SOLO

[kerravonsen]

Saw "Solo: A Star Wars Story" with Middle Niece. It was fun. Though I jokingly said "The whole purpose of this movie is to explain why it wasn't an error that Han said in Episode IV: 'I made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.'"

Some random ramblings...

Both niece and I were expecting Kira to die. I thought Han would get back to Corellia too late, and find she was already dead. Well... I suppose in a way he did return "too late"...

I recognised the human partner of Beckett -- the actress played one of the major roles in Westworld. Can I remember the name of the character she played in Westworld? No. Can I remember the name of the actress? No. Oh well.

Cool Star Wars tech is cool. It's amazing what anti-grav tech will do for architecture.

Han is good at improvising, but terrible at lying. Not a good combination. No, actually, he isn't bad at lying when he's figured out the lie beforehand, it's lying while improvising the lie that he's bad at. Han is better at surviving than he is at following orders... especially when those orders are contrary to his survival. Not at all surprised that Han got kicked out of the Naval Academy, though he obviously learned as much as he could while he was there.

Loved Lando's droid navigator. Viva la revolution! The more recent Star Wars movies seem better at giving us quirky droid characters. And it's true that droids are treated like slaves, though I think most of them aren't self-aware enough to notice.

Loved Chewbacca, and the way the relationship with Han developed, from desperation to loyal friends. Though it is rather telling that the Imperial guards referred to Chewbacca as "the beast". That means that the Empire considers Wookies to be animals at worst, and primitives at best. Yes, part of that is probably because they are furry and strong, but I think it's also because nobody knows the Wookie language or bothers to talk to them, as evidenced by the fact that Han was the only one who appeared to understand the Wookie language. And it was pretty plausible that he understood it better than he spoke it, that's pretty common when learning a language. However, the fact that Chewbacca's answer to Han's surprise that Chewbacca could pilot a ship was that Chewbacca was 190 years old... is rather telling. It implies that there was a time when Wookies being pilots was not strange. Which implies that the Wookies had a spacefaring civilization... which has since been destroyed. Probably by the Empire.

When Kira was fighting Dryden Vos, I said "He's fighting like a Sith." So I was so not surprised when Vos's boss turned out to be a Sith. It is so very like the Empire to control both sides of the law.

Comments

[thewayne]

We're hoping to see it this afternoon or in the very near future. Today is possibly doubtful as my wife has an addictive personality and stayed up all night playing Flash Point Fire Rescue on her computer. Maybe we'll catch the last showing.

The error was made because the writers didn't know the difference between units of distance and units of time and thought the term sounded really cool and science fictiony. Just like in Back To The Future when Doc Brown talks about 1.21 gigawatts and pronounces it "jig" like the dance. Few people knew how to pronounce the unit.

[kerravonsen]

Today is possibly doubtful as my wife has an addictive personality and stayed up all night playing Flash Point Fire Rescue on her computer.

Oh my!
Usually when I stay up all night doing something I should stop doing, it's because I'm caught up reading a story.
I hope she manages to catch up on her sleep.

The error was made because the writers didn't know the difference between units of distance and units of time and thought the term sounded really cool and science fictiony.

Oh yes, I do know that. I thought everyone knew that, which is why I didn't bother mentioning it.

[thewayne]

She'll also stay up all night reading fanfic or a good book, that's not a problem.  She worked all night Tuesday/Wednesday, and they had a problem with the secondary mirror which required her to keep half an eye on operations to make sure that pointing was good at the start of the evening Thursday (which it was) so she was kinda doomed anyway. The one major goof that I always loved was the original Battlestar Galactica.  "The enemy is over a hundred microns away!"  Which means we're scraping them off the hull about now.  I was like 16 when the movie came out and I knew better even then.

[kerravonsen]

"The enemy is over a hundred microns away!" Which means we're scraping them off the hull about now.

(chuckle-snort) I'd forgotten that bit. I'm glad I wasn't drinking a beverage when I read that.

[thewayne]

I do love being responsible for spit takes and near misses!

[vilakins]

I'm glad you enjoyed it too; I thought it was great fun. I wasn't sure how Aiden Ehrenreich would do as Han, but he had the cocky grin and swagger just right. 'm looking forward to more. I did have an argument with Greg about when it was set because of who the boss was but I won. :-) I loved that they fixed the whole 12 parsecs thing, and I guessed right away how they'd do it.

[kerravonsen]

Yeah, the whole "you've got to make it to the refinery before it EXPLODES" was clearly a problem waiting to happen...

I did have an argument with Greg about when it was set because of who the boss was but I won.

Now that you point it out... there is a timing issue there, since it's clearly during the reign of the Empire, which means it has to be set after Episode III (The Revenge of the Sith), but IF the Crimson Dawn boss was Darth Maul, then it would have to be before Episode I (The Phantom Menace) since that was when Darth Maul died. So... what were the points in your argument?

[tree_and_leaf]

Darth Maul has been retconned as having survived as per the "Clone Wars" cartoon (and I think he also appears in "Rebels"), but, not having watched any of the cartoons, I did wonder if they'd massively stuffed up the timeline for a bit until I checked Wookiepedia....

[kerravonsen]

Ahhh.

[vilakins]

I said it had to be well after because of Solo's age - he'd be far too old - and I was proved right. Maul (he dropped the Darth) survived and was in Attack of the Clones (which I didn't see). Apparently he survived the fall and the loss of half his body (perhaps because he wasn't human?) and got an artificial lower half. People said you can hear the servos of his legs when he stands up while Qi'ra is talking to him but I have to say I didn't notice. I always thought he was very poorly served by ep 1 (as were we all) so I like that he survived as he's potentially interesting. Anyway a lot of that is in his entry in the Star Wars wikia here. Really, the Star Wars canon is too huge to follow.

[kerravonsen]

Really, the Star Wars canon is too huge to follow.

Oh yeah, you can say that again!

[thewayne]

We went and saw it last night, and I was whelmed. It was pretty good, I enjoyed the prison break. Y3 was awesome, as were the wookies. Unfortunately my digestive system demanded my exit before the triple-cross and the fight between Qi'ra and Vision, so I didn't get the Darth Maul connection until the final reveal.

Considering all the alien races that the Empire seems to have no problem with, it's weird that they have some particular animus against the Wookies. There must be some particular story there, but I don't know what it is.

[kerravonsen]

Considering all the alien races that the Empire seems to have no problem with, it's weird that they have some particular animus against the Wookies. There must be some particular story there, but I don't know what it is.

Well, it's rather difficult to intimidate a Wookie. It could simply be that (a) they resisted, (b) they couldn't be bought, bullied or brainwashed, (c) they had enough of a tech base that the Empire decided they needed to be crushed rather than ignored.

[suenicorn]

I saw it last week with a friend. It was good fun, indeed. I was wondering, all the way through, if Qira would betray him or die. Had to be one or the other, I thought, seeing he’s without a woman when he meets Leia. It didn’t happen as I expected at all. At least I knew he wasn’t going to die!

I think the Kessel Run parsecs thing was just because it was already a part of canon and they weren’t going to be able to fix it.

I loved the new Lando. He was very much Billy Dee Williams - and I enjoyed the humour about his capes.

[kerravonsen]

He certainly had good taste in capes. (smirk)

You going to be at Continuum this weekend?

[(Anonymous)]

Yep. I have a panel at 10.00 am Saturday, on middle-grade books. I will have to leave early, as I spend Saturdays with Mum.

[suenicorn]

Sorry, I didn’t notice that comment was anonymous!

[kerravonsen]

Strange...