It’s been a crazy, wild ride for Disney/LucasFilm’s second “Star Wars Story”, not unlike some of the troubled production history that plagued the preceding Rogue One, except to a much more extreme degree.

It’s rather notable just how little marketing for Solo we’ve actually been exposed to over the course of the past 6 months…as in really, none at all. This is highly unusual for a blockbuster, especially for one that is slathered with both the Star Wars and House of Mouse branding. It’s led many to wonder if the studio is less confident in what they’re offering up this time around.

Anytime directorial changes hands as far into production as this Han Solo prequel was, it’s rarely a good sign. And within fandom it led to two competing narratives:

Either A) Phil Lord and Chris Miller, best-known for the 21 Jump Street films and The LEGO Movie, had cooked up something wholly off the beaten path and it caused LucasFilm to have a bit of a fit, firing them and bringing on always ready-steady Ron Howard to bring things back within the studio’s comfort-zone. Or B) Lord and Miller were in completely over their heads and had produced an unholy mess of a film and a steady, veteran presence was needed to right the ship.

Either is possible, both are possible. But the lack of any footage up to this point has led to speculation both reasonable and not (“Alden Ehrenreich can’t act!!” he says in his best Ralph Fiennes impression from Hail Caesar!).

But now, we at least have a trailer and I’ll let you be the judge! Will this be another solid entry in the Star Wars canon or their first real fiasco of the new era? We’ll find out very soon. It hits theaters on May 25th.

Edit: I may actually be eating crow about calling the above criticism unreasonable having just watched the trailer. We’ll just say, it’s not getting off on the best foot marketing-wise…

11 COMMENTS

  1. “If you want Han’s backstory read the two Han Solo trilogies. Don’t bother with Disney rip offs.”

    Or a person could read those books *and* see the upcoming movie and decide for themselves.

  2. Or you could do neither. This movie looks like a bad idea and nothing about it is reminiscent of the character Ford portrayed, but I read the books years ago and thought they were pretty awful.

  3. The lack of promotion doesn’t seem odd, since they had a much bigger film to promote and release first, and didn’t want to distract/confuse the public about it.

  4. Jason, I think that rationale would maybe fly if they had debuted this trailer in front of The Last Jedi, in front of an audience primed for this thing, but they didn’t…and word on the street is…worrisome. We’ll see though.

  5. Star Wars geeks rooting for SOLO to flop:

    https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/why-dostar-warsfans-want-the-new-han-solo-movie-to-flop.html

    “I want Solo to bomb spectacularly at the box office, mercilessly mauled by critics. I want an army of furious Star Wars fans out in force, furiously Tweeting with their finger firmly on the caps lock button, launching wave upon wave of angry reaction gifs,”

    I wasn’t planning to see this movie, but now I might, just to spite the fanboys.

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