FILM LANGUAGE - A FILM I THINK IS UNDERRATED

This post is going to be looking at a film I think is underrated. For this, I chose Solo: A Star Wars Story, released in 2018 and directed by Ron Howard (who picked up the film after previous directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller left the project).

(The first trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story)

The film was the second of Disney's Star Wars anthologies to be released, after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and followed up by The Mandalorian series on Disney+. It reveals the new canon origins of Han Solo, after Disney rebooted the Star Wars canon leaving his old origin story as the stuff of Legend in canon. 

The film follows Solo, played by Alden Ehrenreich, pulling off the amazing feats of daring do he talked about in the original Star Wars trilogy; performing the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, initial rebellion against the Empire, and winning the Millenium Falcon in a game of sabaac against Lando Calrissian (played by Donald Glover). 

Unfortunately, Solo did not perform as well as wanted. There are many elements feeding into why, including:

• RELEASE DATE - The film released in May 2018, 5 months after the last Star Wars film, and mere weeks after mega-hits Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2, which performed significantly better than Solo.
• REACTION TO THE LAST JEDI - As mentioned, before, Solo came out 5 months after the previous Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Fan reaction to The Last Jedi was incredibly divided, with many vocal fans expressing their dislike for the film. Because of this reaction, groups of fans decided to boycott Solo to send a message to Disney.
• POOR MARKETING - With most films, they start their marketing run around 7 months in advance. However, Solo started with less than 3 months to go until release. This meant less opportunities to display trailers and TV Spots, which in turn meant less people saw them when they did show.
• THE FILM ITSELF - Many asked "why do we need this film?", which was justification to not watch. The critical reception was mostly positive, with the film holding a solid 7/10 on iMDB and 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, many people are majorly influenced by these scores, meaning that the critical scores being lower than the last 3 Star Wars films may have driven people away (The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi all got over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes).

So why do I think this film is underrated exactly? It's mostly down to how nobody gave it a chance. The film was a lot of fun, and is, in my opinion, better than a LOT of other Star Wars films. Even more so than Rogue One, which the fanbase seems to really love despite being poorly done in my opinion. Solo has a band of interesting, developed and actually memorable characters, and never over-saturates it's cast with unnecessary characters. Both films also went through the same problem of having to make major changes late into production due to directorial changes; however, I believe Solo dealt with them much better. 

The film has fun set pieces, including the train heist, the Kessel Run and the Sabaac games between Han and Lando. It has some really nice world building, introducing new areas of the Star Wars universe we've never explored, and is a fun journey all the way through. Give it a watch, it's worth it!