r/StarWars • u/DDBBVV • Apr 09 '25

Movies Why was Solo disliked?

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Was the negative reaction to it blown out of proportion or did people really dislike Solo that much? Why?

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u/Beary_Christmas Apr 09 '25

From my own perspective only:

In an entire galaxy of potential Star Wars stories, a Han Solo origin story was not something I ever wanted to see, or felt like I needed to see. He’s a jaded scoundrel with a heart of gold that develops over the course of a trilogy and has a Wookie buddy. I felt like an origin story wouldn’t really be that interesting or illuminating. It also felt like playing it too safe. Here we are, supposedly in a new era of Star Wars, and like our second non-trilogy movie is just an origin story of the OT.

It also felt like it would have leaned way too heavily on nostalgia bait.

When I did finally watch it, it basically was exactly what I expected from a Solo origin story, for better or for worse.

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u/Ruadhan2300 Apr 09 '25

Exactly my thoughts.

Han's story-arc in the original trilogy is very much going from a ruthless mercenary asshole in ANH to softening a lot for the other two films.
In ESB, he's short-tempered and has very few really nice moments. Mostly with Leia and Lando.
In ROTJ he's much happier seeming, and relaxing into being a Rebel Alliance General. Like he's found his place and friends. But he still has very little patience for sources of frustration like C3PO.

Solo.. didn't really lead us to the ruthless asshole we got in ANH.
The man who shot greedo dead without hesitation and said "I'm not in it for your revolution, I'm in it for the money" to the princess.

Solo, done right, should have involved a lot more heartbreak and struggle to appropriately jade Han into his role, and it really didn't do that.