Through its monumentally successful Disney+ originals, the Star Wars galaxy has expanded its universe in exciting new ways by simultaneously narrowing down its narrative scope. The wildly popular The Mandalorian, the animated spin-off The Bad Batch, and the newly debuted The Book of Boba Fett have each received universal acclaim and weekly buzz as smaller-scale epics that build upon the galaxy far, far away through a previously unexplored lens – the underground world of scum and villainy. What once was the backdrop for action set pieces and plot exposition has now become the epicenter of the entire Star Wars universe.
The mainline cinematic “episodes” have chronicled big, galaxy-defining moments in wars that hinge on the opposing dark and light sides of the mystical ideology of the Force, while the Disney+ originals have narrowed their focus to simpler stories surrounding the morally gray denizens of the Outer Rim. While they may not decide the fate of the galaxy or the galactic civil war at hand like the Skywalker Saga, these series add depth to the universe brick-by-brick at its grassroots.
In the midst of the Star Wars universe’s most hotly discussed installments in the world of streaming, it is time to revisit a film released well before The Mandalorian and Grogu took the world by storm. A film that set a precedent for the kind of intimate and simplified sci-fi/western crime dramas that have given new life to the world of George Lucas’ creation.
Solo: A Star Wars Story had many factors going against it upon its 2018 release. On top of an extensively troubled production and poor box office returns, the Ron Howard-directed origin story of the roguish scoundrel came out amidst a shaky culture climate in the Star Wars fandom. Fresh off the heavily divisive The Last Jedi, the Star Wars burnout had begun to sink in and propelled the spin-off prequel into immediate obscurity and a list of potential spin-off projects shelved indefinitely.
The film stars Alden Ehrenreich as the Corellian smuggler, famously played by Harrison Ford, as he and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca embark on a foolhardy heist mission with a murderous criminal syndicate breathing down their necks. While Rogue One, the inaugural anthology spin-off film, served as connective tissue leading into A New Hope, Solo set a greater precedent for the scaled-down underground scope and narrative simplicity that defines the franchise’s Disney+ era today.
Solo is a more grounded story based around character motivation over ideology, voiding itself of the emphasis on political squabbles or religious wizardry that are the staples of the mainline films. The characters’ actions and morality are not defined by their allegiance to any one galactic government or side of the force, but by their own beliefs and self-interests. Moral compasses of good and evil are not as clearly defined as they are in the Skywalker saga, with the conflict arising between Han and company as they try to make the Kessel Run and save their skins.
Characters like Woody Harrelson’s Beckett and Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra betray each other, change sides, and are willing to do morally dubious things to survive in the dangerous world of the Outer Rim. The drama stems from their situation and their relationships, not from a prophesied destiny that decides the fate of the galaxy. Like Mandalorian and Boba Fett, Solo tells a simple and mostly self-contained Star Wars story of survival and complex characters over an intricately plotted war epic with morally clear-cut characters.
Solo also established the franchise's recently favored scope of centering on the galaxy’s grimy underbelly to evoke the feeling of the franchise’s genre forerunners. While Star Wars itself has been fundamentally rooted in the high-flying space operas of creator Lucas’ youth, Solo and the Disney+ originals effectively play out like the classic western and samurai films that inspired the original film, with the tone, aesthetic, and narrative to match.
Solo: A Star Wars Story re-injected the pulpy genre camp value of a Star Wars adventure back into the franchise and embodies the kind of grimy, character-driven, action-adventure spectacle that shows like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and even The Bad Batch would follow suit in soon after. The 2018 prequel is deserving of a fandom resurgence for how it indirectly set the groundwork for the globally popular streaming shows that have become the new heart of the Star Wars franchise.