I have been following the downfall of Solo with a detached yet preverse interest.
The Last Jedi soured me on Star Wars so badly that I found myself wanting Solo to fail just so Disney and Kennedy would get at least one punch in the nose for what they did. Yes, I now that comes across as petty and vindicates all those that keep yelling at the fanboy nerds to stop complaining that TLJ destroyed their childhoods. Again, to them I tell them to take their high horse and go stuff themselves. In-universe issues aside, TLJ was just a plainly bad movie, but that's not what we are here to discuss.
I actually don't think that the author of that article is that far off in guessing why Solo failed. Disney is in complete denial as to the real reasons and continues to blame it on a poor marketing campaign and bad press over the switch in directors midway through production. What everyone else is saying though is that they will blame everyone and everything else except their own short-sightedness in pushing through with an origin story movie that one really asked for or much cared about. What I've read on most movie sites points to a growing culture of arrogance where the decision makers feel that they can just slap the words 'Star Wars' on anything and people will turn out in droves, screaming in delight as if the Beatles are rolling through town.
As the plummeting box office figures indicate with the downward trend since Force Awakens, it's becoming increasingly clear that you have to craft the stories that people want to see, but not only that, you have to craft them well. With regards to franchise fatigue, I don't buy it either. I would happily go to the movie theatre every month if the Star Wars movie up on screen was guaranteed to blow me away. Marvel has proven that it can be done and that there is an audience out there that you can hold onto so long as you tell compelling stories with great characters. Though I think it was somewhat bone-headed for Disney to release Solo only five months after TLJ, it would have been no problem if had been a movie that people were interested in seeing, and more than once at that. It clearly isn't.
I can't criticize the movie on it's own specific merits having not seen it, but what from what I've read, it nearly all points to these factors: the movie is actually quite decent but... boring. It's a paint-by-numbers heist/action yarn that delivers nothing new and adds zero value to the SW universe. There is no growth or interesting revelations about the title character; merely a slew of occurrences that show us how he got all the things that we see in the earlier movies: the Falcon, his blaster pistol, Chewie, etc. Do I really care about that? Part of the appeal for me as Han Solo was the aura of mystery and mild mistrust that the character invoked. It's that life-changing decision that he makes at the end of ANH that finally moves the character forward into the unknown. It's that journey that I'm interested in seeing and guess what? We've been shown that journey within the OT. I'm not interested in seeing why Solo was cynical to begin with, and apparently this prequel completely ignores that and makes something out of Solo that he should not be at that stage of his life. Of course, there is the argument that things would change in a sequel, but that's just the problem with movies these days is that everything is always written with a sequel in mind, leaving out important developments and events because they want to hoard them for a second and third film. That to me is the height of arrogance because they are writing movies based on the presumption that it will be successful and that it will lead to more. However, this proves that the SW golden goose may be finally running out of eggs. There more than likely won't be a second Solo movie, for which I and many others are grateful, leaving the current movie to stand as incongruity that does not mesh well with the Solo we knew at all.
Then there's the inherent problems in recasting. I am adamantly against this practice of replacing actors in roles where the actor and the character they play have become indelibly connected, especially over the course of multiple movies. Harrison Ford has the unique distinction of holding that honour in my books for three separate movie universes: Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Indiana Jones.
There's a word on the internet these days that gets so misused and overused that it just makes me want to vomit when I see it: 'iconic'. I can guarantee that 99% of the people typing it don't know what it means and like to apply it willy-nilly to something they saw and liked: "Wow, that scene with Thranduil leaping off his elk with both swords whirling was so iconic!!!" *swoon* -
- wrong, wrong, wrong. Ford's place in pop culture, performance, and unbreakable connection to Han Solo or Indy? That's iconic. When you can't see the man's face in an everyday situation and not be reminded of those roles that he helped shape, that's when you know you have something special.
Now, I recognize that there's no way that Ford, weird CGI aside, could ever play a younger version of himself. Not only that, he is done with the character. But when the connection between actor and character is that strong, it beggars the question: why bother, and who wants it? I think the box office numbers are telling the story on that one, because again, I keep hearing that no one really wanted this movie, that Alden Ehrenreich is just some dude cosplaying at being Han Solo, and that is a harsh indictment of the filmmakers that want us to believe and accept that this is the character that we know and love. Just leave it be and move on. For characters that were created, lived, and died all within the span of one movie, I think Rogue One succeeded admirably where Solo is failing. There were no preconceived notions about the characters in R1. There were plenty for Solo and Disney is only setting itself up for failure because it can never meet those expectations, especially by throwing some unknown face into a role that is, in fact, iconic.