too bad, because a lot more lando was called for, even if only fanon lando

[cimorene]

Solo was a decent action movie in spite of its flaws, and I think introduced Han, Chewie, and Lando in ways that were in character for them and fun. Other aspects of it looked a bit odd and I suspect suffered from having too many decision makers involved, or at least from having the plan changed partway through (even if those changes were for the better), like the decision to introduce droid rights and how it was handled, and the design of the whole gang of criminals where as several people have pointed out it probably could have been significantly tightened up by having Thandie Newton's character the leader and/or the survivor... . Anyway! The movie bombed and the toxic/entitled portion of male fandom hated it.

But while the movie didn't necessarily make me want to buy and rewatch it, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the note-perfect flirting between Han and Lando, which I fully expected to ignite a bunch of shipping when I left the theater. I guess the real reason it hasn't done is basically that hardly anyone saw it.

Which is really too bad. The bits that introduced Han and Lando were great - funny, full of subtext, and fully in line with the theory that Han and Lando had an on-and-off thing in the years between Solo and the original trilogy and that the reason Lando is wearing Han's clothes at the end of The Empire Strikes Back is that they had just fucked.

Of course, there also might be a lesser fannish enthusiasm available for a character whose tragic end is already canon, or a ship who aren't mfeo.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I really enjoyed Solo for all the reasons you mention and am sad that it apparently bombed, although by ordinary movie standards and not SW standards it did not bomb at all.

I loved the young Solo and the young Lando, and they clearly had a ball being those characters.

[cimorene]

Yeah, I mean... I'm not sad that they're not going to make another Solo movie instead of whatever different spinoffs they're going to make instead, since whoever was steering that particular project clearly had no idea what they were doing (either that or someone terrible was already kicked out and replaced with someone who did their best to patch it up under constraints).

But it definitely didn't deserve to have such a negative reaction, so I feel a little bad for the people involved and especially the actors, several of whom were really good... plus it's probably doomed everyone in fandom to hearing a lot of obnoxious opinions about it for the next few decades and I'm already tired of them.

[stranger]

You have many good points here, especially about Thandie Newton, whose fridging prompted a knee-jerk revulsion toward the movie-makers in my local viewing group, and negatively colored their view of the rest of the movie. (Not that it's great about women overall, but that bit was completely egregious.)

Introducing droid rights so explicitly was actually the most interesting thing about the movie, I thought. The initial SW-ANH showed the droids as apparently sentient and either enslaved or a servant class. This is kind of ambiguous: are they sentient beings? On the one hand, wires and diodes and programming. On the other, blatant use of free will to subvert restraining bolts and the goals of humans and other organic beings. It's a genre fantasy element on par with FTL hyperdrive and the Force, but as characters they pass the Turing test.

So, maybe mechanical beings don't have to have human-style genders, but with free will they could very well choose gender identities. At that point, L3-37 as self-constructed out of spare parts becomes a grotesque but apt commentary on women's roles on Earth, and her push for droid freedom underlines the goals of the (at that point nascent) Rebel Alliance. L3's death wraps up that sequence far too neatly, especially as it's played only to give Lando a moment of grief. However, the droid revolt happened, and L3 existed on screen as a character who affected other characters and contributed to the plot.

[cimorene]

It was totally the deepest or most genuinely significant part of the movie (or rather, it was part of it, since it tied in to the other freedom fighting that was going on). I meant the decision to tackle the issue was perhaps either come to later on in the writing process, or that that subplot/theme had lost some of its mass in the course of rewrites and direction changes, because it wasn't well handled.

I've thought it was unambiguous that the droids are sentient beings since the original trilogy, though it seems in verse most people don't think that much about the issue. But in my view that has important implications about the human characters associated with droids. This subplot could have been really good, had it been done well, but I don't think it was done well because of the way her activism and particularly Lando's attitudes towards it and her were portrayed (but I didn't go into all of that in the post because it was beside the point).

[stranger]

Pretty sure I agree with your reservations -- that plotline should have been more integral but was introduced abruptly and slighted, etc -- and I'm still glad it got included as world-building. If it was a late addition, good on the later contributors. You're right that R2 and C3 and their fellows performed as real characters from the first; it's my own lack of suspension of disbelief (especially in 1977-80s) that computers and therefore robots just didn't have the capacity for sentience. Kind of a mental hiccup. I never questioned the sentient aliens, so why not... ? (That's the difference between SF and fantasy, I guess.)

And, of course, your post is about Solo/Lando, which I agree has been shamefully slighted in SW fanfic and discussion. If Han/Chewie was a thing, and it was, early-on before Han/Leia took off, so why not... ?

[cimorene]

The value as world-building (to the rest of the franchise) is probably the most important part of this since there are no significant additions to backstory, ...

...but I was just SO PISSED OFF by the stuff with Lando where there was this unquestionable overtone of "the SJWs are just too LOUD and OVERZEALOUS and they should work on their TONE so it doesn't interfere with MESSAGE!" that at one point hit a definite parallel to the misogynist stereotype of shrill feminists, and Lando's reactions to her playing into that as well that are prooooobably intended to be both funny to the audience and conveying that he's still sympathetic alongside his exasperation, but - he shouldn't be exasperated, this is his close friend and business partner for YEARS at the least and the likelihood that he doesn't grasp the magnitude of the slavery issue is just - ?! (And they could've fixed that just by finessing the lines in question. They wouldn't even have needed more time spent on it. Though they certainly could also have improved it all by using the time they spent on 'She's in love with me' and the reaction beats to it to show a little more of their history with the issue and his allyship...)

I won't say they shouldn't have included it, because it's still redemptive. But like... they just should have included it better.

[hypertwink]

I like Alden and in some scenes (despite not looking anything like Harrison), he made an argument as to why they chose him to play young Han instead of alleged clone, Anthony Ingruber.

I think that they expected too much from him. They wanted Harrison and OT Han but they weren't gonna get it because 1) no one among the purported short list had any star power or charisma in the wattage of Harrison, and 2) Han was still a bb and still far away from the crusty, jaded smuggler we were introduced to in ANH.

Anyway, I had fun watching this. It was a solid movie that got fucked up by its producers imo. I really think that they should have done a Lando movie, with Han & Chewie popping in and out of the story (just like Lando did in the actual movie).

[cimorene]

Yes, I basically was on team "Lando movie instead!" since they announced casting Donald Glover and the movie just made me even more sure that that would have been the way to go.

I mean I agree, Alden was surprisingly good as Han - but I think a movie of this type was probably doomed in advance and your points about the impossibility of casting anyone who would satisfy is a perfect example of why. The image of Han in pop culture is so lasting and has taken on so much extra baggage that wasn't on the screen originally that the same thing is kind of true of the movie as a whole.