10 Movies That Tried To Exploit Nostalgia (And Failed)

Han Solo is one of the most iconic figures in the history of pop culture, and as played by Harrison Ford the charismatic smuggler instantly came across as a fully-formed, three-dimensional character from the second he first appeared on screen in A New Hope all the way back in 1977. Did we really need to see an origin story about how he became everybody's favorite stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder over 40 years later? No. No we did not.

Alden Ehrenreich does the best he can stepping into shoes that simply cannot be filled and Donald Glover steals the show as Lando Calrissian, but Solo: A Star Wars Story as a whole feels completely unnecessary. Audiences clearly agreed as it failed to crack $400m at the global box office, making it the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie in history even with decades of ticket price inflation taken into account.

The scene where Han gets given his surname (he's on his own. Solo? Get it?) is awful, Darth Maul cameos because Disney knew the character had become a cult favorite, the Kessel Run was much better off left to the imagination, even Han's blaster and golden dice got a backstory. The old saying in the movie business is 'show, don't tell'. Solo decides to completely ignore this and force-feed the audience the minutae of Han's backstory, in what can only be described as fan service at its absolute worst.