RageLite review - Solo: A Star Wars Story

So… Was anyone really asking for a Han Solo origin story?

The main crew of the Millennium Falcon are iconic characters. Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, even Lando Calrissian to a lesser extent, but the one with most potential history to explore is Han Solo. How did he become the man he was in the Star Wars films?

This project has been in development by Lucasfilm for some time, even pre-dating the Disney buyout. But production issues kept it from getting its feet off the ground in one form or another. Lawrence Kasdan was initially hired to write the story, he’d been involved in writing the original trilogy, but duties were passed to his son Jonathan as he was picked up to write the Force Awakens. Jonathan Kasdan had written a few episodes of Dawson’s Creek and wrote and directed In the Land of Women and The First Time, both of which are niche films that received mixed reviews and didn’t make much money.

Originally penned as directors were Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hot off the heals of the highly successful The Lego Movie, unfortunately creative differences with the studio caused them to leave and be replaced by Ron Howard. Lord and Miller would go on to be hired by Sony for Into the Spider-verse, so don’t feel too sorry for them. Ron Howard would go onto to reshoot most of the film, inflating the budget to nearly $300m

The film was released in a crowded May-slot with the likes of Deadpool 2 and barely off the heels of Avengers: Infinity War; it ended up making only $393.2m at the box office, the first and only Star Wars film to make a loss at the box office.

But let’s take a look at the story we ended up with and see if it’s a worthy addition to the Star Wars timeline

Guilty Pleasures #51 - Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

I haven’t even said anything yet!

OK, this is going to be a controversial one, but it’s time to talk Star Wars again. The Force Awakens was initially popular, but soon a backlash began to set in with people complaining that, amongst other things, it was too similar to the original Star Wars movies. An opinion that has some validity, in my opinion; whilst it does perhaps play it too safe with certain elements, I believe it does have enough differences that it stands on its own

There was no such wait for the Last Jedi backlash, people were divided on this from the start, with critics giving it glowing reviews and audiences…. Not so much. There are many complaints people have about this film, some of which I feel stem from the general direction of the Force Awakens, some that are genuine and some are… bullsh*t. Life tip: use the words ‘Social Justice Warrior’ (or SJW) in your argument and you’ve already lost it.

Fair warning, I don’t think this movie is perfect, although I have praised it in the past, so I’m gonna bring attention to the faults of the movie. But I’m also gonna point out when people are just making sh*t up!

Sequel Month - Mini Review: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

And now we’re doing a sequel to one of my earliest franchise reviews, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Released at the end of 2015, this movie received great reviews and surpassed expectations, making $2bn at the box office, a tidy profit for Disney’s investment into the film (although with the merchandise they've probably made their money back on buying LucasFilm many times over) however time has divided fans on certain aspects of this movie which I’ll get to. Do these critiques break this movie? Well, here are my thoughts.

Mini-review/Commentary: Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes out

It’s Star Wars Month!

OK, no it isn't, but due to the rescheduling of Legend of Korra, I still have some loose ends to tie up. So join me is we trail through another Lego star wars short (which someone thought belonged on its own DVD for some reason)

Star Wars Month: Mini-review - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

So, we come to talk of the final chapter of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi

Star Wars Month - Mini-review: Star Wars episode V - The Empire strikes back

It's still Star-Wars Month

And we continue our review of the 6 films with episode V - the Empire Strikes Back

Spoilers to follow

Star Wars Month - Mini review: Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope

Guess what, it's Star Wars Month

And we start where it all began (production-wise anyway) with Star Wars, later re-branded Episode IV: A new hope

Before we begin, let's tackle spoilers, for the purposes of the mini-reviews, I may draw reference to the continuity of all star wars films, so episodes I-III and V and VI may also be referred to in this review.