Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Luke Dunne, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.
This week, we’re continuing a seasonal tradition of talking about Star Wars movies: Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Growing up on the rough streets of Corellia, young and reckless orphan Han learned the hard way that he has to fend for himself. Escaping to a life in the Imperial Navy, Han stumbles into a daring heist. Joining a team of galactic outlaws, the young man finally finds his place in the universe. Crossing paths with new friends and old lovers, the dashing young rogue finds himself on course to become the man that he must be.
At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show Notes:
- Recorded 5th December 2022.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- Solo: A Star Wars Story at The Internet Movie Database.
- The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
- Read Luke’s work at Film in Dublin.
- Read Luke’s review of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
- Read Luke’s review of Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
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- Read Pretty Deadly Films at Gumroad.
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- Read the latest issues of Pretty Deadly Films.
- Anthony Couto at Comic Book Resources considers the Spanish name for Solo: A Star Wars Story, January 2018.
- Louise McCreesh at Digital Spy reports on the branding of Solo: A Star Wars Story in China, January 2018.
- Adam Rogers at Wired reports on Disney’s plan to release a new Star Wars movie every year, November 2015.
- Patrick Willems at YouTube discusses the drab colour corrected Marvel Cinematic Universe, November 2016.
- Every Frame a Painting discusses “the Marvel Symphonic Universe”, September 2016.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist argues that Solo: A Star Wars Story marked the point at which Star Wars ceased to be special, December 2019.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist reports on how Disney learned all the wrong lessons from Solo: A Star Wars Story, June 2022.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist considers the relatively low ratings for Andor compared to recent Star Wars shows, November 2022.
- Saleah Blancaflor at Morning Consult reports on fatigue setting in among fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, August 2022.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist argues for Phase 4 as “Marvel’s midlife crisis”, July 2022.
- Rebecca Rubin at Variety reports on the cancellation of the planned Rogue Squadron movie, September 2022.
- Rian Johnson talks to Den of Geek about the delays to his long-announced Star Wars trilogy, October 2022.
- Owen Williams at Empire reports on Damon Lindelof’s recently-announced Star Wars movie, October 2022.
- Mark Hughes at Forbes considers the box office performance of Solo relative to Black Panther and Infinity War, June 2018.
- Matt Dolloff at ScreenRant reports on Solo‘s performance relative to Infinity War, June 2018.
- Scott Mendelson at Forbes considers Disney’s release strategies for Solo and Mary Poppins Returns, December 2018.
- Lisa Rosen at The Los Angeles Times considers the Kasdan family business, April 2007.
- Chris Agar at ScreenRant considers how Han Solo almost cameoed in Revenge of the Sith, May 2018.
- Graeme McMillan at The Hollywood Reporter considers the aborted Star Wars televison show, Underworld, December 2015.
- James Whitbrook at Gizmodo reflects on the crossover Shadows of the Empire, October 2017.
- You Must Remember This considers Song of the South, November 2019.
- Kayleigh Donaldson at SyFy Wire considers Disney’s complicated historical relationship with Song of the South, October 2020.
- Scottie Andrew at CNN considers the relationship between Song of the South and Splash Mountain, June 2020.
- Joey Nolfi at Entertainment Weekly reports on the rebranding of Splash Mountain around Princess and the Frog, July 2022.
- Justin Kroll at Variety considers the initial casting call for Solo: A Star Wars Story, January 2016.
- Borys Kit at The Hollywood Reporter considers the short list for Solo: A Star Wars Story, March 2016.
- Alden Ehrenreich talks to US Magazine about being discovered by Steven Spielberg in a bat mitzvah video, May 2018.
- Alden Ehrenreich talks to The Guardian about working on Hail Caesar!, March 2016.
- The trailer for Hail, Ceasar!, January 2016.
- Siddhant Adlakha at Collider considers the production history of Superman II, March 2021.
- Kristopher Tapley at Variety reports on the creative differences on Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Kim Masters at The Hollywood Reporter offers an account of the departure of Lord and Miller from Solo: A Star Wars Story, June 2017.
- Borys Kit at The Hollywood Reporter accounts for the challenges facing the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story, June 2017.
- Alden Ehrenreich talks to Vanity Fair about reports that there was an “acting coach” hired on Solo: A Star Wars Story, April 2018.
- The teaser trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story, February 2018.
- Patty Jenkins announces that she will be directing Rogue Squadron, December 2019.
- Kristin Baver at StarWars.com considers the history of Han Solo’s dice across the Star Wars franchise, March 2019.
- Tatiana Tenreyro at Bustle reports on Solo‘s decision to reveal how Han Solo got his name, May 2018.
- Yohana Desta at Vanity Fair reports on the possibility of a Lando spin-off movie, May 2018.
