Sometimes, even with the best of intentions and great effort, flops and fiascoes occur. In the multi-decade history of the Star Wars franchise, The Empire Strikes Back is usually regarded as the high point of the films from a creative standpoint. The Phantom Menace, and the prequel films in general, are seen as a low point and damaged the legacy of the brand. However, all of those movies made money. With the recent release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it has the distinction of being regarded as both a creative and financial failure as likely the first film with the Star Wars moniker to lose money, and possibly result in a $50+ million write-down for Disney.
There are many possible explanations for Solo’s failure, including an extremely troubled and costly production, lackluster critical reviews and criticisms of the lead actor’s performance, as well as running into both apathy and backlash from the franchise’s fans which has grown stronger after disappointment with The Last Jedi. That backlash can be seen in comments across the internet lamenting the direction of Star Wars, with assertions the property might by its very nature be more limited than it seems on the surface. And there are many legitimate criticisms to be made about how some of these films, especially The Last Jedi and Solo, are disappointing on multiple levels.
However, there is also a contingent of these fans which are sick in the head. This can be seen in either clinging to the material like any change is killing their childhood, or being downright racist and sexist in both their viewpoint of what Star Wars is “supposed to be” with slurs against people involved with making these movies. The language used against Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is a sight to behold on YouTube, websites, and blogs, given a certain “He-Man Woman Hater’s Club” subset of Star Wars fandom which thinks Kennedy has made the franchise into her own personal “social justice” message.
This element of Star Wars fandom, coupled with general internet asshole-ry from non-fans, has allegedly driven actress Kelly Marie Tran, who portrays Rose in The Last Jedi, from Instagram. After months of racist and sexist comments, Tran, who is of Vietnamese descent, has deleted every last picture from her account, with Last Jedi director Rian Johnson calling out “manbabies.” And, unfortunately, it’s another example of how this sort of aggression has become more commonplace and “normal” behavior for some.
In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell pulled together similar themes and patterns in thousands of years of myth, legend, and history to find similar patterns across different cultures for what he called a Monomyth or "The Hero's Journey.” One of the most well-known examples of Campbell’s ideas about the myth of the hero is Star Wars, with George Lucas using Campbell’s 17 stages, as well as Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, as a direct reference in the creation of the story.
Back in the late 1990’s, when it was first announced there would be new Star Wars films, it was a major cultural event. The original trilogy films had been re-released in 20th anniversary special editions to much acclaim, and the public seemed primed to return to the story. It’s actually the first time I can remember a movie trailer being a major news story after its release. And for many of the fans of Star Wars, even though there was some dissatisfaction with dancing Ewoks after Return of the Jedi, the feeling was how could they possibly screw this up? And then The Phantom Menace came out, bad reviews followed, and the fandom began questioning whether George Lucas actually understood his own creation, or if he was just trying to sell action figures, and four editions of the same movie?
The biggest problem with the prequel films is they seem more interested in spectacle than story, and in doing so became technically innovative visual effects “messes” which are emotionally empty with awful acting and dialogue (e.g., “I don’t like sand”).
Since paying George Lucas $4 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, the Walt Disney Company has attempted to refashion Star Wars into a yearly series of films similar to their other huge multi-billion dollar franchise: the Marvel Cinematic Universe (i.e., yearly movie releases built around a central narrative and separate standalone films). The first Disney release, J.J. Abrams's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was a huge success which washed the taste of the prequels out of people’s mouths, but encountered blowback for being derivative of Episode IV: A New Hope and criticisms in certain quarters for having lead actors who were either female and/or black. This was followed by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The film made bank, but went through a troubled production, which saw director Gareth Edwards replaced by Tony Gilroy (best known for his work on the Bourne series), and had story and technical issues which tend to be overlooked by people saying: “Oh my God, Darth Vader was so bad ass at the end!”
But the bottom seemed to fall out of nerd rage leeway of the new trilogy train with The Last Jedi. Unlike Force Awakens, Rian Johnson’s film attempted to subvert expectations and “kill the past.” This entailed taking the story threads left by Abrams and closing them off in a dead end, while trying to move the story of Star Wars beyond being centered on the Skywalker family and their legacy. Who are Rey’s (Daisy Ridley) parents? What is the purpose and background of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis)? What will happen when Luke (Mark Hamill) returns? These questions are resolved in (arguably) very unsatisfying ways. Critics overwhelmingly approved of switching things up, but audiences have been extremely polarized in their opinions, with the audience Rotten Tomatoes score currently below the same rating for any of the prequel films. There have been petitions to have Last Jedi removed from Star Wars canon.
This divisive sentiment is true even among the cast and crew of the movie. For example, Mark Hamill, at least initially, fundamentally disagreed with Rian Johnson’s take on Luke Skywalker. If one goes to YouTube, there are multiple video essays on how The Last Jedi is the worst of the Star Wars films, detailing the flaws and plot holes.
The recent release of Solo, which tells the story of Han Solo’s beginnings seemed to hit a perfect storm of bad mojo. It is reportedly the most expensive Star Wars movie ever, but it wasn’t planned that way. Written by Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) with his son Jonathan, the film has been disaster on multiple fronts. Original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (best known for their work on the 21 Jump Street and Lego films) were fired last year over “creative differences” with Kasdan and Kennedy, who objected to Lord’s and Miller’s improvisational style on set that moved away from the Kasdans’ script, the duo wanting a more comedic tone similar to Guardians of the Galaxy with the material, and the time they were taking to shoot Solo. Ron Howard took over directing duties, and re-shot 70 percent of the film, with the cost ballooning the budget. Beyond just these problems, there were stories of issues with lead actor Alden Ehrenreich’s performance, with rumors Lucasfilm brought in an acting coach to “help,” which were compounded by fan dissatisfaction with Ehrenreich, the idea of a Solo film, and a building backlash to The Last Jedi.
