After watching Solo I just had to write about it in some form. There is so much I want to say about it. Let’s start with the good since I will not be talking about its blessings in the main article. First question right off the bat. Did I like it? Yes, but there’s a big asterisk next to that. I would classify it as a fun summer blockbuster. There are a lot of cool moments and set pieces I’ve never seen in a movie before let alone a Star Wars film. Plus, on that point, it’s more Star Wars! Who doesn’t want that? I just love being part of this ever-expanding universe. The costume design and gadgetry gets me every time. That train scene? OMG!

That moment, in particular, brings up another point. A lot of this movie doesn’t make sense. You may enjoy a scene initially only to reflect upon it later and be confused. Why? I asked myself that so many times as I discussed the film excitedly afterward with friends and after diving deep into other websites and podcasts. That’s just what I like to do after watching a big nerdy film like this. It got me thinking that the character of Han Solo has a lot of problems that go beyond just Solo. And that’s how this piece was born. Of course a lot of these you could easily explain away, but they are things worth questioning regardless. You’ll see. Oh yeah, and beware of SPOILERS as always.

25 Dude, Where’s My Falcon?

How could Han lose the Millennium Falcon in the time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens? I mean, he knows where Jakku is. It just seems weird that he would let it out of his grasp, but I also understand why. It’s all about the plot. It makes for a more dynamic story to have them not be in the Millennium Falcon when they catch up with Finn, Rey, and BB-8. In terms of a narrative structure, I think it works well for the film.

I just find it hard to believe Han would be that dumb to lose it. Although as I already established in this article he is pretty stupid and gullible. His luck had to run out eventually. First, his son went to the dark side, and then his marriage fell apart, and then he lost the Millennium Falcon, which eventually tumbled into his demise. Looks like karma finally caught up to old Han. As sad as it is to admit, he definitely had it coming. Even if you’re a scoundrel with a heart of gold the universe finds a way to bite back. That’s a lesson we can learn from his misplaced space keys.

24 Carbonite Changes Your Shirt?

I can safely admit that a lot of these entries push the boundaries on legit complaints. The criticisms, if they arise, are not without validation. This one, in particular, is something even I hesitated on reporting on. That is to say, I did not find this. It’s more of a problem with the production of Star Wars than Han Solo himself. It’s barely noticeable. With those guidelines out of the way let’s get to it.

Carbonite works wonders on whites.

We all remember when Han gets frozen in carbonite, right? It’s one of the most momentous scenes in The Empire Strikes Back. Just that line where Leia says, “I love you” to Han to which he replies “I know” gets me every time. So the problem here is that when he gets frozen, the model depicted in carbonite showcases Han’s wardrobe from A New Hope. The shirt is more open as you can see above. That is absolutely it. You could ask how did he change clothes, but there’s a very reasonable explanation for that. The artists simply screwed up. Behind the scenes it makes sense, but it still makes it look silly in the film if you really care about canon that much.

23 Why Use Shyriiwook When Chewie Understands English?

To me, and audiences across the globe, Chewbacca’s growls sound like guttural nonsense. For that matter, all animal noises sound like complete noise to the untrained ear, but animals are able to communicate in ways we can’t possibly imagine. I don’t mean to call Chewbacca an animal because he and his people are a sentient, intelligent race. I was only demonstrating that no one could understand his weird yodels. No one except for Han that is. It’s a small concept that the audience can swallow wholeheartedly without question. For that matter, Chewbacca can understand English. He can’t speak it and Han can’t speak Chewbacca’s language, but at least they can understand each other.

Well here’s Solo ruining another concept for us. Apparently, Han can indeed speak Shyriiwook. He uses it to communicate with Chewbacca when he is thrown in a pit to fight him even though Chewbacca seems to understand English just fine. Why use Shyriiwook then and why hasn’t he used it since aka in the original trilogy? This is why prequels are a bad idea. You could say speaking another’s language is a sign of trust. That’s a weird conceit to make though. Again, because know about the original trilogy.

