Transcript of 70mm’s Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) Episode.
SLIM Heeey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film loversss. Every Monday I’m joined by famous artist Danny Haas.
DANNY Let’s talk about how Chewie looks the best he ever has in this film. He looks amazing when the wind is blowing through his hair, when he’s in the snow, when he’s in the mud, when he’s naked with Han.
SLIM And spiritual advisor Protolexus.
PROTO Uh, Emilia Clarke, she got Millie Bobby Brown’d exposed… not good.
SLIM And together as friends forever, we discuss recently watched movies. [70mm theme music fades in] This episode Danny did the unthinkable, and chose Solo: A Star Wars Story, which did not meet box office expectations. Will our friendship and community survive an honest conversation about Solo? Let’s find out… now.
[70mm theme music ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM I want to start off the show with something we haven’t done before.
DANNY Oh no.
SLIM In the show history. The artwork that Danny has done for this episode. Are you kidding me?! First of all. You just posted in the discord.
PROTO Wow.
SLIM Lando. This is legit. So legit, we’re doing something, again, that we’ve never done before. We have almost 130 patrons right now. Not even a year of the Patreon existing. So as a thank you to the blessings [Slim laughs] that we’ve gotten from the VHS Village in the Discord, every patron that has signed up by the end of April will be getting this print from Danny, fo’ free.
DANNY My goodness.
SLIM You won’t even be able to buy it.
DANNY Nope, not for sale.
SLIM Not for sale.
DANNY Just a thank you.
SLIM This is just going to be for patrons only. So I mean, by the end of April is the cut off. So if you’re not a patron by the end of April, you’re missing out. And let’s put a timetable. This will be shipped out by the end of 2021. [Proto laughs] Right?
PROTO Mark it down!
DANNY Stay tuned! [Slim & Danny laugh]
PROTO December 31st.
SLIM Listen, that’s a lot of shipping packages. I don’t know what kind of trickery Danny’s got to pull over there to get that shipped out.
DANNY Insane, right? We’ll do it.
SLIM That might be one of your — maybe the best so far.
DANNY Oh! Thank you.
SLIM If I can be frank with you.
DANNY I appreciate that.
PROTO It’s killer.
SLIM But if you want to sign up for the Patreon you can do so at 70mmpod.com. It’s four bucks a month, get access to our Discord. You get access to episodes early, exclusive episodes. And just a reminder, West Side Story is our next exclusive Patreon episode. It’s a musical that was picked by the village themselves. So I’m excited to watch that. Danny, did you watch any movies this week?
DANNY I did. So I watched two movies. I’ll be quick. Because we have a big show. I was one late night scrolling on the Criterion because I figured it’s time for me to find something on there, highbrow, you know, pinkies out crowd.
SLIM Pinkies out crowd.
DANNY And there was a banner for Japanese Noir.
PROTO Hmm!
SLIM I’m listening.
DANNY The problem is, when I was scrolling them, they were all like two and a half to three hours long. And it was like already 12:30 at night. So I came across one that was 65 minutes, cool one hour movie, called Intimidation. And simple story, kind of a black male story. And shot black and white, had a lot of fun with it. It’s a great little story. It’s a concise plot. And I gave it a three and a half stars. It’s good. It’s an hour long. The acting is great in it. It was just fun. And it made me want to watch more in that collection. So when I have more time, there’s a few other Japanese movies that I wanted to watch as well. So this was a good one to start off with. And then in the Discord this week. I don’t know how it got started. Someone shared a GIF or an image or something —
SLIM Some kind of hot dog GIF.
DANNY And people were talking about The Lost Boys.
SLIM Ohhhh.
DANNY And I had never, I’d never seen this movie. I was never actually interested in it. Mainly because I assumed it was just horror. And for me horror hasn’t been part of my cinema life for the past like year and a half, two years now. So I watched it because I think Mel in the Discord was raving about it and et cetera, et cetera. And I loved it. Four and a half stars.
SLIM Shooo.
DANNY I had an absolute blast watching this film. The story is super rad. Loved the acting. The soundtrack is just —
SLIM It’s legit.
DANNY It was just singing for me and I had a blast. The Coreys were in it. Love them.
PROTO Who?
DANNY [chuckles] Corey Feldman and Haim. So it was fun.
SLIM Joel Schumacher, our boy from our exclusive Batman Forever Patreon episode.
DANNY I just love that film. I was happy with it. By the end I was like, man, is there a second one? Like Lost Boys 2 or something, because I kind of wanted it but one’s enough.
SLIM He did Flatliners with Kiefer, also.
DANNY Oh did he? I’ve heard of that film.
SLIM St. Elmo’s Fire.
DANNY Okay! Kiefer was legit. He was legit.
SLIM Kiefer… his hair —
DANNY I know.
SLIM In that movie. I wanted him to bite my neck. [Danny laughs] Instantly on that merry go round. You know, they were goin’ round. How about the scenes — I haven’t watched it in a while — but the way they show where they communicate them flying, isn’t there kinda almost like a low ground helicopter shot or something?
DANNY They’re swinging on a string or something. It was great.
SLIM It was like maybe early in the movie. They just like, swung the camera around. [Danny laughs] And it was like, oh, that’s them flying.
DANNY It’s them flying around. Yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of cool stuff. The bridge scene for me, I feel like I had seen it before, but it felt all time. When the train passes over them, and they’re yelling at them to drop in the fog.
SLIM Oh my gosh!
DANNY I was just like, I really loved it. It was a great film.
SLIM Jason Patric’s body. [Danny laughs] Unreal.
DANNY I mean, everyone was pretty unreal in that film. So it was fun. Had that kind of Goonies vibe to it as well with the comic book, The frog brothers and fighting the vampires that they had known about forever. Using comic books for information. I mean, it just kind of checked on my boxes. And I had a blast. I really did. Four and a half stars.
SLIM Mel has appeared in chat. ‘Are they recording the AMA for pro — prosterity?’
DANNY Did you say prosterity?
SLIM I did, I’m reading right from the text.
DANNY It says posterity in the text, Matt.
SLIM What did I say?
DANNY You said prost.
SLIM Oh I said prosterity! [Slim & Danny laugh]
PROTO This is for all the prostates out there.
SLIM Can we get that on a shirt? Put that on the booty shorts.
PROTO For the prostate.
SLIM For the prostate. I think we will. So for people that are in the Discord, we’re going to try something new, different, where the post-show maybe is recorded and that gets available to people that are patrons. So we’ll see. Proto, did you want to talk about a movie you watched this week?
PROTO I did. There’s, there’s three little movies I watched this week.
DANNY Oh my.
SLIM Oh my God!
PROTO Yeah. I did it. [Slim laughs] We had a JR Scrolling pick this week.
DANNY Ohhhh.
SLIM Wow.
PROTO JR Scrolling. We had a night where we could watch a movie together and she picked Palm Springs from her Letterboxd watchlist.
DANNY Nice! Does she use VGER?
PROTO No, we were on, I think it was on Apple TV. And it just showed up and she was like, ‘Oh, that’s on my watchlist! So let’s watch that.’ 10 minutes in, she said I’ll give it another five minutes and I’m going to bed. [Slim laughs] So she fell asleep 15 minutes into the movie. And I watched the rest of it. And I had a great time. I really enjoyed this movie. It has this, actor I’ve never seen before. Probably a lot of people haven’t heard of him. Andy Samberg.
DANNY Mmm.
PROTO Everyone should keep an eye out for him. [Danny laughs] New young face in the film scene. Yeah, I really liked it. I forgot the premise. When this came out, you know, I heard about what it was, it’s kind of a take on Groundhog Day. But I forgot about it. And I was like, why does he seem to know what’s going on everywhere he goes? But it’s a great little comedy. I gave it four stars.
SLIM Wowww.
DANNY Nice.
PROTO That’s the consensus, it seems, I was looking at ratings. Everybody gives us movie four stars.
SLIM Can I just recite Proto’s writing on Letterboxd.com?
DANNY Yes.
SLIM ‘The last time I thought this deeply about my life, Forrest Gump ran across the United States.’ [Danny laughs] Savvy in chat: ‘I hated it.’
DANNY I feel sick.
SLIM Your thoughts?
PROTO Savvy, check yourself. [Slim & Danny laugh] And then I, you know, we watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail a couple months ago. So I watched the Terry Gilliam flick Time Bandits.
DANNY Nice.
PROTO Which always interested me, the cover is very intriguing. So I put that on, that was on, I think that it was on HBO Max. Big surprise there right? Has everything. I gave it two stars but it’s, it has some amazing moments. Some really great funny moments. I was at times I was doubled over laughing at some of the bits. The general premise is that it’s it’s a young boy, think of, it kind of reminds me of Princess Bride or like Never Ending Story with like a young character, a young boy who gets transported to a fantasy realm. So it’s kind of in that vein, but with like Monty Python humor.
