I saw it. I liked it. That ^ makes sense ^ to me. I didn’t ponder the politics overmuch while watching the movie... ...I escaped. Spoiler It is mildly amusing that what would be a SJW here is merely a malfunctioning droid In The Galaxy, Far, Far, Away. And the character served a plot purpose, namely: it made their escape from the raw fuel mines complicated, dangerous and exciting which in turn necessitated the famous “...Kessel Run...” Without the chaos caused by all the droids in the mine going berserk, there’s much less action in the action movie. Do Not ^ Read Agragax.
Spoiler: My opinion after seeing Solo Well, I’ve been to see it and I thought it was pretty good - I would say better than the Last Jedi and miles better than the Force Awakens, although not as good as Rogue One, but it was close. The story was excellent- especially the end sequence where all the betrayals start coming in thick and fast. Ok, so people expected that Han would win the Falcon off Lando and the Kessel run would be completed in record time, but I just think it’s nice to have those events marked in a film to say exactly what happened, as I haven’t read any of the EU comics about it. The rest of the plot was pretty well thought out I feel - no really stupid and over the top elements like there were in the Last Jedi and no cliche moments like there were in the Force Awakens. I also like how compared to the comics where he does enter the pilot academy, in the film he gets no such luck and is shoved into the rank-and-file infantry. It was actually pretty good that they put him in the regular Imperial army, as you never see what the regular Imperial Army troopers look like in Rogue One and the OT apart from walker crewmen, so that was a nice touch I felt that clarified part of the Star Wars universe for me. About L3-37, I thought she wasn’t too bad a character myself. She wasn’t as funny as K-2SO - she would have had to go a long way to beat him in terms of comedy - but overall I don’t think she was that bad. The only thing about her that I thought was odd was that her personality was more like that of a human in a droid’s body rather than that of an actual droid - she didn’t have the typical Droid mannerisms that K-2SO so skilfully replicated and were first seen in C-3PO. I am surprised fact that she was given so short a time in the film - she was introduced in the mid-early stage of the film and then killed off quite a time before the end, but I do like that as it does give the hero characters a sense of mortality just as was seen in Rogue One. I thought it was a shame that the alien with the four arms died so early on - I thought he was quite a good character - but I enjoyed the fact that their first attempt on a heist was messed up pretty badly, as again it makes the hero characters imperfect and more like real people, as real people are also imperfect. Additionally I liked that how Enfys Nest looks thoughout the film as if she is going to be one of the main villains as the leader of another underhive gang, but she in fact turns out to be morally superior to many of the Milennium Falcon crew as the leader of an aspiring Rebel cell, and this also gives an insight into yet more of all these minor factions - good and bad - springing up during the reign of the Empire, alongside Saw’s Partisans who we saw in Rogue One and the Hutt Cartels who we saw in VI and the Clone Wars. Talking of criminal cartels, was anyone else surprised to see Darth Maul at the end as the overall crime boss? I knew he had gone off to start his own underworld gang, but didn’t think he would appear again in a main film!
Spoiler: Reply It did come as a bit of a surprise to me, but not as much as it would to someone who hadn't seen the Clone Wars. It makes a lot of sense, especially given the name of the crime syndicate - the Crimson Dawn. However, it can't last, as he's due to get shipwrecked on Malachor in time to be there for years prior to 3 BBY (the film is set in 10 BBY) for his appearance in Rebels, and after that the remainder of his life has already been shown. I also liked several of the other Easter eggs - I don't know if you caught that Beckett killed Aurra Sing - and it was also nice seeing some places and things only really mentioned before - although Kessel has been depicted prior to this and they kept to that look which was nice. Overall I though it was a good film. Doesn't rank as high as the Last Jedi or Rogue One, but I thought it was still one of my favourites
Then you'll probably like this 7 minute video. And these guys have made almost a hundred videos like that if you like that style of humor. One of the reasons I dislike the Disney era of Star Wars movies is because when I was in middle school and high school my favorite fiction books were Star Wars expanded universe novels and Disney threw out all that material. The books were far from perfect, but I enjoyed the old Han Solo backstory novels a lot more than this plot-hole filled movie. I basically reached a point where I'll watch the new Star Wars movies, but not if I have to pay money to see them. Sorry Star Wars...
The thing is they couldn't even do the SJW thing right. She was downloaded into the Millennium Falcon's computer for eternity. For a droid concerned about slavery that would be literally Hell for her and it was played off as heartwarming moment. So Solo managed to offend normies by shoving SJW platitudes into what should be a simple action movie and managed to bungle the SJW message at the same time.