22 Running Away From Your Problems. Is That Han?

Luke, Leia, Han, and everyone in-between goes through some serious stuff in the original trilogy. It may be a rough journey, but it shapes them for the better. At the end, I felt like I knew them. The Force Awakens and its sequel, The Last Jedi, sort of retcon how we think about these heroes. They behave in ways we wouldn’t expect them to. I think that’s sort of the point though. The original trilogy spans only about four years whereas it’s another thirty before the new trilogy starts. That’s a long time, which is to say people can easily change over that gap.

Let’s look at Han for example. He settles down with Leia and has a kid, Ben. Things go awry in his Jedi training with Luke, Ben destroys the Jedi Temple, slaughters a bunch of people, and becomes Kylo Ren. This causes Han to leave his wife. What? Now, I don’t have a kid so I can’t pretend I would know how it feels to see your child go evil. Maybe this would end a marriage. I don’t know. It just seems like a weird plot device. For that matter, Luke leaves too, which is equally ludicrous, but we’ll save that argument for another time.

21 A Ridiculously Uninspired Good-Bye For An Icon

Time to move onto another Star Wars movie to spoil: The Force Awakens. Remember when Han goes up to his son, Ben, and tries to reason with him? By reason I mean he doesn’t have a plan and thus gets stabbed and thrown off a giant balcony. Yeah, smooth move Han. It’s like you never have a plan and if you do they always go wrong. Oh, wait. That is exactly what his character is like. If you follow him through Solo, the original trilogy, and The Force Awakens, it’s pretty clear he comes from an improv school of thought. That is to say he “yes ands” every conversation without much consideration for the backfire. Somehow he always survives except in this case where his luck finally runs out.

Here’s the thing. Behind the scenes, Harrison Ford is a grumpy old man that seemingly hates Star Wars and the fact that everybody loves him for being Han Solo. Why did he have to perish in the dumbest way possible? Because Ford probably asked for it. Hey, at least he agreed to come aboard one last time. It’s the least he could do I guess. Makes me sad though, but I can also see why being recognized as one figure throughout your career would be frustrating.

20 Check Out Deez Dice — Continuity Issue?

I’m not really sure what’s up with Han Solo’s dice. I thought it was some weird plot they added to The Last Jedi that was supposed to reference some event prior that would pay off in Episode IX. Another thought I had was that they were significant in the comics since all comic stories are canon. They actually fill in a lot of gaps. For example, remember C-3P0’s red arm in The Force Awakens? Part of that is a reference to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. That’s an unconfirmed theory but J.J. Abrams and Hideo Kojima are pals so it seems plausible. The canon reason is that it belonged to a droid that perished saving C-3P0’s life so he wore it as sort of a token of remembrance.

Getting back on track it seems that these dice have existed since the original trilogy. You can see them hanging in certain scenes on the Millennium Falcon as early as A New Hope. That’s something I forgot. Legend goes it was those dice that won him the ship from Lando. That’s not right though. Now we know he has them before the movie even begins in Solo. It seems like a weird thing to cling to. We already had a story and now it just seems like a new origin no one asked for that convolutes the whole thing.

19 How Could Han Not Know About Jedi?

Okay, let’s figure out the timeline of these movies to prove a point. Revenge of the Sith apparently takes place in 19 BBY, which means Before the Battle of Yavin. Yeah, I didn’t know there was a date they went by either. Anyway, it’s estimated that Solo takes place between 13 and 10 BBY. Rogue One takes place in 0 BBY and A New Hope takes place in between that time period and O ABY, which obviously stands for After the Battle of Yavin. Why did you need to know all this? Well, to prove that Han Solo grew up in the height of the Jedi.

This is not the plot hole you are looking for.

They are mostly destroyed in Revenge of the Sith, but that said, Han must have seen some. He was at least a teenager. He’s like in his twenties in Solo, right? Even if he didn’t see any Jedi since he was stuck on Corellia most of his life he must have heard stories before they all fell. He makes it seem like Jedi haven’t existed for ages in A New Hope, which is kind of true. Twenty odd years is a long time and I understand if people don’t believe in Jedi if they were born after 19 BBY, but again, Han was not.

18 Solo Isn’t His Name?

Whenever the concept of Solo came into play I wasn’t exactly thrilled, but I kept my mind open to the possibilities. I wasn’t necessarily looking for answers. What had me interested was just seeing more Star Wars and from other perspectives. I imagined it would be a heist movie of some sort since that’s kind of Han Solo’s motif. What I wasn’t expecting was the movie to answer questions I didn’t know were necessary to answer. It was moments like these that sort of ruined or at least slowed the experience for me. My biggest eye roll is the first you will see in Solo.

