Apparently, when I went to see Solo, I was part of a smaller crowd than Disney might have wanted. My factual experience bears this out — the theater was half empty. It turns out that Solo took in about 100 million at the box office over Memorial Day weekend.
To me that’s disappointing. I liked the movie. It was fun. Cool fights, cool space flight, the new guy did well conveying the essence of Han Solo, and all the rumors from last winter about how bad it was going to suck were thoroughly put to rest. The fact that it isn’t succeeding financially is too bad.
But, I have to say, we shouldn’t be totally surprised. Disney is taking Star Wars into Marvel Cinematic Universe territory, where it becomes a regular serial on the big screen instead of a momentous cultural event.
When I was a wee lad, Star Wars was something that happened. It was this once in a lifetime great event that shaped my whole taste in entertainment. From the early eighties for the next ten years, Star Wars was a one-off, a one time thing. Nothing would ever be like it again.
Then they made the Phantom Menace. Then the rest of the prequels. Then Disney bought it and announced even more. To where we are now, where there’s not even a full year between Star Wars movies. Star Wars is no longer something that happened once. Now it’s something that happens all the time.
And that transition includes some simple facts of life. Like, for example, it’s possible to miss one and not lose any enjoyment of later ones at all. Returning to the MCU for a bit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Thor: The Dark World. And I certainly can’t remember the actual plot of any Incredible Hulk movies, or Avengers 2. If you’re going to make a movie a year or more, some of them can be skipped. Some will be forgettable.
There’s just no way to have “The greatest event in filmmaking history” happen every eleven months. If we’re going to make so many Star Wars movies, some of them are going to be small time.
And I suppose, from the audience perspective, if you’re going to shrug at and skip a Star Wars movie, this might seem like the one. No lightsabers. No mystic wisdom. In fact, that was my perspective as well. I almost forgot it had been released until midway through Saturday, when I got fed up with how spoiler-y my news feed was and realized, Oh! That’s why!
And since it’s impossible to rebut the no-lightsabers/mystic wisdom critique without taking the boat to spoiler-depth, I can’t blame the audience for seeing this one as the Star Wars movie they can skip.
It’s too bad, though. Solo is awesome. I would hate to see Disney take away the lesson that this was a bad movie.