SLIM Is Terry Gilliam a good director? Like you’ve been going on this Gilliam journey, and I feel like every other movie besides Monty Python, it’s like two stars from you, right?
PROTO Yeah, I mean, [Proto sighs] it’s been a while since I saw Brazil. I remember thinking like ‘Brazil… I don’t know about this’ [Danny laughs] What else has he done? I don’t know what else I’ve seen from him.
SLIM Parnassus. Time Bandits. Brothers Grimm. Don Quixote. 12 Monkeys, which I think is popular.
PROTO Oh, I like 12 Monkeys.
SLIM I just remember seeing like other movies that you’ve watched of his that look like the weird ones and they didn’t get high ratings.
PROTO Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. You know, he’s weird. He’s definitely weird. And there’s parts I think, where he’s like, very bad in his movies. But then, you know, his humor can be really, really great. So it’s, it’s tricky. And then the last thing I’ll just mention, I watched Over the Garden Wall, which really isn’t a movie. It’s I think it was a Cartoon Network show that’s broken up into 10 chapters and each chapter’s 10 minutes. So it’s, it’s 90 minutes, so you could watch it as a movie. And it was amazing. I gave it five stars. It was so funny. So fun. Just one of the best things I’ve watched with my kids in a long time.
DANNY Was it the first time you had seen it?
PROTO Yeah, it was the first time I’d seen it.
DANNY Ohhh! I thought you had rewatched it.
PROTO No, no, no, no.
DANNY Oh, Proto, welcome. Oh my gosh.
PROTO Yeah. Amazing, amazing show.
DANNY Yeah, so good.
SLIM Four and a half stars from indogyrs, five stars from Proto. Unbelievable. We have to soon get into Solo but I do want to point out, you know, every week, we talk about Letterboxd.com. The only social media site that exists today that doesn’t make you want to go jump off a bridge. But it’s for movie lovers like us. So we’re all on there. We rate our movies, write reviews if we want to, follow each other, make fun of each other’s movie ratings. And every week we give out a free year of Letterboxd Pro which gets rid of ads, gives you a host of other features. Find out where your movies are streaming from your watchlist so you can kind of just easily see we want to watch that night. And all you have to do is share the show on social media. And this week’s winner Nathan Worthington on Twitter, you just got a free year of Letterboxd Pro. Congratulations.
DANNY Congrats!
PROTO Congrats!
SLIM And if you have been looking to upgrade to Letterboxd Pro or Patron status, get your name in the lights, get those fancy background images on your account and reviews. You can do so at 20% off using the fancy link on 70mmpod.com. So support Letterboxd whenever you can. Just real quick before we get into Solo I will mention that I am continuing the Lean journey that Proto put us on in Discord this week, or this month, the last two months, with Bridge on the River Kwai. With Obi-Wan Kenobi is in this movie. This is probably the only movie I’ve seen him in that he wasn’t walking around in brown robes. This is available in 4K, which I didn’t realize while I was planning this. I was like okay, maybe I was actually gonna watch it with Amanda. We have one TV downstairs that’s like 720p.
PROTO Uhh!
SLIM I was like, you know what, actually I’m gonna wait to watch this by myself, so I can watch this in 4K. [Slim & Proto laugh]
DANNY My gosh.
SLIM So I put some other filth on for us to watch. Forrest says ‘4K elitism’ and that’s absolutely correct. So I put this up, this is about English POWs forced to create this bridge while they’re in a camp by the Japanese. And this is 1943 I think this takes place. Three hours long. It’s a long movie, but it is focused on Alec Guinness’s character, of trying to keep his troops with like a sense of normalcy while being captured. So he’s like, really like still giving orders to them and just kind of trying to keep them from breaking while like in prison essentially. So he gets like all focused on like, hey, we’re going to build this bridge for them. And that’s his vibe. One guy, William Holden breaks out, an American, he gets free. And eventually he’s asked like, you’re the only person that knows this area, we might need you to go back. It’s one of those, I don’t want to call it a ‘nothing burger’, we call movies, I call movies ‘nothing burger’ movies, I just have like conversations that fill time and, like The Shining is one of those examples. But there’s like something burger. There’s a lot of like meaningful scenes and this is just talking, but it has great visuals. And the final act blew me away in this movie. I was stunned. Stunned!
DANNY Wow.
SLIM And I talked to my dad a couple weeks ago and told him that we were doing this and Bridge on the River Kwai is actually one of his favorite movies, so he like lit up when I told him we were watching it. So highly recommended. 4K is available if you want to purchase it. By all means, I recommend it and join us on the David Lean journey.
DANNY Mmm, mmm, mmm.
PROTO I’m so happy to hear that.
SLIM When you watching it, Proto? This is your journey.
PROTO I hope this week.
DANNY You’re running out of time.
SLIM You are running out of time. The month is almost up.
PROTO Everyone relax. [Slim & Danny laugh]
SLIM Alright, Solo: A Star Wars Story, this was Danny’s pick for Blockbusted Month, as recommended by Forrest. Movies that flopped or underperformed at the box office. And I never thought we would come back to Star Wars. But here we are.
DANNY We did it.
SLIM Proto, can you help us start this conversation?
[music from Solo: A Star Wars Story fades in]
PROTO A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a slave boy named Han. Who was pretty good at driving cars and had very big size dreams of being a man some day, who would fly very nice spaceships through space. But there was one problem. He was a slave boy owned by a giant centipede. And then one day he had a bottle of Coaxium to get off the planet. But he had to leave his slave girlfriend Qi’ra behind. He promised to return and rescue her from the centipede. But before he could, he had to find a way to desert the Imperial Navy that he joined. Three years later, it just so happens that while fighting, he runs into some criminals, who get him fed to a Wookie named Chewbacca. Fortunately, our hero speaks a little Wookie and convinces him to not eat him. But to escape together. They board with the criminals who wanted to kill him and go and try to steal a trains worth of corelliam but Infant Nest, a marauding child with a cool helmet swear disrupts their plans and leaves them with nothing. Forced to confront their boss, Dreidel Voss —
DANNY Stupid.
PROTO They are given one last chance to replace the Coaxium they lost. It just so happens that slave girl Qi’ra is now a lieutenant for Dreidel [Danny laughs] and goes on the mission with them, recruiting Lando Calrissian and his ship the Millennium Falcon. They managed to secure the barrels of corelliam and haul it to the one planet that can process it. But Infant Nest is waiting for them. They talk it out and then they talk it out with Dreidel, then they talk it out with each other, until Han Solo and Chewbacca are left alone with just enough Coaxium to win that sweet sweet spaceship that he dreamed of. When he was a little slave boy.
[music from Solo: A Star Wars Story ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
DANNY Amazing.
SLIM The Star Wars fans that are listening to this if, they haven’t already unsubbed, they are giving a negative review right now. Listen, thank you for your patience. You know?
DANNY Stay with us.
SLIM I saw groogruxdave post a GIF of that Wookie kid from the Holiday Special. [Slim & Proto laugh] God, remember we watched that?! Oh my God.
DANNY Amazing. We did it.
SLIM That thing was terrible. Solo: A Star Wars Story. This was a shocking pick, for you Danny.
DANNY Yeah.
PROTO Very.
SLIM Walk us through it.
DANNY Yeah, I mean, it’s funny when you look at the list, it’s just, it felt right because this was a big deal. I mean, this is a big flop. And even though it made, you know, close to $400 million, 3 something, we’re still talking flop numbers for this movie.
SLIM Flop job.
DANNY It needed to break 500 million to break even with all of what’s going on with it, which is an insane task for movies and it should have been reachable for a Star Wars movie. Especially after what Rogue One did numbers wise. So you would expect a movie that is about Han Solo, arguably, one of — not arguably — is one of the most iconic cinematic characters ever. You know Han Solo. Everyone knows who Han Solo is. So when you’re going to make a standalone movie about this man, it’s going to be, it’s got to be, it’s going to be huge. That’s your expectations of this film. And that was mine.
SLIM It’s still pretty far, I actually was shocked this was 2018, it feels longer ago.
DANNY I know, it feels like forever.
SLIM It’s not really that long ago, but, around this time, there was a lot of bad buzz. Like this movie was screwed before it ever came out. Say what you will about the actual product itself. Like this movie was DOA. You know they had Lord & Miller — is that the director’s name? The Lego people?
DANNY Lord & Miller. Mhm. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Lego, 21 Jump Street.
SLIM Oh my God!
DANNY That’s them.
SLIM 21 Jump Street. That’s a five banger, instantly! So when I, you know, hear they’re getting the 21 Jump Street boys to do a Han and Chewie movie. I’ll give you 50 bucks to see that.
DANNY Mmm.
PROTO Wowww.
SLIM Apparently — [Slim laughs]
DANNY That’s a lot.