So when Han and Qi’ra are escaping, Qi’ra doesn’t make it through the checkpoint, ruining their plans. Instead of getting a ship together and running away Han decides to join the Empire as a first step into becoming a pilot. When asked what his last name is Han doesn’t have an answer so the guard looks off into space, laughs to himself, and puts down Solo. Are you kidding me? I wanted to walk out of the theater. I’m not kidding. That is the stupidest thing yet and that includes the prequel trilogy and Anakin freaking out about sand.

17 In Vest We Trust

This meme is just an excuse to not only make fun of the 70s garb that makes the original trilogy seem more dated than it should be but technology in general. It’s the price we pay for making sci-fi adventures. It’s going to look old at some point. That vest Han wears may have been super trendy back in 1977 when A New Hope debuted, but it looks extremely cheesy now. How could this man be a heartthrob with a vest like that? Without the vest, I will admit, even as a guy, Harrison Ford was one slick hombre.

Aladdin called and he wants his vest back.

Again, I just wanted an excuse to make fun of the fashion. What else is there? Oh yeah! The helmets are stupid huge. They look bad for both the Empire and Rebels. Why are they so big and have that weird curve in the back? It’s the only other weird costume choice that really makes the movie feel cheap. I guess back then the future technology was supposed to be big? Not sure what went wrong there. It looks super weird in modern stuff like Star Wars Battlefront II’s campaign. It’s very tough to watch.

16 They Keep Pulling Him Back In

If I had to summarize Han Solo in another word it would be stupid, or to be less mean, gullible. He is constantly trying to make people believe he is this heartless thug who is awesome and should be respected when Qi’ra later explains she sees him as the good guy. My point is that he keeps throwing himself in harm's way, believing he can trust Beckett, and in turn Crimson Dawn wherein he finally realizes at the end that nobody can be trusted. Beckett literally says that to him and it’s at the point where he shoots him that Han realizes that, yes, people cannot be trusted.

He finally learns a valuable lesson in all of this. Wait, hold on. No, he doesn’t. Instead of running away with Chewbacca on some noble adventure, or aiding Enfys Nest and her cause, he decides to go to Tatooine where Beckett had told him he heard of a crime boss that had a job. After all that why does he decide to go to yet another crime syndicate? He was raised in one and hated it. He almost was defeated by another, Crimson Dawn. Now he wants to try again? Han, baby. Go home, you’re drunk.

15 Who Cares About The Kessel Run?

Kessel run this. Kessel run that. Han can’t stop talking about how great of a move that was, but it’s never explained what it is. For me, I thought it was just one of those things that expanded the universe, but didn’t necessarily need explaining. Well, enter the Solo prequel, which convolutes what seemed like a simple thing. Now, whenever I watch the originals I’m going to think about Solo ruining this moment.

So Kessel is a mining planet in the Star Wars universe. It’s run by the Empire and is mostly used for spices, but there is also fuel on the planet too. Han and the gang need fuel to pay back the Crimson Dawn syndicate. The only problem is the fuel is unrefined on Kessel so they need to get in, get it out, and speed to a refinery planet to stable the fuel and get it ready for Crimson Dawn. It’s a long story, but eventually they get to a point where they are 20 parsecs away from their destination, which would cause the fuel to explode, but because the Millennium Falcon has been infused with L3-37’s A.I. and Beckett injects a small dose of fuel into the engines, they are able to make it out of the rift in 12 parsecs. Han barely had anything to do with it. Also, the Kessel run is not a thing. It’s like if I said I made a Target run in 5 miles. It’s meaningless without context.

14 Lando Not My Friendo

Lando Calrissian is a pretty awesome character in The Empire Strikes Back. He’s hip, cool, and has an amazing city. That is until he betrays Han and the others. Turns out it was all part of his master plan to help out the Rebel Alliance even though it makes absolutely no sense. I mean, technically no harm came to anyone except Han being frozen in carbonite, which I’m sure is actually a fate worse than actually being destroyed. Point is, he redeems himself in the end. Here’s my question though. Why did Han ever trust Lando in the first place?

