How You Can Tell The Magic Of Star Wars Is Gone

You Forgot Solo Even Happened

From moment one, it felt like a bad idea. Not only did no one ask for, in any remote sense, a Han Solo prequel, but every day of the production felt like nails in the coffin of the project overall.

The on-set disputes, hiring an acting coach, the firing of Lord and Miller, getting Ron Howard in, the stupidly tight turnaround...

And then the film itself.

Now, as a piece of cinema, Solo was fine. Parts were badly lit, characters undeveloped, minus Donald Glover it's badly cast, a few sledgehammer-subtle political messages that were more distracting than empowering... but fine.

However, this is Star Wars, and while it's impossible to truly get across in a sentence what that truly means (if anyone even knows), Solo was not Star Wars in the same sense. It felt - for the first time - like a movie simply given the name; falling off the production line and onto our screens for nothing but sheer consumption.

It was the first time we really felt the "Disney machine" at work, and the results were disastrous.

Besides being the first Star Wars bomb, and that really is saying something, the Darth Maul cameo and forced cliffhanger were nakedly crowbarred in, leaving a sour taste for even the most devoted defender.

When all was said and done, Solo became the emperor's new clothes. The vast majority of us pointed, laughed and/or cringed in equal measure, before forgetting it even happened.