Special Edition Podcast

Special Edition – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Show Notes

A new Star Wars movie is an event, and Solo: A Star Wars Story brings out the big guns as the original iFanboy reunite to some surprising results. Conor Kilpatrick and Josh Flanagan welcome back Ron Richards to break down the latest chapter in the Star Wars universe and the results will shock you.

Running Time: 00:56:45

Music:
“Han Solo and the Princess”
Boris Midney

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Comments

  1. That’s two super positive podcasts in a row for you guys about media that just left you feeling HAPPY. I really enjoy these podcasts and they truly help me digest my feelings better.

  2. After being completely on the different page to you guys about Last Jedi (I really, really loved it), I’m more or less with you here. Fun but utterly inconsequential. And Alden’s great but he ain’t no Han Solo – which is really his name, damnit (that absolutely was the worst part of the film)! I don’t know if you guys have seen the Age of Adeline but there was an actor in that who did play a young Harrison Ford and he was perfectly on point.

    Oh, and I wasn’t pissed off at seeing Darth Maul (he was one of the better parts of the prequels anyway) but I was totally confused. I haven’t watched Rebels and barely registered the robotic legs so until I got home and looked it up, I thought they had just totally screwed up the timelines.

    • That was Anthony Ingruber who is known for doing impressions and can do a great Harrison Ford impression. He also voiced the Joker in the Batman Telltale game. Darth Maul is killed by Obi-Wan 8 years after the events of this movie, but Han still can’t meet him.

    • Yeah, I don’t know if Ingruber would have done as good a job as an actor as Alden but Han Solo has so much Harrison Ford in there that, because he resisted doing an outright impression, the latter just felt off all the way through. He’s a great Han Solo type of character but he wasn’t Han Solo.

    • I would agree with that where his voice was too high and was played as being this awe shucks good guy. He was at his best when playing off of Chewie and Lando, but still wasn’t Han Solo where he was overshadowed by other people. Harrison Ford is just so suave and smooth that Alden clearly can’t be that. I disagree with many people who say that Alden made it his own. Maybe Anthony Ingruber could have done better, but I do think that Alden wasn’t the best choice.

  3. I thought it was a fine movie that was very bland and boring along with action scenes that weren’t memorable. Han being given his last name by an Imperial was a truly awful moment and I don’t believe it at all. That is the worst thing and we are supposed to believe that he keeps that name. It just creates more questions. Did Leia know that her son’s last name is named by an Imperial? I’m guessing she wouldn’t be fine with that since she was a Rebel. This is not a very well written movie if you think about it and Lawrence Kasdan didn’t write, “I know,” from ESB. That was an improvised line by Harrison Ford.

    I thought Alden was fine, but he was way too much of this awe shucks good guy which I don’t believe even with it being 10 years before ANH. The moment with the Enfys Nest reveal makes very little sense and just reminded me of BVS where one conversation would have put a stop to them fighting at the train. It in fact did when she took the mask off. She also caused the deaths of Rio and Val who was Beckett’s wife. Beckett grieves briefly for Val, but then is fine and Rio doesn’t get mentioned again. Why didn’t Beckett want to kill her once the reveal happens? That was pretty ridiculous and unrealistic where it’s poorly written. It was also far too predictable that Beckett would betray Han.

    Then L3 was obnoxious and was all about droid rights, but then is made to be part of the Millenium Falcon. That goes against what she wanted and repeatedly said how she wanted equal rights which would be going against it completely where she is made to be a slave for the rest of time. If Lando really cared about her, then he doesn’t do that and he wouldn’t put up the Millenium Falcon at the end of the movie. The Millenium Falcon has the last part of L3 and with her character in the movie along with Lando crying over her, then he doesn’t risk losing the Falcon.

    Repeating the same core concept from ANH with Han being the good guy who helps at the end isn’t new. He has to get hardened in 10 years and I don’t want sequels to this. It’s doing poorly at the box office and I find that to be a good thing if it means we don’t get the sequels. The only surprising moment was Darth Maul appearing and I knew it was him immediately with the robotic legs along with Sam Witwer’s voice before the hood came off. That was cool, but can’t really be followed up on with Rebels.

  4. Saw it today and I’m with you guys on pretty much everything. The only thing I can add: Watching Alden I felt like they stopped just short of casting Bill Hader as Solo–which would have been amazing.

    I had a ton of fun with it.

    I’m at: 4, 5, 6, 7, Solo, 8, Rogue One, 3, 1, 2

  5. So many in-jokes, call-backs, easter-eggs and references. I felt like I was being winked-at the entire time. The Mindharp of Sharu and Teras Kasi mentions were intriguing and neat deep cuts. But as a whole, I was distracted by the constant elbow nudges.

    I found Solo sort-of enjoyable, but in the way Troops was enjoyable in 1997. As parody, but not as an actual Star Wars film.

    Empire
    Star Wars
    Jedi
    Force Awakens
    Last Jedi
    Rogue One
    Solo
    Sith
    Phantom
    From Justin to Kelly
    Clones

  6. I’m with Ron, I cringed a little at the concept of hyperfuel, since this was never a thing before. But it makes sense to have it in the Kessel Run, since originally it was implied that Kessel produced drugs (the spice mines of Kessel). Can’t have Han being a drug runner. I was also a little worried when they mentioned the Maw that we would see the hollowed-out Death Star and prototype laser (that’s where the Imperials hid it in the old EU, along with some other super weapons). If this does get a sequel, how much do you want to bet we see the Battle of Tanaab and whatever it was Lando did there?

  7. I really liked this one, which was great because I didn’t like Last Jedi and was just warm on Rogue One. I think a lot of kids will be excited for Darth Maul. He has some awesome roles in Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons and is one of the few cool characters from the prequels. I agree with Ron too in that I think kids and others are finding other ways to watch the cartoons that don’t count towards viewership numbers, online streaming, amazon, on demand, ect…

    Empire, Hope, Jedi, Force Awakens, Solo, Rogue One, Last Jedi, Phantom, Sith, Clones

  8. Didn’t see the movie, but I enjoyed your podcast talking about it! Lol

    After The Last Jedi debacle, I decided I wasn’t going to let these charlatans (i.e. Disney Lucasfilm) sour Episodes 4-6 for me anymore than they have. I already have enough trouble watching them without being frequently distracted by Prequel considerations; the last thing I want to do while watching my beloved “The Empire Strikes Back” is to redefine every Han or Lando scene by whatever their current owners now say about the characters and their actions. Their current owners are irresponsible storytellers, as far as I’m concerned.

  9. I came into the movie with extremely low expectations, and I came out of the movie thinking I had a fun time. I want more heist stories about scoundrels and outlaws in the Star Wars universe. This movie would have been 1000 times better if it was about some other character and not about Solo. If we need to make movies anchored by characters from the original trilogy then maybe make a movie about someone we know less about. Maybe a 4 LOM and Zuckuss movie or a film about Wedge Antilles and the other Rogue Squadron pilots. They need to stop filling in all the holes and start covering new ground. Every time they hit one of the Han Solo bullet list items it was a bummer moment. They were all definitely the low points of the movie. They were exactly what I was dreading when the movie was announced. Solo is better when his past is more mysterious. Still this was far from the worst Star Wars. It’s in the middle somewhere.

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