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£11.30 in Luton to see it in 2D. I think it's cheaper midweek and if you have a loyalty card.

The food/drink is the absolute con though. "2 items for just £7.50" like that's a reasonable price to pay, luckily I can make it 2 hours without requiring food with adequate preparation, like eating just before going in.

I'm planning to see it again sometime this week. Also, in honor of the film, I finally started work on my massive Millennium Falcon model:



Also,

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, I bought some of the Die Cast toys for my nephew's birthday (and some more for my son), and there was a ship that I don't recall seeing in the film. It was some kind of thin cruiser with three satellite dishes. Was it cut, or did I miss it?

It must have been cut. It was supposed to be the "Arrestor Cruiser", based on one of the earliest McQuarrie concepts for the Star Destroyer.

 Formosa wrote:
I get why people are saying that solo didn’t deserve this kind of response, thing is, Disney does deserve it, the whole Star Wars cinematic universe needs a hard looking at and a change at the top, Kathleen Kennedy I believe her name is, while the films are making money they will not do this though, the whole team behind these films need the sack, the Star Wars franchise has been damaged by its mishandling and sadly Solo is a victim of this.

Yes it's going to be really hard for Disney to get me to pay to see another SW film. Better movies are out there.

Just saw the movie today. I really enjoyed it. The story was good if not great, and there were some references to various things from the books and stuff that really tickled my inner nerd.

I don't think it's money putting people off the film.

It cost me £37.50 including "ticketing fee". That's £12 for an adult ticket in a small (but very nice) regional cinema -- the Regal in Henley-on-Thames.

I don't think that's an excessive price considering going out for a pizza at Zizzi will cost as much.

OTOH I don't think it's adverse pre-publicity. I don't follow Hollywood news and stuff, and I never heard that the film had a troubled development history until I read it on DakkaDakka. Knowing such wouldn't put me off anyway. It's the final result I'm going to see, not the early scripts or rushes or whatever.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't think it's money putting people off the film.

It cost me £37.50 including "ticketing fee". That's £12 for an adult ticket in a small (but very nice) regional cinema -- the Regal in Henley-on-Thames.

I don't think that's an excessive price considering going out for a pizza at Zizzi will cost as much.

OTOH I don't think it's adverse pre-publicity. I don't follow Hollywood news and stuff, and I never heard that the film had a troubled development history until I read it on DakkaDakka. Knowing such wouldn't put me off anyway. It's the final result I'm going to see, not the early scripts or rushes or whatever.

This would be a classic example of what the kiddies call "privilege"

Seriously though, "it's cheaper than eating out at a nice pizza joint" is a weird counterpoint, given that if someone finds going to the cinema too expensive they're not likely to be regularly eating out either.

And while price might be less of an issue in isolation, put it in the context of a family who can afford to see a film a few times a year, in a period of releases that also includes Infinity War and Sherlock Gnomes, as well as reviews pushing the idea Solo is "safe and boring" because they're being written from the perspective of reviewers for whom the best(or even only good) Star Wars film is TLJ, which also often mention the production woes even if someone hadn't previously been aware.

On top of that, you have the #NotMyHan crowd, the "we have to punish Disney for TLJ" crowd, and the "TLJ has reduced my interest in Star Wars, I'll catch it on Netflix maybe" crowd. As well as Disney's almost invisible loss-cutting excuse for a marketing campaign.

Given all of those givens, it's hardly a surprise it's struggling.

Apparently, the Arrestor is briefly in the film (Imperial Navy advert), but a larger scene was indeed cut.

As for cost - it's not off-putting for one film every now and again. But with Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and Solo all opening within weeks of each other?

I am surprised people are finding tickets so expensive. In the two cinemas I use (the Vue in Norwich and Salford, depending on whether I'm at uni or home) all the standard tickets are never more than £4.99 whether that's opening day or 5 weeks into a run, a blockbuster or a smaller release... I don't know how widespread that pricing model is, but it might be worth looking to find a Vue cinema near you if you want cheaper tickets. Certainly they end up cheaper than Odeon 9/10 times.


I don't think it's necessarily a major problem if Solo doesn't make ludicrous money like TFA or R1, it definitely feels like it was one made for the fans and to satisfy that audience (perhaps in response to TLJ's unexpected reception) rather than crush the box office. Though I am still somewhat surprised by the timing of the release, I can't think what's coming out at Christmas this year that would deter Disney from releasing Solo in the standard December slot... I imagine they initially planned to capitalise on a surge post-TLJ, which probably backfired too late for them to do much about it, but even then, coming out within a month of IW and directly up against Deadpool and Jurassic World seems like an odd move... it's a good time to be a viewer, probably not so much to be the ones releasing all these blockbusters in direct competition...

Well, I work in London, but live in Kent.

And my local cinema is the only one within striking distance of home - so of course they charge whatever they like.

 Paradigm wrote:
I am surprised people are finding tickets so expensive. In the two cinemas I use (the Vue in Norwich and Salford, depending on whether I'm at uni or home) all the standard tickets are never more than £4.99 whether that's opening day or 5 weeks into a run, a blockbuster or a smaller release... I don't know how widespread that pricing model is, but it might be worth looking to find a Vue cinema near you if you want cheaper tickets. Certainly they end up cheaper than Odeon 9/10 times.

