn’t know we were missing. It isn’t a great film, but so few films fall into the category of great. But it could be the unsung hero we actually need right now. Maybe it needed to die that death of failure so that it could be the one to champion a change to the crap we have been offered. A sacrificial lamb if you will. A fine specimen laid bare on the alter of Star Wars’ future. And with its failure it could be the hope for those like me to see the galaxy from long ago and far away, rise up again.

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