SLIM Apparently it just went so bad that they had to fire these jokers. Before we even get into it. I’m like so agitated thinking back to the people in charge of Lucasfilm. What were you expecting to happen?
PROTO Yeah, yeah, I remember thinking this movie is a bomb before it even comes out. That was the expectation that this was a disaster. Before anyone even saw it. And of course, the reviews started coming in. So going to see it, my expectations were pretty low. You know, just like well, it’s, it’s just going to be what it is. It’s, it’s not going to be you know, the next classic Star Wars movie, but it’s about Han Solo. And it’s in the Star Wars universe, which I love. So how bad could it be if I at least have that?
SLIM I don’t want to beat a dead horse. But I remember our dear friend Chuck from BAT & SPIDER reviewed it. And this might have been super early on so he gave it like a half star and I was like holy crap. I need to see this movie. If it’s that bad. But digging into the movie. I — first, one of my first notes, the overall design of this movie, the like the overall vibe, I love. Like I love how Han looks. I love how Vos looks. The wardrobe of Lando obviously is is amazing. But even starting off the chase scene of the film, how it just looks like a car chase scene. So I actually, I love that. I thought that was such a great start to the movie. Danny, what about you?
DANNY I agree that it’s rad. But I have, it’s funny, because when I first saw it, it takes a second to get used to Alden, for sure, as Han. And every time I rewatch it, it takes me a minute to be okay with his performance. Because there’s something very — like there are moments — I mean, my first notes is to talk about Alden. So there, in the beginning of this film, there’s just so many moments where I have to question like, is this acting or is this bad direction? Or is this bad writing?Like I couldn’t, there’s just something weird about it and it’s I don’t know, I don’t know if this was a part of, I have no idea what parts of this movie is Lord & Miller, I don’t know which parts are Ron Howard. But this first beginning scenes with him and Qi’ra and the mob boss, whatever her name is. I can’t think of her right now, the centipede. It’s just rough. It’s a little bit rough. I have, I mean, it takes me until getting them, to probably them getting off the planet, when that whole separation of the two of them happens at the port to really get into the film again.
SLIM Interesting. Yeah, I was gonna say, this is my second time I have seen it. And I do like him as Han. I see Han. Like, it’s almost like he’s doing Han, but it’s not like super thick. Like I can see them being the same. But this is like maybe like one of the first times they’ve ever had to really like recast a younger version of a, like a mega character like this. And it’s almost like you’re kind of just screwed no matter what happens. Like, you could have gotten anyone to do this. And everyone be like, ‘oh, this is kind of weird right?’
DANNY It’s an impossible task to recast Harrison Ford.
PROTO I think the first — this is my third time seeing this. So the first time, yeah, I think I was just enjoying being in Star Wars. And this was the first time that I was kind of sitting down with like, a more critical eye. And I think the problem, so yeah, Alden he he kind of rubbed me the wrong way where he was, you know, he was trying to have the humor that Han Solo has. But it didn’t come off the same way that Harrison Ford did it, it came off more as like goofy, kind of like comedy aspect. And I think the problem I have with Alden is that they were trying to cast Han Solo when they really needed to replace Harrison Ford. You know, because Harrison Ford has the it factor.
SLIM Ohhh yeah.
PROTO Like the superstar, triple A, intangible, that is more important for this character, I think than getting a lookalike of Han Solo. So they had and it’s still an impossible task. Like you’re looking for the next Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio that no one’s ever heard of, to fill this role that looks like a Han Solo as well. So either way, it’s impossible. Because that’s, you know, what’s the chance of that happening? To find the next big actor who also you know, looks the role, looks the part, it’s just so hard. So yeah, I don’t know. It kind of came off as like a little Benny Hill, Alden’s performance in the role.
DANNY Interesting.
PROTO Which isn’t terrible but it’s just not, you know, it’s not ideal.
SLIM Right. One of my notes that I had for this movie and this is, it’s like really important I think to separate pre-Disney+ Star Wars properties with like post-Disney+. Like if this had just waited a few more years, this is a Disney+ limited series, if they do it at all, I think. Like they don’t even like touch this kind of stuff anymore unless it’s like a new property and I would actually be like super down for a Han limited series engagement on Disney+, like that would hum.
DANNY Right, but we have Lando coming out. So there’s the possibilities of him being on that show as well.
SLIM Ohhhh! I’d be into that. Okay.
DANNY I’m just hoping it’s still Donald as Lando, for sure.
SLIM Oh, it’s not, is that, that’s not official? Is it just rumors?
DANNY The show’s official, but not the cast yet.
SLIM What?!
DANNY Yeah, I can’t, I mean, I can’t imagine it not being Donald at this point. Unless it’s way more into the future but I think they put in the timeline but I don’t know.
SLIM Hmm. Interesting.
PROTO I had a question for this, is so if they, you know, if they didn’t do a Han Solo movie. What other character could they have done for — I feel like the obvious answer is Boba Fett but… Orlando.
DANNY Hmmm.
PROTO But I don’t know, like, what do you think would have been a good, you know, Solo?
SLIM If they’re gonna go big with like Han, they probably would have went with Luke, I would guess. But again, that’s pre-Disney+. Like my dream is for them to do a Luke anything for Disney+, like that is a billion dollar idea right there. Luke’s adventuring through the known universe for Jedi artifacts?
DANNY Mhm.
SLIM I will pay $50 for that! [Danny laughs] You know? Like that is untapped potential. Bearded Luke. Make that an animated series, make it something. Put Genndy back on that.
DANNY Mmmm.
SLIM And that is a license to print money right there.
DANNY Well it seems like Han would have been, is the safe choice. Because it’s a character that we know, like it feels like we know a lot about, but we know a lot about his history. So it’s and then what we see on the screen. So what we want to see is him becoming the Han Solo of the Rebellion. His smuggling days. We want to see this kind of you know, the beginning, like and that’s what we get. I mean, we get this Han who is, we get the optimistic Han in this movie. We don’t have the pessimistic Harrison Ford character that we have. And we have a, we have a very positive, he’s trying to fight what feels like the good fight and he doesn’t want to be part of the Empire. He’s just trying to get back to save his girlfriend. I mean, and then along the way, we get the Kessel Run, which is like the biggest nod to Han Solo’s history ever. So yeah, this just felt like the safest move that they probably could make with an impossible task of recasting Harrison Ford.
SLIM Yeah, there’s a couple comments in Discord about who you would cast as Luke. Like, I feel like, you could cast you know, a broomstick as Luke and pull it off. [Danny laughs] You know, Mark Hamill is not bringing you know, a Harrison Ford-esque performance. Like, it’s a lot easier to do I think.
DANNY I don’t know because Mark Hamill, while it’s not a Harrison Ford-esque style, he did define what Luke was. A whiny farm boy.
SLIM [Slim in annoying voice] Uncle Owennnn!
DANNY Right.
PROTO [Proto in annoying voice] Power convertersss!
DANNY Like even if, even if it’s like a bad performance, or an annoying performance, it is what we have like in our minds as Luke now so it’s like, they still kind of have to follow that kind of path of him.
SLIM Sean says Michael Cera as Luke. [Slim & Proto laugh]
DANNY I’m not laughing at that. That’s not funny.
SLIM Lord & Miller, it’s time to come home and do Michael Cera as Luke. [Slim laughs]
DANNY Oh my God.
SLIM Lex says no shatter — or Lex says ‘no Hamill slander’.
DANNY Thank you.
SLIM Listen. Last thing I’ll say about Luke, Mark Hamill, he went down many pegs during the promotion of The Last Jedi. I’ll tell you what. When he talked ill of the production and writing of that movie before it came out. My God, I would never speak to him again. If I was in any part of that production.
PROTO Strong words.
SLIM Proto, what else is on your list for Solo: A Star Wars movie?
PROTO Let’s see… what to talk about. Well, the things I loved. So yeah, to me, the best part of this movie is Donald Glover as Lando. My God. He is so much fun in every scene he is in. When he’s introduced at the card table.
SLIM Yeah.
PROTO And just his banter and his swagger. And his — I mean, we mentioned his clothing. It’s, it’s perfect.
[clip of Solo: A Star Wars Story plays]
LANDO Captain Lando Calrissian.
HAN Han Solo. Looks like you’re having a good day.
LANDO I’m a lucky guy.
HAN Can I ask you a question, Captain Calrissian?
LANDO Anything, Han. [Lando mispronounces Han]
HAN It’s Han. But, that’s okay. I heard a story about you. I was wondering if it’s true.
LANDO Everything you’ve heard about me is true.
[clip of Solo: A Star Wars Story ends]
PROTO And every time he’s on screen, I just wanted more. And it had me kind of wishing that this was the Lando movie.