The Empire Strikes Back makes it seem like they’re good buddies even though it’s stated that Han took the Millennium Falcon away from him. You could see the tension there. Now flash back to Solo, where it’s very clear they aren’t friends. The two of them are constantly trying to screw each other over. Well, Han tries to make good at least. The only reason Lando comes along in the first place is Qi’ra. He’s definitely a man after his own interests even more so than Han, so I ask again, why did he trust Lando in Cloud City?

13 Han Remember Nothing In A New Hope ...

In the original trilogy, Han Solo is framed like your average run of the mill thug. He’s the rebel everyone fawns over even though technically he’s not really good, or bad. He’s done some stuff let’s say. He’s in it for himself, and to a lesser extent, Chewbacca. That’s to say he’s very much against the idea of sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He may be a thug who doesn’t respect the Empire, but he also knows they are a group not to be trifled with. That’s why he’s so hesitant to help Luke and the others regarding the Rebel Alliance. It’s not like he’s trying to be rude, or to an extreme case evil. He’s just pragmatic.

Eventually, he joins up. It’s a good arc for his character, yay hooray and all that. However, why would he be so hesitant to help when he literally funds the Rebel Alliance into existence? At the end of the movie, he hands over the fuel cores to Enfys Nest who says she will use the sixty million credits to fund a rebellion. It’s pretty blatant to the audience what she means. Does Han not realize that in A New Hope? I guess there are two more Solo movies to explain why. Yes, that’s right. This might turn into a trilogy. Yay?

12 Unwarranted Hate Of Robots

Good old Han. The cranky young, old man that hates everything but himself and Chewbacca. Remember how much he disliked and made fun of C-3P0 and R2-D2 in A New Hope and the films that followed? Yeah...great times. That is until I watched Solo wherein he helps incite a robot revolution via L3-37. Sure he may not have directly said, “Hey let’s free the robots” and whatnot, but he wasn’t against it either. That is to say in some crazy way he’s responsible for it. Even if you don’t buy that logic let’s bring up another example.

Remember when L3-37, a sensible robot up to this point, stood up in the middle of battle wherein she got blown to pieces? Seems kind of contradictory to her character. Anyway, the point is Han risks his life to save Lando and in turn a piece of L3-37. Now, in the end, she perishes only to be transformed into the Millennium Falcon’s navigation system, which leads to a lot of other questions. All in all, it’s weird he has contempt for robots in A New Hope, but ten years is a long time and who knows what happened in between there. Maybe a robot scarred him Solo 2.

11 Do The Solo

Okay, this one is just fun to poke at. It’s not canon in the slightest although it would be funny if it was. The meme is pointing out the possibilities on if it were canon, when would this take place? Star Wars Kinect is not a very good product even though it was the first Kinect game that actually looked interesting. It’s more of a collection of mini-games really, that all control about as bad as you’d expect. You could be a Jedi and flail your arms around in an attempt to look cool, but trust me, that’s impossible. You could go podracing, which is just awful. The list goes on.

No Jabba to answer to.

Crazily enough the best game in the bunch is this dance game where you can play as Han, Leia, Lando, and so on, in a bunch of parody dance songs. It plays very similarly to Dance Central, another Kinect exclusive from the Rock Band team. I’m not a big fan of motion controls be it Kinect, PlayStation Move, or Wii, but dance games are surprisingly a lot of fun and very easy to pull off. Plus you can lose weight. It may look ridiculous, but I’m all for being Han Solo in a dance competition.

10 Love Is Blind

For being an origin story we certainly don’t see much of Han’s actual origins. It’s more like a mid-life crisis origin. We see him in a gang in the dirty underbelly of Corellia. He seems madly in love with Qi’ra, who he gets separated from when they try and escape the planet. In his years in the Empire, he is doing his darnedest to get enough money to get a ship and return to Corellia so he can save Qi’ra from god knows what. I expected this to eventually happen wherein he returns to find her broken to the point of not recognizing him, or that she perished in that time. Well, color me surprised when she shows up in the employ of Crimson Dawn.

The weird thing is they never catch up. Sure, they kind of make out, but why didn’t they talk things out? Talk about what each did while the other was gone. That is to say, why did Han trust Qi’ra at the end of the movie? It’s pretty clear she was going to leave the group and take off. Did love blind him? Did he secretly know all along? Hard to say, but man, talk it out people.

