Solo bombed because Ep VIII was so bad. Top franchise management however seems to have made the conclusion that Star Wars fans are a horrible audience that simply hate women. This is very unfortunate, as is their destruction of established canon (the Holdo maneuver) for the most pathetic of all reasons, a stunning 10 seconds special effects scene. 70% of the overlength film were a waste of time as nothing that Poe and his gaggle of friends do bears any consequence whatsoever for the plot, nor did it help much to develop their characters. The remaining 30% are a mix of the implausible with the groanworthy stupid, and the slaughter of canon that lays the axe on the very foundation of all prior movies. If you can destroy ships by lightjumping through them, why haven't the rebel used jumpdrive equipped obsolete ships under control of driods to defeat the Stardestroyers of the past. How are capital ships even a thing. Why didn't they teleport a massive freighter into the Death Star. Why did Adm. Holdo wait until her whole fleet had been destroyed before sacrificing the last remaining ship to take out the flagship of the enemy fleet. Why are there even thousands of people on board of a space battleship when a single person can fly the damned thing from the bridge, and even get the jumpdrive timing right (okay, not every jumpdrive needs Chewie and the hydro wrench, admittedly).

Ep VIII was worse than Ep I, which was just completely superfluous. Nothing of what's shown in Ep I is required to understand Ep II. But at least Ep I doesn't destroy canon. Ep VIII however was downright destructive, and the closing words of Leia Organa were utterly delusional. With the entire Rebel Fleet consumed save for the flying junkyard of the Millenium Falcon she dares to utter the words that they "have everything that we need. We have hope!"
Not only flies that into the face of reality, it's also really great leadership there. All your dead buddies? We never really needed them. Move on, everybody.


God, Disney really made me hate the Rebellion by now.

Of course it is impossible to quantify just how many people stayed away from "Solo" when it was released due to the Rian Johnson backlash but I'm inclined to say that it was only a minor factor. Why? Because the vast majority of the multiplex audience falls under the "casual fan" category which means that they don't care that much to pay attention to details about whether or not established canon is being respected or whether or not there is some SJW agenda. They just go to see the great special effects and to be entertained.


The much bigger factor to me was the fact that Solo was released too soon after Episode VIII so that meant too much market saturation and audience fatigue.

Solo is the only new Star Wars I've not seen. Can't recall why actually, but probably will at some point.

For me, it was a decent effort. Not terrible and yet nothing really memorable. I may watch it a second time but I'm in no rush.

I agree, there's no way to really know how much VIII impacted people going to see Solo, but it was definitely a factor in my not seeing it. I think audience fatigue could be included too, as I was fatigued at how awful the Star Wars movies coming from Disney had been. I didn't want to have to sit through another bad one.

Solo was the second best film of the new series, after Rogue One IMO. Mind you, not as good as Rogue One, but certainly better than Episode I or II (okay, that bar is low). It respected canon, it demonstrates that So, "okay". "Decent". "Quite adequate". To be honest, I wish they would make more films like this and give the main stroryline a mercy killing. Which seems to be the case with Episode IX, from what I'm hearing.
The Star Wars univers is vast. There's tons of stories to tell. Just, please, no more déja-vus. I mean, The Force Awakens was a two-hour long déja-vu. A remake of a film that I like, so in itself not the worst move they could have made, but too much of a copycat to stand on its own legs. We had desert planets before, adolescent junk collectors before in which the force was strong, masked villains, hooded overlords, plane-busting starkiller space stations, swashbuckling fighter jocks, cuddly robots, space taverns teeming with alien creatures. What we didn't have before, ever, was a storm trooper turning good. And what do they do with Finn? They turn him into a sidekick. These are the kind of movie sins that I cannot forgive.

So, rather than rehashing everything for the nth time, explore the seedy side alleys of this universe. Tell us the youth of Solo (check), what happened before Episone IV (check), covert Jedi ops (The Mandalorian, check). These are projects where the writers have considerable creative leeway. Give them freedom, I say. That's why I think that Solo deserves more love. It's not a great film, but definitely not horrible either. It deserved success because it went into the right direction, and apparently the Disney top management is no longer capable of telling the difference between a good script and a horribly bad one. Credit where it's due, Walt Disney did. He may have been a better business man than artist, but at least he knew what was necessary to build a collective of creative people that could make great films (also a few mediocre, and one or two plain bad ones, but still a way better than average track record over multiple decades).
Todays' Disney managers know everything about IP protection, Franchise Management, Cross Media Marketing, Cash-flow management and a gazillion other important skills to run a multi-billion dollar empire. But they have lost their touch, completely, when it comes to identify<ing good skripts and how to protect the long-term value of the probably most valuable entertainment brand in their portfolio.

I read 2 online reviews today giving the movie away and I am not happy with what I've read.

I will still see it tomorrow because I promised my kids we will go see it tomorrow on their first day of 3-weeks Winter break from school.

After reading those reviews and also taking into consideration my hatred of Episodes 1-3,

to me, there will always only be 3 Star Wars movies.

call me mean spirted, but as a trekkie seeing all those fanbois crying and raging, its...its....mauhauhuahhauhar
there are still the series, that kennedy doesnt have much of a hold.

Well, to me, Abrams raped and pillaged Star Trek as well, The first Star Trek movie from him was dumb and bland, but the second was offensively bad. I think he was trying to pay "homage" to STII, but ended up insulting those who liked it. From everything I've seen about him personally (well, almost everything), he seems like a really good guy, someone I'd like to hang out with, but I don't think I've liked anything he's made.

a. What a blessing, that Star Trek doesn't suffer from similar symptoms
b. Fortunately the late works are just the same quality as the original series
c. Fortunately, there's not a single bad Star Trek film. They're all good. No weaknesses.
d. Paramount has always been a blessing, and been nothing but supportive of the fan community


Closing remarks: Star Wars is less unscientific as Star Trek. At least there's no time travel.

awww. did i hurt your feeweeng ? your clearly missed the point but whaaaaatever.

I think part of the issue is writing evolves, which is good because if it did not then the same stories over and over would be boring. But the problem is that despite it evolving, the screewriters, producers and scripts by committee are ignoring the fundamentals of strong storytelling and that's why these films are bad.

Finn being a main character would have been awesome. #%&*$# shame he was ignored. So much missed opportunity. Same with Snoke.

The new films violated a cardinal rule and that is they ignored the universe that had been created and instead operated outside the confines and boundaries that were already established--particularly with Luke, Han and other characters. Break this by rewriting how a universe works after it has been long established and everything falls apart.

See Episode 1 "midochlorians" for reference.


This is worldbuilding 101, FYI.

Pfft. Try to impress someone else with your level 1 trolling.

Just saw it with my daughter, we luked it. Our two local cinemas were packed to the hilt, all sessions. We thought Palpatine was a good comeback character, he has one very epic scene, you'll know it when you see it.

I'm leaving the luked it misspelling in, seems appropriate.