SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
Schooling For Scoundrels
released 24 september 2018 | 12 | blu-ray (4K/3d/standard)/ dVd/download/ VOd Directors ron Howard Cast alden ehrenreich, emilia Clarke, donald Glover, Woody Harrelson
The Jedi may be absent from Solo, but it’s a movie haunted by its own Force ghosts. There’s the spectre of the film Phil Lord and Chris Miller almost made before Lucasfilm executed Order 66; the swaggering shade of Harrison Ford; and one hard fact: this was that inconceivable proposition, a Star Wars film that underachieved at the box office.
Solo’s arrival on disc gives it a second chance, and this pulpy, unpretentious space Western deserves a fairer crack. A film that operates outside the Force-heavy mythologising of the Episodes, replacement director Ron Howard is free to revive some of the saga’s original spirit, tapping into old-time Hollywood tropes and giving them an SF re-skin (one especially knowing shot sees Han’s gun-hand hovering over his blaster in tight close-up).
Alden Ehrenreich shows us the sweetheart inside the scoundrel, the kid beneath the cynical Corellian carapace, as cocksure as he’s vulnerable. No, he’s not Ford, but Ford was a movie star because he radiated the attitude of a man who didn’t give a damn about movie stars, and that’s genetics.
There’s some misjudged fan-pandering – tiresome tickbox explanations for everything from Solo’s surname to the legendary Kessel Run – but while it never quite punches into hyperspace, this breezy smuggler’s tale has got it where it counts.
Extras The DVD’s vanilla, while Blu-ray formats (and download) offer nine featurettes. The jewel in the crown is a 25-minute roundtable, an informal sit-down – at a Sabacc table, no less – where Howard quizzes his actors on various subjects: auditions, character backstories (there are some nice Lando/L3 and Beckett/ Val details), fighting in mud and more. Howard graciously gives the spotlight to the cast, but receives his due in a lovely parting shot. There’s also footage of the time a plaid-shirted VIP visited the set… Key set-pieces are explored in “Escape From Corellia”, “The Train Heist” and “Into The Maelstrom: Kessel Run” (discover the vital roles played by possums and Gummi Bears), and there’s much love for the non-human characters, with featurettes focused on Chewie, L3-37 and the gamblers at Fort Typso (look out for A New Hope and Rogue One Easter eggs).
“Kasdan On Kasdan” is an affectionate portrait of the film’s father/son writers that also, refreshingly, alludes to creative tensions between the two. We also learn that Kasdan Jr knows way more about Star Wars than Dad! “Remaking The Millennium Falcon” offers nuggets from the production team (and Donald Glover); another Falcon-focused featurette, “From Page To Park”, is available from selected digital outlets. Of the eight deleted scenes, two are must-sees, five are so-so or over-extended takes on existing scenes and one – “Snowball Fight!” – suggests the influence of Lord and Miller, who go completely unmentioned elsewhere. Nick Setchfield/Matthew Leyland
The fertility idol from Raiders Of The Lost Ark can be spotted in Dryden Vos’s office. This was Jonathan Kasdan’s idea.