Solo: A Star Wars Story - 10 Fan Service Moments That Will Make You Groan
8. Chewbacca's Nickname
The journalist Jon Ronson and film critic Mark Kermode have a term for moments in biopics that clumsily foreshadow things that the audience knows will ultimately happen. They call them 'Chubby Hmm' moments, after a scene in The Karen Carpenter Story in which the title character reads a line describing her as chubby, signposting her subsequent eating disorder. Solo: A Star Wars Story is full of these moments and the whole film slides pretty neatly into the trope.
One of the worst examples comes shortly after Han and Chewbacca meet for the first time. They have escaped from their captivity and exchange introductions, with Han remarking that Chewbacca is a bit of a mouthful and suggesting that the Wookiee needs a nickname. It's a line of dialogue that would have been equally suited to a Deadpool-style turn to look directly down the camera lens.
It's an assumption the movie makes that fans want to have every minor aspect of the Han Solo and Chewbacca characters explained to them in grotesque, over-elaborate detail. Like many of the awkward moments on this list, it's a line that distracts from the fun adventure story in order to provide a cheap jolt of nostalgia.