SLIM Yeah, his swagger is like melting the TV that I’m watching this movie on. Like I wanted, I want him to be a vampire and bite me in the neck during this movie. [Danny laughs]
DANNY The thing is, it’s Billy Dee good like it’s, it’s they recast, they did what they wanted to do for Han. Like they recast a younger, talented Black actor. That is, I mean, Donald has always brought his A-game, no matter if he’s being funny, serious. Donald is a force and so him being him being Han is a no brainer, and he knocks it out of the park. The tone in his voice. When he says ‘Han’ to Han when he sits like that is such a nod to Billy Dee getting it wrong in the actual filming. Like it’s so funny, but it’s great. And I love Donald, his performance and this is, I agree, it’s the best part. Like it is it is the best part of this film to me as well.
SLIM Not to derail, Lex says Mark Hamill apologized on Twitter after disparaging the movie a week after the movie came out. So I guess problem solved, Lex.
DANNY Okay. We can move on from Last Jedi. [Slim laughs] Because Last Jedi negativity rolled into this film.
SLIM Yeah, big time.
DANNY Like the problems with that film, because this, it came out so soon before this, Solo, and it just kept rolling on and I feel like on top of what production issues they had with this film, the negativity about, around TLJ, definitely rolled into this film and then it was just like a perfect storm of let’s S on the new, like this Disney regime, this Kathleen Kennedy type. Like it just was like this weird, perfect storm. Like you’ve messed up the prequels — or the sequel trilogy, and now you’re messing up our OT characters like and then it just was the most toxic of fan base that I was ashamed to even mention that I was a part of.
SLIM You know, I was thinking about this recently too. And post-The Last Jedi, I guess you can say it started with Force Awakens, like the toxicity. I mean, the toxicity obviously was already there. But Rey is one of my all time favorite Star Wars characters. But for all intents and purposes, that character is just done. You know, they’re not like using Rey for new media, quote unquote, “content” in Disney+ or whatever. There’s no like Rey comic books. There’s no Rey animated show, which is just depressing.
PROTO Well, yeah, I think they’ve, they’ve kind of just, you know, they don’t want to explore what happens after the Skywalker trilogy, or saga, you know, so, and there isn’t much of I don’t remember, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much space in between the, you know, the new trilogy to tell any stories about her. So, you know, what can they do?
SLIM Marcie and Forrest saying Rey, you know, going out to find other Jedis. That is, like, I’d be all in, you know?
PROTO Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’d be great. But yeah, again, I think that with what we know about where they’re going now, kind of going back in time, they’re not interested in, you know, going near that, I think.
SLIM This is turned into more of a Star Wars universe at large discussion, then Solo.
DANNY Yeah, we can get back to Solo. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Sorry, what else was on your list for Solo Danny?
DANNY Um, I want to say — let’s talk more about characters. For me, I was pleasantly surprised. And I don’t know if this is across the board with people. So I’m not sure how you guys feel. But I actually really love Woody Harrelson in this. And I feel like he brought like this, not like old Hollywood, but like seasoned actor to this young crew. And I think he worked quite well, whether or not I like his — I mean, I think he has a solid storyline in this. But I actually really like Woody in this and I want to know what you guys thought of Woody.
SLIM I loved his hair. Thought his hair was dynamite. I did love Woody in this character. I liked the future version of young Han Solo. You know, I liked that idea for the storyline of this movie. So I liked him kind of like idolizing him even though he was just a total deadbeat. And would you know, throw him out the window if he had to, but Han like, pretty much always stuck by him up until the end. Proto?
PROTO Yeah. I like him as well. Yeah, he brings kind of like, he’s the perfect kind of guy for the gnarly veteran, smuggler, you know, criminal character. And, you know, watching this, there’s so many different aspects of Star Wars. And the nitty gritty underbelly is one of my favorite bits. And you get this, you get so much of that in this. And that aspect of the, you know, the bounty hunters, the criminals, the smugglers, that’s one of my favorite parts. And I feel like Woody you know, his character fits that really well. You know, I don’t know if like the whole ‘this one job, I’m gonna retire’ that whole thing, I don’t, you know, you can poke holes in the story or have like, you know, they could have done a better job, but it does well enough. I think for what it is, you know, it’s still an action movie. And you know, it moves at, the thing is like this movie, it moves at a really good clip. Yeah, at no point did it does it feel slow or you know, you know, boring at all. It has a really great pace.
SLIM Yeah. Savvy points out that Woody Harrelson his character forgot about his dead girlfriend Thandie Newton real quick. [Proto laughs] I just realized that he really barely acknowledges that she died like earlier the movie in the rest of the movie, which is weird.
DANNY That’s my next note after Woody, there’s nothing in this movie that makes me the more, more mad than her death, because it feels the most unnecessary.
PROTO Yeah.
DANNY Because she is, I mean, outside of, she’s just such a great actress — or actor, I don’t know what to say correctly — but she could have been, I just felt like she had a more of a story to tell. And there could have been more of a story that they could have told with her in future Star Wars stuff than killing her off so fast. And then on top of killing her off so fast, you have this half assed, like mourning her death with Woody, with Beckett. And that bothered me as well, because they seem so close. And this is just another poor writing situation where I felt like they were more like a stronger character or stronger couple together. But her death felt like it was like well, just a part of the job, I guess. She blew herself up to save the score, but it’s frustrating because she deserved better than that for sure.
PROTO Yeah, like they could have, they could have easily had her jump off and then you assume that she’s dead but at least leave it open. You know, you could say she had a jet pack or something, you know something or whatever she landed in a pile, you know, a snow pile and then she has to get revenge later or you know, whatever. Like why kill her right there? Yeah.
SLIM One of the things I also liked was Enfys Nest, even though everyone pronounced her name like Infant Nest, and they didn’t even bother to try to say it the right way I felt like.
DANNY It’s disrespectful. You know?
PROTO Totally.
SLIM I love that character. I love the reveal. I love how everything was turned upside down about how she’s not, this character is not some big bad villain thief. What did you guys think?
DANNY Also the Marauders score when they appear in the coral and it gets me kinda pumped. I really loved every time they showed up and played that amazing score and orchestral kind of choral singing and it was great.
[Marauders Arrive by John Powell from Solo: A Star Wars Story plays, fades out]
PROTO Yeah, I mean, their costumes are so cool.
DANNY So cool.
PROTO Her helmet, amazing. Them riding around on those speeders. So cool. Yeah, the fight she has with Beckett on the train. Oh, that train also is amazing.
DANNY The whole scene, yeah.
PROTO I love the design of that, it’s so cool. What a great scene. Yeah, and her fight where she has the, the axe or whatever. Yeah. And just like that idea that, you know, this is kind of the beginning of the Rebellion here. There’s, you know, there’s a lot of cool nods, you know, and you kind of want that, you know, Star Wars movies, anything after the original trilogy is all kind of like homage to the original. And there’s a ton of that, if that’s your thing.
SLIM One of the other scenes that I felt like was also kept in was when there was the ad for joining the Empire and you can hear the music in the ad. [Slim laughs]
DANNY So good.
SLIM So weird! Oh, my God.
DANNY When the, when they tried to do the run, do the Kessel Run and the blockade shows up it’s like bum bum bummmm. Like the classic Empire just showed up, you know, riff.
SLIM Yeah, I liked the this subtle homages, the references to the universe when they said Teräs Käsi, like I was air pumping. I love that in-joke, or not the in-joke but the reference to the fighting style from, I guess that was originally from the books and then the video game, which is what I remembered it from. But I liked Vos. I like the main villain. And it also just obviously makes me think about the original villain. I think they cast someone totally different in the original version of the film. And his schedule didn’t allow him to come back for the reshoot.
DANNY Yeah, Michael K. Williams was supposed to play Dryden. Well, Dryden was originally supposed to be like this lion faced alien creature, then Michael K. Vaughn was there and then when reshoots happened, and Ron Howard stepped in. Michael K. Vaughn had already left London and was on set in Africa doing another movie, there’s just, he was just no way of coming back. So that’s when they had to recast Paul Bettany to play Dryden.
SLIM And when Ron Howard asks, you just, you say ‘How high, Ron?’ As Art says auteur, Ron Howard.
PROTO How high, Ron? [Slim laughs]
SLIM We’re rapidly running out of time, we have a lot of voicemails to get to. Proto, do you have —
DANNY Time is a flat circle, Matt. We have all the time in the world.
SLIM What else do you have for Solo: A Star Wars Story?
PROTO Well, it was, they were talking about a little bit in Discord and I feel like it just has to be said, Emilia Clarke, she got Millie Bobby Brown’d in this, exposed… not good.
SLIM Let it out.
PROTO Yeah. You know, I think what happened is she was just in a show that was extremely popular, of course, got another chance. But everything about her character, her performance, just, eghh, I just didn’t buy anything and kind of just brought it down for me. This scene, you know, talking about homage, the scene where they’re in Lando’s, his closet with the capes and they kind of have that scene where you know Han has with Leia. Oh my God, that was so awkward, of them kissing and like being interrupted. Ugh, I just, you know, I wanted to crawl under the blanket as I was watching. It was just terrible, terrible scene. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Jenna’s snoring next to you. You can’t even talk to her about it. Danny, what do you think about her performance?
