Film Preview: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Page Revisions:

(February 11, 2018) Original
(April 15, 2018) New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#5-#17)
(May 20, 2018) New Posters (#18-#45)

Release Date:

May 25, 2018

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “During an adventure into a dark criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his future copilot Chewbacca and encounters Lando Calrissian years before joining the Rebellion.”

Poster Rating: C+ (4) / C+ / C- / C- / C (4) / C- / C (4) / C+ / C+ / B- / C+ (9) / C (5) / C+ / C+ / C / C / C+ (2) / B- / C+ / C (4)

SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: (#1-#4) These character posters have a nice color scheme within the lettering, but the rest of the poster design isn’t terribly flattering.

(#5) The prior character designs are merged to form this overall design that has all the benefits and drawbacks of the prior efforts. (#6) Combine the images of the Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca and you get the gist, but the overall design is tepid. (#7) The monochromatic background and shadow are dull and while engaging, aren’t particularly attractive. (#8-#11) These character posters draw from the aesthetic of #7, but look equally as fake. (#12) Identical to #7 without the verbiage. (#13-#16) Identical to the character posters 8 through 11 without the verbiage. (#17) Back on the warm reds and oranges color palette, but with an added background detail of the Millennium Falcon front window framing device. It’s the most interesting of all the designs for the film so far even if it isn’t the best general design.

(#18) It seems popular to give films a dull background. Whether this is to accentuate the foreground image or to make it easier to design, it doesn’t work that well, as it doesn’t here. While the iconic figures and new characters make it interesting, the end result is far from it. (#19) Putting a little more effort in the background improves the end result, but it also feels over-produced. (#20-#28) This series of character posters borrows the backdrop of a previous design that works somewhat well, but is overall inferior to a lot of other character poster sets. This set works, but not incredibly well. (#29-#33) This series of character posters, fewer in number, are better than the last set, borrowing the backdrop of another prior design. It has more detail in general, but also feels more forced. (#34) Similar to design #18, but without the massive Millennium Falcon in the background. That doesn’t help much here. (#35) A slight derivation on design #18, but one that works just a little bit better.

(#36) Poorly cobbled together design featuring images from the film that aren’t particularly exciting or fresh looking. (#37) This would seem like the start of a fairly decent set of character posters, but on its own, it feels classic, but immaterial. (#38-#39) This pair of posters features some sort of stand off and it’s almost fascinating were either more detailed. (#40) This is probably the best design they’ve used so far, with the Millennium Falcon in silhouette with the rest of the cast and a few events filling it in, which has a lot of symbolic merit. (#41) This is an almost-iconic effort, which works quite well in certain respects, but also feels a bit rushed. (#42-#45) These poker table posters are poorly produced, ugly in palette, and feel hastily PhotoShopped.

Trailer Rating: C / B-

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Review: (#1) I guess if you have a built-in audience, you don’t need to make a trailer that excites it. They just have to hear a wookie yell, see a Millennium Falcon and hope that it will turn out better than the trailer makes it look. Everything about this looks as if the studio is trying way too hard to mask some major failings with the film and it could be that there isn’t much of a plot, even if the music and structure make this seem like an opportunity for a Star Wars meets film noir concept.

(#2) The second trailer has a lot of the best things for fans of the franchise, all to get them pumped up for the new film. It has a lot of adventurous elements, but doesn’t feel quite like the full-fledged Star Wars film it should be.

Oscar Prospects:

All of the Star Wars films should be considered Oscar contenders, though the off-trilogy ones don’t seem to be doing that well, so this one might not.