Posts Tagged ‘solo: a star wars story’
The Boiled Leather Audio Hour Episode 76!
June 30, 2018
A long time ago, in a theater near you, a movie named Solo: A Star Wars Story came out. It feels like an eternity has passed since then and now, but what better time to listen to Sean & Stefan discuss the movie that seemed to shatter the Star Wars franchise into a million weird pieces? In this episode recorded a week after the film’s release, we talk about director Ron Howard’s Han Solo origin story — the action, the acting, what worked and didn’t, how it stacks up against the other post-Lucas SW movies and the larger series in general, its place in the bizarre post-Last Jedi debate among fans and critics, how Disney-Lucasfilm screwed up its release and the future of the franchise, and more. If you’re sick to death of the state of the Star Wars discourse, we think you’ll dig what we do in this one. Enjoy!
Additional links:
Sean’s essay on The Last Jedi.
All of Sean’s recent-ish Star Wars writing.
Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour.
Our PayPal donation page (also accessible via boiledleather.com).
The 50 Greatest ‘Star Wars’ Moments, Ranked (Updated)
June 3, 201833. Han shot first (Episode IV: A New Hope)
Look, does my self-conception as a nerd depend on this? No, it does not. I’m secure in myself as a person, as a cineast, and as a huge dorkus malorkus to not be all that bothered by the older, more moralistic George Lucas’s revision of Han Solo’s cantina confrontation with a green-skinned mercenary. That said, I truly don’t care what subsequent releases of the first Star Wars movie attempt to portray as reality: Han saw the threat from the snout-nosed bounty hunter Greedo coming in that Mos Eisley drinking hole, and plugged the goon before the goon could plug him. End of story. It is what it is.
32. Han shot first (Solo: A Star Wars Story)
At first glance, Han Solo’s climactic killing of his partner turned betrayer Tobias Beckett at the end of his origin-story spinoff feels like pure fanservice — a guilty pleasure derived from the message-board complaints of Star Wars smarks, just a few notches above X-Men: The Last Stand’s “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” But there’s more to this moment than merely correcting the record after George Lucas got cold feet about Han’s cold blood in the cantina 30-plus years ago. Immediately after shooting Beckett mid-monologue, thus saving his own skin, Solo immediately rushes to the man’s side, cradling and caring for him as he dies. You don’t shoot first because you’re the coolest guy in the galaxy, you shoot first because you’re desperate not to get shot yourself. Han may be more hardboiled when he plugs Greedo an unspecified number of years later, but for now both he and the audience get a bitter taste of what a blaster is really for.
I updated my list of the 50 Best Star Wars Moments for Vulture, too.
The 50 Best ‘Star Wars’ Characters of All Time (Updated)
June 3, 201829. Enfys Nest
Looking like a cross between Kylo Ren and a crazed buzzard, the black-clad marauder called Enfys Nest is a terrifying presence as Solo picks up steam, leading a clan of Cloud-Rider sky pirates in daring, deadly raids against Han’s criminal crew. But this fascinating character is more than he – or rather, she – seems at first glance. Nest is actually a teenage girl (played by newcomer Erin Kellyman) who’s assembled her own rebel alliance of aliens, all of whom have been victimized by the crime syndicates Solo and his comrades have been forced to serve. Under her leadership, they’ve started to fight back. Han’s decision to help her out rather than sell her out is a major step on his road to the Rebellion – and, hopefully, just our first glimpse of an incredibly cool new character.
I updated Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 Best Star Wars Characters of All Time to include Solo and The Last Jedi. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself at eight, or eighteen, that this would be my job someday.