And your assumption is most definitely correct. I enjoyed it immensely!! The EU stuff was hit or miss. However the "hits" provided me with some of my absolute favourite Star Wars stories, moments and characters. The Darth Bane trilogy and the Thrawn Trilogy were both absolutely wonderful. I always wanted to see Darth Bane on the big screen, but now I've pretty much lost all faith in Disney. I'm fairly certain they would simply ruin it. As for the issue of being canon, who cares in the end. All of it is make-belief, so just pick and choose what you enjoy. We all create our own personal canon (as such, I don't consider anything after the 8th edition Wood Elves book to be worth the paper it is printed on). That's because they are NPCs.
That is the part that bugs me. The same Disney that gives up crappy Star Wars movies also gives us good Marvel movies. They are the same Disney that made Gravity Falls and the new Duck Tales. This decade is well known for crappy remakes, reboots, and sequels, but the 2017 version of Ducktales is almost perfect. I pondered starting a thread about it but all my material comes from this guys YouTube channel. The one guy who likes the new Ducktales more than I. The new Ducktales created new interesting changes but they kept the spirit of the show and the original characters intact. They turned Webby from being a token girl character/damsel in distress into a SJW approved action girl BUT she is not annoying because unlike say Rey, she occasionally makes mistakes and has a character arc with room for growth. The same company that makes stuff I like also makes stuff I loathe. That bothers me because it means I have to research things. Unlike Sony. When they make a cool looking action movie like say a Spawn movie, I know I should skip it because I know the brand of Sony just like I know what Michael Bay as director means. DC I got to check reviews for their movies but I'll probably end up watching everything anyway because I'm a sucker. At least their animated stuff is consistently good, except for The Killing Joke which for some reason despite having great writers, a great producer, stellar season voice actors, and based on one of the most critically acclaimed comic books of all times, was an abomination. It is conspicuously absent from the celebratory "Batman Day" line up and they weren't embarrassed to show Batman and Robin (the one with Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze) so that tells you something. Okay I cannot talk about popular culture without spewing about DC (which is managed by Warner Brothers), but the point is Disney the company that owns Marvel and Pixar is perfectly capable of making quality media products...sometimes
But those groups are run be different people, and that makes all the difference in the world. I was surprised that Disney extended Kathleen Kennedy's contract for another 3 years. I hope they lose more money (although IX is guaranteed to make money, so fingers crossed that makes a lot less). I hope people unite against them, it is the only way to elicit change.
This baffles me. I got lots of theories on this. Starting with the most obvious and likely and ending with the least likely. 1) Disney is very afraid of angering the SJW crowd. 2) Kathleen Kennedy actually has a huge resume of working on successful movies and is allowed one or two stinkers. (Note this conveniently overlooks that while she was involved with a lot of great movies, she the only movies where she had creative input are the only movies that sucked). 3) Kathleen Kennedy has grade A blackmail material against Disney. 4) Disney is concerned about the repercussions of firing Kathleen Kennedy but doesn't want her to break more stuff so they are going to keep her on the payroll but not give her any real power. 5) One of the problems with the new Star Wars trilogy was that they kept changing the captain of the ship and this lead to jarring plot holes, random character changes, and jarring shifts in tone. At this point switching the person at the top would make things worse. 6) Disney realizes that it is impossible to make a good Episode 9. As the final act in a trilogy it is built on the foundation of the previous two films. Even if the director, writers, and actors are all perfect Episode 9 is still built on a weak foundations. The best Episode 9 can be is okay. Might as well let the dumpster fire finish. Kathleen Kennedy is being set up to fail, so Disney can use her as a scapegoat and maybe use this debacle as an excuse to never "Get woke, go broke" ever again.
Too bad for Disney that the SJW crowd doesn't buy a lot of movie tickets or merchandise. You definitely raise good points. It could very will be the case that the real reason for keeping her on is a mix of some of those. I don't see #3 as very likely though but the rest could be contributing factors. It could also be the case that they are so blind that they don't recognize her as a major contributor to their current situation. Maybe they actually believe their own excuses of "Star Wars fatigue", "toxic fandom", "small minority" etc. I just hope that they continue to crash and burn. Although I was not a fan of Solo, I really enjoyed watching the whole think blow up in their faces.
It means that when companies try to forcibly push a leftist (SJW) political agenda onto their customers, they lose money because it drives their customers off and the SJWs they were trying to please do not actually purchase their goods/services.