DANNY I love her in this film.
PROTO Danny’s pissed. [Slim laughs]
SLIM He is shaking.
DANNY I’m not pissed. No, that’s not true! But I do like her in this. The problem is anything I’ve seen of her outside of…
SLIM Terminator Genisys?
DANNY I didn’t even watch that. I refuse to watch it.
SLIM Don’t bother.
DANNY Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know what, I haven’t seen her anything besides this. And it’s frustrating because it’s like, there are parts in Game of Thrones where the writing is great, and she’s great. But when you look at Solo, and what it went through, it’s frustrating that this is her entrance into Star Wars, and it’s already tripped up before she’s there. Like, I don’t know, you can’t, you can’t really — I don’t know. I like her in this.
SLIM Fault her for it? Is that what you’re trying to say?
DANNY The thing is, I feel like there’s, the bar is so low for good performances in Solo that I don’t know.
PROTO I mean, obviously, they’re setting up something great at the end with Solo, you know, Han going off. And then her taking over.
DANNY Oh yeah, definitely.
PROTO And their relationship, like you could have seen, yeah, like this becoming a series on Disney+ eventually. But now, you know, I don’t know.
SLIM How he got his name. Do we want to talk about how he got his last name Solo?
DANNY Sure.
SLIM And I didn’t mind it. I didn’t mind it that much.
DANNY It seems like people did mind it, but I don’t, I don’t know why. It doesn’t bother me.
SLIM No.
PROTO It doesn’t bother me either.
DANNY It’s just goofy, but who cares?
SLIM Yeah. The dice are a big proponent in this — big component, proponent, both of them. The dice are featured heavily in this and you have a pair of that dice out right now, Danny.
DANNY Mhm. Got it from Lucasfilm.
SLIM I take it that you appreciated the dice connections in this?
DANNY Well, I mean, if you’re a true Star Wars fan, you know the dice have been there since A New Hope so it’s nothing to worry about.
SLIM If you don’t — if you’re not a true Star Wars fan and you didn’t know that —
DANNY I’m just kidding. I hate when people say that. I hate when people say ‘if you’re a true Star Wars fan’ because it doesn’t really matter. But the dice have been there, I don’t know, I don’t know why it’s a big deal. Feels like it came right out of American Graffiti.
PROTO I, I don’t even know, I’ve never figured out what the deal is with the dice. Whatever. [Slim laughs]
DANNY This is lucky dice. That’s all it is. That’s all it is. Lucky dice.
PROTO I had no idea.
SLIM Proto, if you don’t remember that, from the OG Star Wars — okay?!
DANNY Get out! We’re gatekeeping right now.
SLIM I don’t have a ton of other notes for A Star Wars Story, Solo.
DANNY Okay, I’ll go. Let’s talk about how Chewie looks the best he ever has in this film. He looks amazing. When the wind is blowing through his hair.
PROTO That blow out.
DANNY When he’s in the snow, when he’s in the mud, when he’s naked with Han. [Slim laughs] Well, he’s always naked. Chewie looks so good in this film!
SLIM Yeah.
DANNY I love Chewbacca in this film. I like their meeting. I think it’s such a great part of their story. You always want to see, you always want to see the Han and Chewie stuff. I mean you can’t separate them. So having their meeting, having him, you know, like sort of rescuing each other is a great story. And I really dug it! And I just found the two of them together, I thought they were quite good when it’s the two of them.
SLIM I’d take a Han and Chewie franchise, make that the limited series on Disney+.
DANNY They were trying.
PROTO Endless series. You could do that, you could have endless seasons.
DANNY 10 seasons, 25 episodes, Han and Chewie adventures. I mean that’s license to print money.
SLIM Oh my God. Han and Chewie Adventures Monday nights, Luke and the Jedi Academy Tuesday nights. [Danny laughs] Ahsoka back again with Ashley, Wednesday nights. Shoooot.
DANNY Listen, Disney, call us. [Slim laughs] I just love Han and Chewie. And then we got to talk real quick about seeing the Kessel Run on the screen. I mean, you hear about the parsecs and the Kessel Run as a part of Han’s lore forever. And then we see this, it’s an amazing scene with the Maelstrom and the monster and the tentacles and it ripping the skin off and making the jump. I mean, it’s so fun! Like it’s, such a ridiculously fun scene. And Phoebe as L2, I mean, her her droid is so cool. And it’s, I just, I love it.
SLIM I didn’t even know who Phoebe was when this movie came out.
DANNY No, neither did I. I mean, I hadn’t watched Fleabag yet and I love Fleabag and Phoebe’s brilliant and I’m glad she’s cast to be in the next Indiana Jones.
SLIM Oh my God!
DANNY I hope she has an amazing role now that you heard that Mads is going to be in it too. So Phoebe is great. She’s a brilliant writer. She’s a brilliant actress. I love her so much. So there’s just, there’s that. And then you have, and then it’s set up with Darth Maul and Darth Maul being at the end of this film, honestly I could have screamed in the theater ’cause I’m an Episode I fan boy.
SLIM You’re a nut.
DANNY I’m a nut. And Darth Maul was it. I mean, you can’t, you can’t love episode one and not love Darth Maul. And so seeing him in this film, seeing them being the crime boss of Crimson Dawn and him and Qi’ra possibly working together. I mean, there’s, it’s great.
PROTO Yeah, I hadn’t watched the whole Clone Wars series when I first saw this, but now seeing it’s like, oh, yes! Like that was such a, like, what a reveal if I would have known, you know, everything that was in there when this came out. But yeah, that’s, you know, even it’s such a small piece of it. But just tying things together like that within different series. And you know, just, it’s just so much fun. It’s so great.
SLIM Proto, closing thoughts? And your rating for Solo?
PROTO Closing thoughts. Yeah, one last scene that I love is the end where with Beckett, where, you know, it’s kind of like a classic Western standoff, and then Han just shoots him before he has a you know, they drag it out at all. I think that’s just like, so fun. I love when they turn, you know, tropes like that of a gunfight on its head where he doesn’t even let him you know, try to trick them or buy time, he shoots him dead. So I love that. Yeah. This movie to me, it has you know, has some problems, the writing or whatever, you know, some of the acting is tough, but it’s a fun movie. I have, I’ve seen it three times now. And it’s fun! It’s enjoyable, it you know, it has good laughs, has great action. Amazing design again, and I love the Star Wars universe. I want to be here and if they hit that, it kind of works for me, so I’ll give it three stars.
DANNY Mmmmm!
SLIM Wowww. Three stars from Proto. Yeah, real quick. I love the Western aspect. There’s a few scenes where Han walks into the card game and it looks like he’s walking into a saloon. I love that stuff.
DANNY Some amaaazing shots. Yeah.
SLIM That’s very cool. I again, had fun with this movie. Three and a half stars for Solo: A Star Wars Story. I don’t really get the bad takes on this movie. It’s more Star Wars, I had fun. I wanted, I wanted more. But I wish it was, you know, I wish it was perfect. I wish every Star Wars movie was perfect but that said, I still liked it. Danny, what about you?
DANNY Yeah, so I mean I’ve seen this countless amounts of times. I’ve been fortunate enough to do artwork for it, for Lucasfilm, for prints and stuff. This film is, it’s not exactly what I wanted, if we’re going to talk about a Han Solo movie. But it’s what we got and I have a great time watching it. Discount, I mean it’s hard for, I just, I can’t imagine anyone giving this lower than three stars with what we have for Lando alone in it. I mean Donald Glover’s performance as Lando is just, it’s brilliant. And it’s what we wanted, what we wanted from Han too. But we just kind of, I don’t know, maybe we don’t get it because of direction writing with Alden. But I like Alden a lot. So for me with this film, I’m sitting right at four stars with it. It’s not perfect. It’s way better than good. And I don’t have it in — there’s like films, like outside of the episodic films, one through nine, I don’t have this in me to nitpick Star Wars films to death. I really don’t. And so this is just a fun film. And I wish we got two and three and I wish it continued because I wanted to see where Qi’ra went. I want to see more with Darth Maul. I want to see you know, Han and Chewie going to Tatooine, you know, finding the huts and starting this career smuggling together. So, it’s a bummer that we don’t get more after this but, four stars for me.
SLIM Just reminder the print, our patrons get it for free. Maybe Danny can adjust this so that there is like a pull quote that says from Danny, “way better than good!”
PROTO Mmm!
DANNY Way better than good. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Alright, we have some voicemails and letters to get to. So buckle up! That’s why I was checking my watch. I knew what we were getting into. And at the end of the show, I’m gonna be revealing my pick for next week. And I think it’s going to blow some minds.