9 Lady Proxima's Crippling Plot Device

Okay here’s a puzzle that bewilders me. Han and Qi’ra work for Lady Proxima on Corellia who is this big worm that lives in water. She apparently belongs to a race known as the Grindalid, which is a pretty obscure race in terms of Star Wars lore. That said, how did Han know she was weak to sunlight? It seems like the male guards are also of that species, or are at least another race weak to sunlight since they hurriedly cover themselves up when Han breaks the window open. I have so many follow up questions.

First of all, if you are a being that is weak to the sun why have your base, or at least your throne room, be surrounded by windows? It seems like an obvious oversight. Sure, they maybe didn’t build the structure and instead just took it over. Even if that were the case, her room didn’t have to have the weakness magnet above her. In all fairness, anyone could have told Han about her weakness. It’s not that important, but again it leaves a lot to be desired. Overall his plan wasn’t well thought out. In his defense, neither were his enemy’s defenses.

8 Driving Cars Doesn’t Make You A Pilot

If you had to summarize Han Solo in one word what would it be? Based on Solo and the other films I can think of one easily. He’s a braggart. Someone who has absolutely no right to boast about his accomplishments because he seemingly doesn’t earn them. He stumbles into them by the power of others and a whole lot of dumb luck. He’s like the Mr. Magoo of Star Wars, a reference I realize a lot of you won’t get but makes this funnier to the select few who will.

Look at me Han, no hands.

Anyway, let’s look at Han as a pilot. From the beginning through the entire movie he’s bragging about being an ace pilot. How? He doesn’t have a ship on Corellia. He drives cars, but that doesn’t make him a pilot. I can drive cars. Does that mean I can pilot a plane? Heck no! On top of that, not all ships are created equal, which is to say, even if he learned about one ship that wouldn’t really translate into being good at another. Also, he flunked out of the Empire’s academy. So I ask again, how can he be a pilot? The one thing that is plausible is if he learned from his dad whom I guess built Millennium Falcons. Could we maybe explore that story more?

7 Sabaac It To Me

Finally, an origin story I can get behind. I’m not being sarcastic either. Of all the things that Han alludes to throughout the original trilogy I always wondered about how he won the Millennium Falcon from Lando. We knew it was in a game of Sabaac, which is basically poker. I don’t know why sci-fi movies have to make their own versions of popular games. Merchandising? I guess that has to be it. Anyway, I never watch any of those celebrity tournaments on TV because they seem boring. In general, watching poker no matter who is playing, is like watching paint dry.

That said, they somehow managed to make it interesting in the James Bond classic, Casino Royale. Not only was it directed well, but also the tension was palpable. There were stakes on the line. So how was Solo’s take? Awful. First of all, somehow Han is an ace player even though he says he never played. That could have been a lie, but either way card games are all about luck unless you cheat. That’s how Lando wins as we realize, but Han is just somehow gifted above everyone else. The scene just sort of happens and it’s not even where he wins the ship. That’s later on where he steals Lando’s card mechanism that, by the way, has been around since the Wild West. Is that really the easiest way to cheat in a world with spaceships?

6 Who Are You?

Here’s the big issue with Solo and prequels in general. It encapsulates everything else I’ve pretty much said up to this point too. It’s that I find it weird when characters seemingly have these giant relationships and moments with characters in the past, which never come up in the older films. That’s just not how characters behave. Now sure, you could say Qi’ra, or Beckett aren’t important to the main plot of the original trilogy. They only have so much time to tell the story they need to without the films being five hours long. If every character brought up their past situations we’d never move forward.

In some instances, it doesn’t make sense though. Han taking the Millennium Falcon from Lando even though he knows the love of his life has now fused with the ship. That’s a cruel dark turn for happy-go-lucky Han. Also, why doesn’t he know anything about the Empire? These questions can be explained away, but they wouldn’t have to exist in the first place if we just got rid of prequels, or at the very least didn’t make them so poorly. Did Solo have to include so much of his direct past to mingle with the original trilogy? Of course it didn’t, but it did anyway. I may be pressing my nerd glasses too hard into my brain on this one.