There's A Star Wars Movie Coming Out Tonight And I'm Not Excited About It At All

This blog kinda hurts to write, but I just have to say it. There’s a Star Wars movie coming out tonight and I’m not excited about it at all.

I’ll be at the very first showing of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’, of course, but if you told me that a scheduling conflict would prevent that, there wouldn’t be a shred of disappointment in my body. Never in a million years would I predict feeling that way about a STAR WARS movie, but here we are. I mean, for Lucas’ sake, this is me:

How can that kid possibly not be STOKED about any and all Star Wars he gets?!

Well, it’s a combination of a few of things. One is the fact that I’m truly not interested to see anybody but Harrison Ford play Han Solo. I’ve said that about a thousand times since this movie was announced, but it still stands true. Harrison is Han, and Han is Harrison. Ain’t nobody in the world worthy of being that scruffy looking nerf herder but him. It sounds like Alden Ehrenreich puts on a pretty respectable performance from the early reports we’ve gotten, but most everyone has said there are points in the film where you forget that he’s supposed to be Han…and that seems like an issue.

Another reason I’m not over the moon about seeing ‘Solo’ tonight is that I’ve always loved the mystique behind Han’s character, and felt some things were better left unsaid. The Kessel Run, for example, has been a topic of debate in the Star Wars community for over FORTY YEARS now, because when Han claims he was able to do it in under 12 parsecs, he’s referring to a unit of distance, not time. Because of this, there’s a large portion of the fanbase who believes he’s actually just being a bit of a conman and lying to receive Ben Kenobi’s business. I’ve always been of the mindset that he used black holes or space portals of some sort to his advantage, and was deliberately referring to a unit of distance in that moment, proving the feat to be much cooler and more impressive, but the debate was fun and added an extra level of intrigue into the person (and smuggler) Solo truly was!

Not that I’m anti-Kessel Run in the movie, because just from the trailer, it seems that’ll be the second best part of the film other than Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, but overall, I just didn’t really want to know anything about Han before we met him in the cantina. I’ve never had the desire to watch him do anything before that moment, and I don’t think the majority of Star Wars fans did, either. Clem’s not seeing the flick tonight, KenJac and Jeff Lowe of ‘Lights, Camera, Barstool’ aren’t excited AT ALL (maybe even less than I am), and my brother who’s got two children named after characters in the Star Wars universe, probably doesn’t even know it comes out today.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dreading ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’. I don’t think it’ll be a bad movie, either. I have complete faith in Kathleen Kennedy and enjoy Ron Howard’s work quite a bit, so I think it’ll be quite good. This general disinterest isn’t a case of “Star Wars fatigue” either, because that doesn’t exist. If Marvel’s nineteenth film in ten years becoming their highest grossing ever didn’t show you that’s a complete myth created by folks who dislike the genre, I don’t know what will. It’s just this weird thing where it’s a movie that nobody asked for, and seemingly every die-hard Star Wars fan I know feels indifferent about.

That being said, I’m really rooting for this movie to succeed and be great, because why the hell wouldn’t I be, and hey…maybe we’ll get a moment or two of lore-pull that makes the franchise better in some way. Han freeing Chewie from Imperial Slavery, meeting Maz, running into Boba Fett or Jabba the Hutt for the first time, anything like that would be kinda cool to see I guess. Disney’s becoming better and better at the little things, as well, most recently explaining that Leia got her Boushh disguise in ‘Return of the Jedi’ from Maz Kanata in their ‘Forces of Destiny’ webisodes.

So tonight, there’s a Star Wars movie coming out that I really don’t care about all that much, but let’s just hold our breaths and pray it’s fine. If it’s fine, I’m happy. That’s where I’ve set the bar. Fine. And the odds are…ahhh just kidding never tell me the odds.

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(Han Solo joke)