Do not do that, it was a Vue I went to and could barely see the film. On the rare occasion in future I bother to go to a film again, I'll pay an extra couple of quid to go to the local independent cinema that still has an actual projectionist on the premises rather than loading up a whole week's worth of films on a digital projector and ignoring it.

I don't think it's necessarily a major problem if Solo doesn't make ludicrous money like TFA or R1, it definitely feels like it was one made for the fans and to satisfy that audience (perhaps in response to TLJ's unexpected reception) rather than crush the box office. Though I am still somewhat surprised by the timing of the release, I can't think what's coming out at Christmas this year that would deter Disney from releasing Solo in the standard December slot... I imagine they initially planned to capitalise on a surge post-TLJ, which probably backfired too late for them to do much about it, but even then, coming out within a month of IW and directly up against Deadpool and Jurassic World seems like an odd move... it's a good time to be a viewer, probably not so much to be the ones releasing all these blockbusters in direct competition...

I doubt very much Solo is a reaction to TLJ's fan reception, they were already well into Howard's version of the movie by the time it came out. More likely it's a happy coincidence born of Lord & Miller's outlandish rubbish prompting Kennedy to do what she always does and lurch in the other direction completely, so we got a "traditional" movie because Howard's not some flashy pretentious auteur. And the reason it was so early in the year is so Disney can start testing the waters to see if people will be up for two Star Wars films in short order - they want this to be a second MCU, and that means 2 or 3 films a year, every year. If nothing else, the one good thing that could come out of Solo underperforming is it might make them reconsider that nonsense.

There are three multiplex cinemas within 30 to 50 minutes drive of me, and I'm lucky to have The Regal in five minutes walk. The saving of time and petrol makes up for the possibly lower ticket prices in the big chains.

I went and saw it at a Matinee at my Daughter's request.

After watching it, I am left wondering why the new Trilogy is so bad? Clearly, fun adventures with lower stakes make better Star Wars stories than the big set-piece arcs do now. Sad!

 Easy E wrote:
I went and saw it at a Matinee at my Daughter's request.

After watching it, I am left wondering why the new Trilogy is so bad? Clearly, fun adventures with lower stakes make better Star Wars stories than the big set-piece arcs do now. Sad!

Some people liked the new stuff - I hated it.

Fun adventures with occasional dark moments sounds much better than the gak fest that was TLJ

 Easy E wrote:
I went and saw it at a Matinee at my Daughter's request.

After watching it, I am left wondering why the new Trilogy is so bad? Clearly, fun adventures with lower stakes make better Star Wars stories than the big set-piece arcs do now. Sad!

That's the thing though - the stakes in Star Wars were never really high. They were presented as being momentous, certainly, but after the first act of the first film deep down everyone watching knew how things were going to end, broadly speaking, because Star Wars is the Monomyth, the Hero's Journey, a fictional structure most of us begin encountering regularly before we can even properly read on our own. There was never any real danger that Luke would turn out to be a crappy pilot, or Han would get randomly gunned-down fighting mooks on the Death Star, or that the Empire would destroy the Rebel base on Yavin IV, or that in the end the Emperor would be victorious - as soon as Luke sets off on his adventure, we know how the story will end because it's a story we've all heard or read or seen a hundred times or more before we hit our teens. What makes the OT good and memorable isn't that it's this huge high-stakes seat-edger where you don't know what's going to happen next or if your favourite character might get snuffed in any given moment of action. What makes it good and memorable are the excellent worldbuilding and aesthetic of the setting's "used future", the fusion of variant tropes from the broadly "western"(ie, European, fundamentally Greco-Roman) and "eastern"(chiefly Japanese, in this case) versions of the Monomyth, the way the structure was molded into a trilogy of films resulting in essentially a much-extended "Abyss" phase covering almost the whole middle movie, and the overall execution(casting, acting, composition, prop design etc).

Sure, watching Solo we know Han, Chewie, and Lando aren't going to die, and the presentation of the stakes is more personal than momentous, but they're not actually any lower than the OT because we knew then the main characters as-presented weren't going to die or lose, because it was established quickly that wasn't the kind of story they were telling, and so we could settle in and let them play with our expectations while safely assuming they wouldn't be actively subverted.

The issue with the newer trilogy is that they did the first movie as an almost forceful statement of intent that this was going to be Original Trilogy 2.0 - This Time It's Reasonably Diverse, and then released a second film that was so falling over itself to pish all over that declaration and go for maximum-subversion that it riddled itself with plotholes and logic gaps. That doesn't make it "bad" per se, evidently people who like subversive fiction or who were bored with Star Wars as-was liked TLJ, it just makes their execution stupid and flawed - Solo lets you know roughly what to expect and delivers on those expectations, like the OT, while the ST set up one set of expectations, and then purposefully undercut almost every single one of them.