- Kathleen Kennedy assures IndieWire that a Lando movie is the next solo Star Wars project, May 2018.
- Kathleen Kennedy talks to Vanity Fair about what the Star Wars production team learned from the failure of Solo, June 2022.
- Kate Erbland at IndieWire reports on how Lord and Miller wanted to take their cues from Guardians of the Galaxy, May 2018.
- Borys Kit and Aaron Couch at The Hollywood Reporter on Disney’s decision to fire James Gunn following the publicisation of his old tweets, July 2018.
- Lewis Wallace at Wired reports on The People vs. George Lucas, October 2011.
- Kristin Baver at StarWars.com explores the production of the Kessel Run sequence in Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Dan Casey at Nerdist considers the history of the Kessel Run in the larger Star Wars franchise, May 2018.
- Thandiwe Newton talks to Inverse about how her death scene was altered in Solo: A Star Wars Story, August 2021.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist considers Disney’s insistence on making Obi-Wan Kenobi a “hopeful, uplifting story”, March 2022.
- Darren Mooney at The Escapist reflects on the lack of any artistic identity in Obi-Wan Kenobi, June 2022.
- Michael K. Williams talks to Yahoo! about his version of Drydon Vos from Lord and Miller’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2019.
- Paul Bettany talks to Global News about petitioning for any part in Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Kevin Burwick at MovieWeb considers the aborted cameos from Tag and Bink in Solo: A Star Wars Story, September 2018.
- Ryan Britt at Inverse considers the inclusion of Teräs Käsi in Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Joanna Robinson at Vanity Fair considers the cameo from Darth Maul in Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Susana Polo at Polygon consider’s Disney’s decision to remove the “expanded universe” from continuity with The Force Awakens, December 2016.
- Sam Witwer talks to Star Wars Holocron abou replacing Peter Serafinowicz as the voice of Darth Maul in Solo: A Star Wars Story, April 2020.
- HowAboutWe compiles a supercut of Bill Murray’s on-screen kisses, September 2013.
- Chris Evangelista at /Film considers how the novelisation of Solo: A Star Wars Story deals with the fate of L3, August 2018.
- William Bibbiani at IGN considers how the revised history of the Millennium Falcon in Solo: A Star Wars Story is horrifying, May 2018.
- Dan Hassler-Forest at The Washington Post considers the history of the portrayals of the droids in Star Wars movies, May 2018.
- Angie Han at Mashable considers the robot revolution in Solo: A Star Wars Story, June 2018.
- Bradford Young talks to IndieWire about his work on Solo: A Star Wars Story, April 2018.
- Bradford Young talks to The Chicago Tribune about lighting and filming Solo: A Star Wars Story, May 2018.
- Chris O’Falt at IndieWire reports on the controversy over whether Solo: A Star Wars Story was literally “too dark”, May 2018.
- Michael Walsh at Nerdist considers the postcredits scene in The Mandalorian, December 2020.
- Danny Elfman talks to The Hollywood Reporter about recycling classic music cues, November 2017.
- Bruno Heller talks to Entertainment Weekly about the decision to rebrand Pennyworth as “The Origin of Batman’s Butler”, October 2022.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: brand, christopher miller, Content, disney, franchise phil lord, kathleen kennedy, Lucasfilm, luke dunne, management, reshoots, ron howard, solo, star wars, The 250 |
the m0vie blog 
Wasn’t quite sure where to put this, so here will do.
Listening to this, a thought occurred about Disney trying to turn Star Wars into something like the MCU and the problems within.
They come at stories from opposite views of the characters. The MCU generally builds up the fandom for a character, as interconnected as it is, you become a fan of Cap, Iron Man, Hulk etc. then part of the excitement of The Avengers films is seeing how everyone reacts when mixed up together. That carries a lot of the weight of the teamup movies which can have rather basic plots and the chemistry moves things along.
Han Solo wasn’t designed for that. Star Wars wasn’t designed for that. As much as it’s a universe, it’s A story, a long, epic one but until episode 7 it was clearly 1 story. The characters were designed to work within that story with those other characters. All the backstory we needed and Han’s character arc were all welded into what we already have.
Putting him on his own, it takes away or resets those relationships and the bits of backstory that it has to explore are pretty threadbare so it feels like a lot is taken away from him, rather than added to him.
Clearly there’s an audience for characters crossing over but it works better when they’ve made a new character, then thrown them together with an old one. Say The Mandalorian, that character was built up, so there was anticipation for when he met Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker.
And on your point about everyone having a different version of a Han Solo movie, here’s mine: A heist film with Lando, Han and Chewie, they get in some scrapes, have some laughs and just at the end when it looks like they’ve won, they play a card game, Han wins the Falcon and Lando uses that as an opportunity to bolt on a shuttle with the loot, leaving Han with nothing but the Falcon as their boss shows up wanting his share: Jabba.