DANNY Oh no.
SLIM If I can be brutally honest with you. [Slim & Danny laugh] That GIF of Pooh Bear is amazing. Let’s see, who do we want to get to first? We have a letter, maybe I’ll read that one first. Let me pull up our letter machine here. This comes from Sean. “Hey guys just wanted to write in” Oh by the way, you can write us a letter, send us an audio file at 70mmpod.com. The links are on there. “Hey, guys just want to write and say great pic. Baffling to me that this is considered Blockbusted. Because the movie is such a cool Star Wars story. I agree with another villager that said this would have worked better as a Disney Ploos series though” I actually don’t even get the ‘ploos’ I missed the buzz on the spelling of ‘ploos’.
DANNY It’s just, they’re just being weird possums.
SLIM I saw someone else say it though, too, at work. Someone said it in a work chat and I was like wait a minute. I thought this was a VHS Village thing. “In another world that we would have gotten another couple seasons of space heists.” I just want to want to point out, I just saw Proto put something else in his mouth. You have not stopped eating this episode! [Danny laughs] And I am dreading —
DANNY This whole episode!
SLIM Putting my headphones on and listening to the master file from your microphone. And if anyone has made it this far in the episode, and you heard something salivating, rolling around, I apologize. From the bottom of my heart.
PROTO I apologize as well. [Danny laughs]
SLIM “I will say I’m glad that this is considered a subpar movie among fans because Harrison Ford console reigned supreme as the Han Solo. Side note, I looked it up and apparently Don Glover only had like 12 minutes of screen time. Give me a whole movie with this guy! Thanks for everything you do. Can’t wait for Treasure Planet next week. Love you all, Seantana.” I think he’s trying to guess what the pick is for next week. But I haven’t revealed it yet. So stay tuned. Thanks for the email Sean. Let’s get our voicemails here. I’m pretty pleased that everyone has kept it to the 90 second mark or less. So I just want to give a shout out to them.
PROTO Proud of them.
SLIM I appreciate that.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey, guys, it’s Tomas here to talk about Solo: A Star Wars Story and boy, was it a movie. I genuinely enjoyed it as I think the consensus has been through the Discord this week. Outside of a few unsavory reviews. I think it’s a fun time and Alden Ehrenreich does his best. I would however, like to discuss an issue I took with Slim’s Letterboxd review of Solo, claiming that Dryden Vos is possibly the best dressed character in Star Wars? When the absolute Thanksgiving feast of a snack Donald Glover was sharing the exact same screen?! I mean, come on. The cape? Perfect. The yellow shirt? Perfect. The red belt? Perfect. He was wearing something that looked like the love child of like a tie in a scarf. Also, perfect. What is Dryden Vos wear I ask you? Well, for one scene, he wears a black overcoat with a white shirt. Yeah. And then in another scene, he wears a black turtleneck with the same black overcoat from earlier.
DANNY Get him Tomas!
VOICEMAIL I don’t know guys, for me, there’s no competition. I will say and I think this was in somebody’s Letterboxd review, that I’m kind of sad that this was the movie that Paul Bettany chose to cement his Star Wars legacy on.
SLIM I’m not.
VOICEMAIL But I guess beggars can’t be choosers. Anyways, that’s all I got for you guys. So yeah, cool beans.
[voicemail ends]
SLIM Listen, when Ron Howard calls you ask ‘how high?’ okay? Run down the list of Ron Howard movies the last 20 years.
PROTO How high Ron?
SLIM And you will say ‘How high Ron?’ Rush! I don’t know what else he’s done the last 20 years.
DANNY Apollo 13. Can you wake up, Matt?
PROTO War Horse.
SLIM 20 years? That was like 30 years ago. Someone pull up Ron Howard’s Letterboxd and let me get the last seven movies Ron Howard is directed. And we will have that conversation.
DANNY Also if you’re on Disney+, there’s a quick 20 minute extra where Ron Howard has a round table with the actors. And it’s not all great. But then the beginning, it’s fine. It’s nothing special. But in the beginning it’s cool because he asks each of them their reaction to being cast into the Star Wars universe and it’s quite cool. Watching Paul talk about it and Alden and how they reacted and Donald reacted, so it’s fun. Phoebe’s in it. They’re all there.
SLIM I mean, listen, listen to this filmography from Ron Howard. From the last few years. Hillbilly Elegy. Rebuilding Paradise. Pavarotti. Inferno. Heart of the Sea. Rush. The Dilemma.
DANNY What are you reading?
PROTO What the?
DANNY Those are movies?
SLIM Holy moly, Ron! Slow down, buddy!
PROTO Ron, are you okay? [Slim laughs]
DANNY Someone’s got something over his head.
SLIM I’m just a little annoyed at Ron’s filmography, as you can tell.
PROTO Has he made any good movies? Oh! He made A Beautiful Mind, c’mon man!
DANNY C’mon, you gotta go further back.
SLIM I said the last then years!
PROTO Apollo 13!
SLIM What’s he doing over there, Ron?!
PROTO Ransom! [Proto in Mel Gibson voice] Give me back my son!
SLIM Yeah, that’s good.
DANNY Did he do Backdraft?
SLIM Backdraft. Far and Away.
DANNY Alright. These are what you should’ve talked about Matt. Leave him alone.
SLIM That’s like four years ago!
DANNY Leave him alone, Matt.
PROTO Here for you, Ron.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Andy. And I just wanted to leave a message, you guys are discussing Solo this week. And I must say I really, really enjoyed this movie. My expectations for it were pretty low. I saw it in theaters, I was one of the few who saw it in theaters. And so I went into it just because I like Star Wars movies. And so I saw it. And I yeah, I was just really impressed by it. I thought the casting was really good. I enjoyed everyone that was in it. But probably the biggest thing I enjoyed, and that I remember the most from the movie was just how much heart they gave Han Solo.
DANNY Mmm. Preach.
VOICEMAIL There was just a lot of good emotion and a pretty compelling heartfelt story to him that I was not expecting. And to me, I really, I really appreciated that. I know maybe some fans, you know, prefer their Han Solo more tough and rugged and the thief and the smuggler, like all that kind of stuff. But to me like showing how he was, he had, you know, pure motives. He had a relationship, he had, he had a lady, right? Like he just wanted to be with her. He wanted to have a future with her. And like, all of that, like to me, I really, I really believe that. And I really bought into it. And so yeah. And homegirl even says, you know, you’re the good guy, like you’re a good guy, Han. So, yeah, I definitely believed it and I appreciate it. So anyways, can’t wait to hear the episode and what you guys had to say on it. Love you guys.
[voicemail ends]
DANNY Thank you, Andy.
SLIM Thank you Andy, love you too.
DANNY My goodness.
SLIM What’s the VGER rating? Three and a half stars for Solo. Just checked it out myself.
DANNY Solid!
SLIM Wow.
DANNY It’s solid. What’s it for TROS?
SLIM Kev points out the Ron Howard directed potential future episode Cocoon. I really want to do Cocoon. But Cocoon is like hard to find for some reason. I don’t know what’s going on over there.
DANNY You want my VHS for it?
SLIM I might want your VHS for that. [Danny laughs] Next VM coming in hot.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey, guys, it’s Boom.
SLIM Hi Boom.
VOICEMAIL I don’t have too much to say. I just wanted to call it and show my support for Danny.
DANNY Aw.
VOICEMAIL Danny’s obviously been like instrumental in my Star Wars journey.
DANNY Oh my goodness.
VOICEMAIL So I hope you’re hanging in there, buddy.
DANNY Thank you.
VOICEMAIL Hope they’re not grinding you down tonight.
DANNY No.
VOICEMAIL But yeah, so Solo was the last Star Wars movie that I needed to watch. I watched it on Tuesday, and I thought it was awesome! I had so much fun watching it. Um, that one scene, the first kind of heist that they tried to pull off that goes wrong. Just the way it was shot, the way it looked, made me wish I had gone to see it in IMAX.
DANNY Mmmm!
SLIM Ohhh!
VOICEMAIL I guess it’s a good thing I have the Cinenauts time machine.
DANNY There you go.
VOICEMAIL Anyways, I’m like borderline hilarious. I just woke up from a nap. I just wanted to show some support. Hope you guys all remember that you love each other and goodnight!
[voicemail ends]
SLIM I like how Boom’s laugh and that voice was like timed as if she was with us. Like there was a dramatic pause where we’re all laughing too.
DANNY She waited for us to laugh. [Danny & Slim laugh]
PROTO Boom recently going through all the Star Wars.
DANNY Yeah, what a journey.
PROTO I would love to see a ranking from her, of all the movies.
DANNY Ohhh!