The result is a movie which seems … unnecessary. It’s also a film which, in my opinion, damages the Han Solo character and diminishes the journey the character takes in A New Hope. And this is all because it doesn’t tell a story beyond the most generic narrative cookie-cutter plot formula. Instead, it’s a movie of mostly fan-service using background info from the original trilogy. But there’s a reason background info is usually left in the background, and not turned into a 2+ hour film. And the issues and story ideas the movie introduces (e.g., droid slavery is brought to the forefront) are not exactly done well.
From Josh Spiegel at The Hollywood Reporter:
The end credits for Solo: A Star Wars Story list Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as executive producers on the project; of course, less than a year ago, they were still in the director’s chair before being fired. The shift from Lord and Miller to Ron Howard as director might have felt very extreme; though Howard has lent his voice and producing credit to the seminal TV comedy Arrested Development, his films are rarely as fast-paced, manic, and outrageous as any of Lord's and Miller’s live-action or animated directorial efforts. Considering that Howard had only 11 months to bring Solo to completion, it’s easy to wonder how much of this movie would have felt like his, versus that of Lord and Miller. What’s surprising, watching the final film, is that the previous directors’ influence is almost entirely absent.
This is only a shock, to be fair, because Lord and Miller had been in principal photography for months when they were replaced by Howard. But aside from one joke early in the film, in which young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) attempts to convince an alien gangster that he has a fierce detonator in his hand instead of just a dinky rock, the influence of the directors of 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie and more isn’t obvious to spot. While that’s something of a credit to Howard and the folks at Lucasfilm for pulling this together so quickly, it doesn’t mean that Solo feels as fully realized as it might have.
The first third of the film, in particular, is rough going; the true purpose of Solo is to show us how Han made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, but getting him there isn’t quite so smooth. First, we get to see a number of events in Han’s life that aren’t nearly as necessary to visualize, questions that didn’t need to be answered: how did Han and Chewbacca first meet? How did Han come to the conclusion that his new furry friend needs a nickname? And hey, why is Han’s last name Solo? (The answer to that question, which comes in the first 15 minutes, is possibly the worst scene in any Star Wars film since the prequels, if not as bad as any moments in those films.) It’s only after Han and Chewie are forced, along with criminal Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), to steal a precious explosive that the movie kicks into gear. The final 90 minutes are decent enough, and well handled by Howard, but the first third suggests the turmoil behind the scenes was very real.
One big question that’s still open is whether Star Wars can be about more than something or someone tangentially connected to a Skywalker. The reason Marvel Studios can release a movie every year is because they can experiment with different types of films and relatively unknown characters (e.g., one of their most successful film’s involves a raccoon and tree most people on the street could not have named beforehand), while keeping some consistency and connecting everything from the different movies together because the Marvel brand sells it. With Star Wars, so far the films have not ventured far from significant characters or events from Lucas’s original trilogy, because I’m sure someone at Disney believes they need some audience familiarity to market and sell it. And to this end, the most recent announced standalone Star Wars movie will center on Boba Fett, and be directed by James Mangold (Logan), with an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie rumored to be in the works as well.
Now, if one goes to any discussion of Solo or Star Wars in general, whether at a reputable blog, a YouTube video, or just some Reddit thread, one will probably find more than a few comments from conservative/sexist pricks which echo something like this which blames pandering to “social just warrior (SJW) politics” for Solo’s box office problems and the current direction of Star Wars. These jerks will point to the character of L3 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) as a “feminist droid” for their evidence.
This has been an ongoing issue for genre films and TV series, with the remake of Ghostbuster and Star Trek : Discovery being on the receiving end of hostile male audience members claiming the presence of female leads is some form of liberal propaganda. The addition of female writers to the staff of Rick and Morty in its third season resulted in those writers being subjected to online harassment, threats, slander, and some horrible excuses for human beings doxxing their personal information across the internet.
There is a segment of Star Wars fandom, and conservative elements of pop culture criticism, whom either don’t like:
- The property being in the hands of a woman (Kathleen Kennedy) who at the very least has stated diversity, both in front of and behind the camera, is a goal of hers at Lucasfilm.
- The fact more people of color and women are in significant roles as part of the franchise.
- The themes of Star Wars, which are anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian, step on the toes of Republicans and conservatives, whose cult of personality is currently creeping in the pro direction for those things.
So the way some of these people decide to deal with it is to revel in their stupidity.
When I wrote the review for the pilot episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, one theme I was struck by about both the series and the current state of our culture is how normalcy shifts. There have always been sexist and racist assholes among us. But the visibility and entitlement of those assholes seems to have become more visible in recent years and seems to coincide with sexist and racist pandering by the current occupant of the White House.
Societies usually don’t shift by freedoms and liberties being stolen like a thief coming in the night. The normalcy of life is taken gradually by a thousand cuts, when the impossible and repugnant are given credence and not taken seriously until one day things are different. The way people think becomes different.
This is why the president’s lawyer/flunkie can make comments about the worth of women, and what “types” of women are believable. Because there are people in this country who actually believe this, and think calling women they disagree with “bitches” is okay. And every time a news network, politician, or just your average, everyday individual regards it as just another viewpoint, instead of being fucking stupid and shameful, it becomes more normal and acceptable.