IMO, that's why besides the "#NotMyHan" brigade and the tiny minority of actual bigots who think Han having actual feelings for a woman make him "Han Soylo", people who liked the OT and disliked TLJ seem to end up liking Solo, and the reverse.

Just FYI stakes is mostly an in-narrative concept. ANH is high stakes because it involves a civil war and planets blowing up. Solo is low stakes because it involves a couple of robberies.

I really enjoyed Solo as low stakes Star Wars: an exciting adventure with likeable characters where the fate of the galaxy was not at stake.

Does this thread have to turn into another "I h8 TLJ" slag-fest?

Can't people look at Han Solo on its own merits?

I finally saw "Solo" tonight and liked it. No deconstructive rubbish, it was fun and enjoyable. Hans actor wasn't as bad as the rumours say - I'd be fine with seeing more of him. Lando was great and there was heaps of tie-ins to both the old stories and to Rebels.

Thumbs up, if you've been on the fence about it, go see it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Does this thread have to turn into another "I h8 TLJ" slag-fest?

Can't people look at Han Solo on its own merits?

Yeah, let’s stay positive.

So, when are we going to talk about the fact that

I loved tha fact that we finally saw the Imperial Army.... it is nto just Navy guys and Stormtroopers 24/7! Go Imperial Army dudes!

I look forward to your FFG release as figures for Legion!

 Easy E wrote:
I loved tha fact that we finally saw the Imperial Army.... it is nto just Navy guys and Stormtroopers 24/7! Go Imperial Army dudes!

And I love that in 3 years of serving, Han doesn't make it any higher than a "mud trooper", likely because he doesn't follow orders very well.

-

To be fair, he likely had an hour of training to go through too.

Han started at the Naval Academy but was transferred to the Imperial Infantry, at least according to himself.

The mud troopers were one of my favourite bits of the movie. Great to see the imperial army actually make an appearance.

Did some of those AT STs look different? Like they had bigger guns or something? And a couple of background questions; where do stormtroopers fit in the imperial military? And are snow troopers stormtroopers or regular army? It’s probably the former but I kind of wish it was the latter.

As I understand it, the Stormtrooper Corps is an independent branch of the Imperial Army. It is a legacy of the clone trooper legions - i.e., a force bred to loyalty to Palpatine directly rather than to the institution of the Empire. Tellingly, the Stormtrooper Corps was banned by the peace treaty signed by the New Republic and the Empire after the Battle of Jakku.

"Snowtroopers" are actually stormtroopers wearing cold weather gear and I guess they may have additional cold weather training. Swamp Troopers ("mudtroopers"), however, are not stormtroopers. With their goggles and rebreathers, they look a bit like stormtroopers. But the helmet is a giveaway (compare to the one worn by General Veers in ESB.)

Future War Cultist wrote:The mud troopers were one of my favourite bits of the movie. Great to see the imperial army actually make an appearance.

Did some of those AT STs look different? Like they had bigger guns or something? And a couple of background questions; where do stormtroopers fit in the imperial military? And are snow troopers stormtroopers or regular army? It’s probably the former but I kind of wish it was the latter.

Manchu wrote:As I understand it, the Stormtrooper Corps is an independent branch of the Imperial Army. It is a legacy of the clone trooper legions - i.e., a force bred to loyalty to Palpatine directly rather than to the institution of the Empire. Tellingly, the Stormtrooper Corps was banned by the peace treaty signed by the New Republic and the Empire after the Battle of Jakku.

According to the wiki, Imperial Army Regular Units were gradually phased out infavor of Stormtroopers. Could help explain the drop in quility, as rather than being made up of people volunteering to be the best and putting effort into it, they just became standard line troopers.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Does this thread have to turn into another "I h8 TLJ" slag-fest?

Can't people look at Han Solo on its own merits?

Yeah, let’s stay positive.

So, when are we going to talk about the fact that

Spoiler:

Chewie seemingly had to eat people?

That's kind of in-character behavior with his actions in TLJ. I bet in RoTJ, Chewie participated in the Yub Yub Grub Hub. TK-421? More like TK-42yum.

We never saw a stormtrooper commander until TFA, with Captain Phasma. In the OT, stormtroopers were commanded by Imperial Army officers (whereas, clone troopers had clone officers in the PT). It stands to reason that the Imperial Army was not solely an officer corps by the time of ESB. The lack of enlisted Imperial Army personnel at Hoth could be explained by the fact that Vader had been given overall command of the the taskforce assigned to hunt down the Rebellion. Vader had a special relationship to the Stormtrooper Corps, given his leadership of the 101st during the Clone Wars. Also Vader's own position outside of the regular military chain of command is well-mirrored by the emphatically political nature of the Stormtrooper Corps.

Ah ok. It makes sense to made up of stormtroopers it’s a special task force dedicated to hunting the rebels and its lead by Vader. Like a Lord Inquistor leading Scions or even the relevant specialists (grey knights, death watch etc).

I suppose too that it makes sense that we never saw the regular army in the OT because with the exception of Hoth, there were never any big pitched battles so to speak. Even the battle on Endor was relatively small.