SLIM Oh my. Woowww. Boom from the Cinenauts podcast as they venture through the Criterion Collection, much recommend that you check that podcast out. The one thing I remember growing up as a kid, remember when the books were like Disney+? The book extended universe of Star Wars. When there was a new Jedi Academy book or —
DANNY Jedi Academy, oh my gosh.
SLIM Empire — what was the one with the guy who had the pheromone powers?
DANNY Wait what?
SLIM Yeah remember the main villain who had like pheromone abilities? Somebody back me up here in chat, please. [Danny laughs] It’s Empire something.
PROTO Wolverine.
SLIM Empire of…
DANNY Are you talking about —
SLIM Kevin J. Anderson probably wrote it for all I know. Did anyone in here read the Star Wars books?! We need to move on.
PROTO Darth Malgus! [Slim laughs]
SLIM I’m gonna Google —
DANNY Are you talking about the Timothy Zahn books?
SLIM [typing] Star Wars… villain… pheromone. This guys gonna come up.
DANNY Are you talking Thrawn trilogy?
PROTO Darth Triton.
SLIM Thank you. Here we go. What’s his name? Prince Xizor. Where are the real Star Wars fans at that don’t remember Prince Xizor? Shadow of the Empire! Thank you!
PROTO Papo Xizo!
SLIM I just checked everyone Star Wars ID in chat and they’re all fake IDs.
DANNY It’s not a gatekeeping night, Matt.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hello 70mm pod, it is Leviathan from Colorado. Yes, it’s been a hot minute since I had done a voicemail for you guys, but you guys are doing Solo. And this is a movie that I really dragged my feet on. I didn’t want to watch it because I didn’t think I needed any more of a story for Solo. I thought we got the gist of it and that was all we needed. Wow. I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this movie though. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was kind of funny and just a different side of things. I do have to say Solo not being Harrison Ford is definitely not a highlight. But he did a good job for Solo. Anywho, this is the last voicemail you’re going to hear from me, Colorado.
SLIM Excuse me?
VOICEMAIL We’ll find out where we are next, next time I call in. Have a good one guys.
[voicemail ends]
DANNY Thank you.
SLIM Leviathan. It has been a very long time since we heard from Leviathan. Listen, I didn’t, can I backtrack? I’m not trying to gatekeep the 30 year old Star Wars text. [Danny laughs] that I read as a youth while dishes at a restaurant. You know?
DANNY It’s okay, Matt.
SLIM But I thought I had people that knew.
DANNY We have your heart.
PROTO How high Ron? [Slim & Danny laugh] You know, Leviathan’s voicemail just made me think of what if, what if in this movie they just, they had Harrison Ford play Han Solo but just he’s he’s like 80 years old. And he’s just in the role. [Proto laughs]
DANNY Amazing. Oh my gosh.
SLIM Aye caramba. Next voicemail!
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey 70mm, it’s Will here. It’s been a little while since I called so I thought I’d drop in a quick line for Solo. Nothing spectacular, three stars. It’s fun, kind of all it needs to be. I do have one thing to say about it. So growing up through like elementary and into middle school. My two younger brothers and I would over the summer probably watch the Star Wars trilogy a week. So she original trilogy than the prequels and then just rinse and repeat every week. If not, we would watch them all six in one week. So all that to say I’ve seen the original trilogy probably dozens of times in my life. And the number of times I have noticed, much less cared about, Han’s gold dice is actually zero. Don’t think I’m alone and not caring about them. It’s not really a big deal. I just had absolutely no emotional connection to them. So like in the Last Jedi and Solo when they have this new significance, I was just kind of baffled. But anyway, it’s really not that important. My other reason for calling is about that character who pops up at the end, spoilers, but Darth Maul. I had lots of friends, thankfully, I’m sure no Villagers who had not watched the Clone Wars and obviously did not know about, about his reappearance in the series. And so I thought that was a great opportunity. I did some did some math crunch, some numbers.
SLIM Crunch it.
VOICEMAIL The last four episodes of season seven Clone Wars are about 30 minutes apiece, which adds up to about two hours, which is about the length of a feature film. And I think that would be a great opportunity for a future 70mm episode. That’s just my little proposition, just bugging you here. I’ll probably keep pestering you guys for the next few months. But anyway, love you guys, hope a Clone Wars episode happens soon. Excited to hear your thoughts about Solo and talk to y’all later.
[voicemail ends]
SLIM Remember when I went through the Clone Wars series the last year?
DANNY It was the best. Absolutely.
SLIM And Rebels right after that?
DANNY What a journey.
SLIM Holyyy cow. That two parter with the Inquisitors. Are you kidding me?! Them zipping around with their lightsaber helicopters? Holy molyyyy!
DANNY Listen, I want everyone to watch the Clone Wars but season seven, the last four but the last half of that season I guess it would be for, it’s some of the best Star Wars writing and some of the best Star Wars we’ve ever gotten.
SLIM Period.
DANNY Period. Visually —
PROTO Agree.
DANNY Story wise. It’s one of the, its top tier star wars and I wish everyone would watch it so that we could get more.
SLIM You heard me accidentally gatekeep. So you know I’m a fan. [Danny & Proto laugh] But that Ahsoka stuff, the fight scenes.
DANNY It’s insane.
SLIM I remember being aghast that this was some of the coolest Star Wars thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
DANNY Listen, not to spoil anything, but if you like season seven Ahsoka, I got some art coming out. [Slim gasps]
SLIM Okay!
DANNY The big day in May. You know, that one day. Get ready.
SLIM Wow, okay. Proto, were you abou to say something? Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
PROTO Oh yeah, I was gonna say, so much a Star Wars is, is about the nostalgia and tying it back in to that feeling. You know? Mando, the ending of Mando, I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it, but that does it. But those, the way they weave, the ending of Clone Wars into the prequel is just something special. And it really, it blew me away. I don’t love all of the all seven seasons of the Clone Wars. I mean, I would even say maybe just skip the first season. [Danny laughs]
DANNY It’s a lot.
PROTO Yeah, it’s it’s a lot to get to the end. But if you love Star Wars, man, it’s so worth it at the end. It’s amazing.
SLIM Yeah, we try to get some people that you know, enjoy Star Wars to watch Clone Wars, and they check out after a few episodes.We’re about halfway through the voicemails right now. Next voicemail.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hi my name is Ismael, and I like to party. Yeah, I mean, I’m really excited for the Solo episode. I just can’t believe that everyone can just excuse the incredibly dark, murky lighting.
DANNY Ohhh my God.
VOICEMAIL Especially at the beginning. Like c’mon. If you’re going to have a really fun exciting adventure at least let me it.
DANNY Ohhhh my God.
SLIM You want me to delete this now?
VOICEMAIL Hope you guys are all doing well.
DANNY He sounds like he’s almost done.
VOICEMAIL Bye.
[voicemail ends]
DANNY Alright, it’s finished. [Slim laughs]
PROTO Murky boys, represent.
DANNY Maybe check your TVs. Maybe something’s wrong with yours.
SLIM You think people have not calibrated their TVs? Is that what the thing is?
DANNY Yeah, yeah, that’s what it is. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Grant says ‘this is a safe space unless you think a movie looks dark.’ [Slim & Danny laugh] Listen, you combat Star Wars with Danny, you better be ready for the consequences. Next voicemail!
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey 70mm boys, it’s gabb here from the Village. I have a lot of thoughts. So I’m going to keep it concise. Yeah, it’s hard not to love Star Wars. I mean, I’m here sitting recording this —
DANNY I know where this is going. Cut it.
VOICEMAIL With my dog Chewie, for Chewbacca obviously. And I mean, I’m debating on what Star Wars tattoo to get. So I consider myself very biased. I’m gonna love any Star Wars movie that they put out. I like this movie. I like this movie a lot. For me. It’s an easy five banger, five crispy nuggets for me.
DANNY Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
VOICEMAIL I watch it in theatres and again at the driving with my girlfriend. It was fun. And then I hadn’t seen in a while. So we’re rewatching it this week, I liked it even more. The costumes, the sets, the cinematography too. A lot of the shots are wild. And that’s stuff that I forgot from first viewing but it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful film. I tried writing out my thoughts about Han Solo and that would have been a formative VM. I’ll just say that I like this portrayal. I like the unrefined version of Han Solo we get, you know, he’s still young. It’s like comparing your high school self to you know, your early 30s. You’re going to be, it’s the same person but it’s two different people really, when you put them next to each other. So I liked this portrayal. I also love Donald Glover as Lando. I mean, he’s just incredible. The amount of talent that Donald Glover has is unreal. And I loved, loved his Lando so much. And another kind of character was the Falcon.
SLIM Oh yeah, we didn’t talk about the Falcon.
VOICEMAIL You seeing his origin story along with Han and all these characters that we know I love seeing the Falcon. Those are some of my thoughts. I have a lot more. But I’ll keep it under 90 seconds this time, hopefully. And yeah, that’s it for me. Bye! Love you guys.
[voicemail ends]
PROTO That’s a great point, gabb. The Falcon looks amaaazzing.
SLIM So clean.
DANNY Lando’s Falcon.
SLIM Shooooo. Thanks for the VM. And you know, I might give extra props for that VM ’cause my producing ear, I think I heard a few edits in that VM. So I appreciate it eve more. [Danny laughs] Let’s see, we got another one coming in hooottt.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hello, fellow movie loverssss. This is “no sleep” grant. And my main thing I want to talk about with Solo. And I hope you guys discuss it tonight.
SLIM If he says murky.
DANNY If he says dark colours.
VOICEMAIL And I hesitate to call it this, because I don’t even think it’s the right word for it.
DANNY It’s probably not.
VOICEMAIL But fan service.
DANNY Nope, not the right word.
VOICEMAIL My main issue with Solo and a lot of these newer Star Wars movies, I hesitate to call it fan service because I don’t even know if fans really want it. Like I’m a fan of Star Wars. I’ve watched Star Wars since I was a child. I had the original trilogy and the VHS box set, okay? I’m a fan. I don’t want fan service. I don’t need to know why he’s called Han Solo. Okay? I don’t need to know what thrift shop he got his vest at. I’m not interested!
DANNY Didn’t show us that.
VOICEMAIL I need something new. Give me a new, good, interesting story. That’s was my major issue with Solo: A Star Wars Story, is this a little too much on the nose. Giving me things I really didn’t care about. Personally, that was me. But yeah, I’m interested to know what you guys think, what everyone else thinks about that and your thoughts on the movie in general. Alright, talk to you later. Bye!
[voicemail plays]
DANNY Imagine, imagine this. [Proto laughs] Imagine this. A Star Wars movie… you following me?
SLIM Uh huh.
DANNY A Star Wars movie with Star Wars references in it. [Slim laughs] How ‘bout that?
SLIM Danny is like at the end of the Royal Rumble where Ric Flair won the title and he’s calling one of the best promos, he’s looking directly at the camera with a tear in his eye. He’s fighting back.
DANNY I don’t… I don’t know. I mean, maybe I need more examples. The Solo last name. I don’t know. It doesn’t bother — it doesn’t, who cares?
PROTO I think it’s totally a preference thing. Like either bothers you or it doesn’t.
DANNY It really has to be.
SLIM I mean, I remember coming out of theater, we had a work outing and we all went to see Force Awakens. Everyone amped. Hardcore fans, obviously work for nerdy company. Half the audience was so pissed about the quote “homage fan service” it was like a redo of the original movie. So that was like my first experience with it, of like, kind of not understanding it and being on the other side. I was like, I love that actually. So that was kind of my first memory of that, that being flipped around. Thanks for the VM Grant. He corrected himself he said homage in chat just now. Next VM!
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hello, my name is Sean and I like to parrrttyyyy.
[voicemail ends]
SLIM Is this some in-joke?
PROTO Some kinda reference.
SLIM In the possum party?
DANNY Something’s happening in the possums.
SLIM Something’s brewing. I don’t know what it is.
DANNY Was that an homage to something? [Slim laughs]
SLIM Fan service.
DANNY That’s some possum fan service right there.
SLIM There was a Hot Rod watch party this week that I did not partake in.
DANNY I’ve never seen that movie. Is it good?
SLIM There’s a young up and comer by the name of Andy Samberg and that movie.
DANNY Did people like this movie? Interesting. Maybe I should give a rating on it.
SLIM The Villagers, you don’t want Danny watching this movie.
DANNY Interesting. I’m gonna fire it up right after this.
SLIM Two VMs to go right now.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL What’s up boys, this is Fam.
DANNY Ohhhh, my boyy!
VOICEMAIL Saw you were doing the Solo movie and I was so excited. Finally, someone’s doing Solo. Mario van Peebles as a cyborg soldier. No, you know what? Nope, sorry. Sorry. Sorry, wrong Solo movie. We’re doing Star Wars one. Got it.
DANNY Oh my gosh.
VOICEMAIL So the Star Wars story. I really liked this movie. It is a Star Wars heist movie. It is literally just a gang stealing things and what could you not like about that and being in the Star Wars universe?
DANNY Thank you.
VOICEMAIL I think Alden did a great job as being Han Solo. I know it’s kind of hard with Harrison, because everybody’s gonna do the comparisons. But he’s not trying to be Harrison Ford. He’s trying to be Han Solo. So if you look at the things that he does, just like the mannerisms like it’s him, it’s there. I think he did a really good job. Really good casting all around. Emilia Clarke. Also, Donald Glover as Lando was amazing. He did a great job. Michael K. Williams, I wish we could have seen he was originally supposed to be the big bad in this movie. But we got Paul Bettany, which Paul did a great job. But I always like Michael K. Williams and everything. So I would love to see what he would have done in that. It’s just a really fun movie. You get to see the scenes that you thought you’d never see like the how Chewie and Han met each other. You know how the Kessel Run run went, that kind of thing. So it’s great to actually see that in a movie form with you know, everything that’s going on around it. The only weird thing was Maul showing up at the end and showing his double lightsabers to make sure you know it’s him. So that was kind of weird. Other than that, I liked the movie. Thanks, guys. See ya.
[voicemail ends]
SLIM Mmm. Fam. Fam trying to right the ship right now.
PROTO I hope at some point in a future Star Wars movie, we get some fan service that explains the origin Paul Bettany’s nice scars on his face. Because how’d he get ‘em?
DANNY Also, I don’t think that was makeup. I think they did a mapping for his face.
SLIM Whaaat?
PROTO Maps?
DANNY I got to read it again.
SLIM Can we confirm that?
DANNY I’m pretty sure they just did like — I don’t think it was makeup.
SLIM How ‘bout his fingernails? His fingers. Did you notice that? Very freaky.
DANNY Coke fingers. [Slim laughs]
SLIM I don’t know how he’s doing his cufflinks with those fingers, to be honest. [Danny laughs] Maybe he got Emilia to do it, that was like one of the weird jobs that he had for. Let’s see. I think we have one more VM. This could be another watch party related VM.
DANNY Oh my god.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hooooobastank.
[voicemail ends]
SLIM Hoobastank. Danny, do you listen to who you listen to — you listened to Hoobastank growing up.
DANNY Did I?! I saw them liiiivveeee baby.
SLIM You want to talk about a band that gets an unfair —
DANNY Unfair.
SLIM Hoobastank. Proto, what’s your favorite Hoobastank album?
PROTO Spinning Out of Control.
DANNY Ohhhhhhhhh! [Slim laughs] Let’s goooo!
SLIM Remember the heyday of MTV Music videos? And there would be like the making of videos and I remember Hoobastank had one of them and it was outta control.
DANNY One of my favorite concerts was Hoobastank, POD, Linkin Park.
SLIM Cripes.
PROTO Ohhhh man.
DANNY Let’s go.
SLIM We, I think that is it for the VMs. Someone will call me out and chat if I forgot one. But it’s the final week next week for a Blockbusted Month. And so I’m getting a second pick.
DANNY Look at you.
SLIM Wrap things up. And I was actually, I’ll be honest with you, I was sweating it.
DANNY Oh my.
SLIM Because I’m looking at this list that Pardo extensively prepared after combing over, you know, just about every possible area. And I was not really enthused about making a pick. So out of that list, I pretty much had it down to two movies. 13th Warrior and Battlefield Earth were going to be my picks.
DANNY Oh my gosh.
SLIM And I was like, you know, maybe let me look up some other areas that maybe Proto didn’t see yet. And I googled like biggest flops, biggest bust, whatever, I found some other movies that were not on that list.
DANNY Holy cow.
SLIM That are streaming! One of which — I’m going to rattle off my movies I didn’t choose so when you hear title, don’t freak out. Annihilation is on a list.
DANNY That’s a flop?
SLIM Annihilation did not make it, like it only, it didn’t even get released internationally. And I think it only made like $30 million in the US or something. So I was like, man, Annihilation! Is it worth a rewatch? I didn’t choose that one.
DANNY Okay.
SLIM Another movie I saw on a list. Bottle Rocket.
DANNY Ohhhhh, I’ve seen Bottle Rocket.
SLIM Wes Anderson’s OG release.
PROTO I’ve been meaning to watch that.
SLIM I was like ohhh, Bottle Rocket, is it time? And that was streaming. Another one I saw, this was my second place pick.
DANNY Uh oh.
SLIM Scott Pilgrim vs The World was a flop or didn’t you know, underperformed, didn’t make its budget back. So I was like — [Slim laughs] Cera Luke Skywalker Photoshop just got posted again by Sean. And I was like, man, that’d be a lot of fun to go back to that.
DANNY Ohhh my gosh.
SLIM But that’s not my pick.
DANNY What is it?!
SLIM I saw another movie that was on this list. And I was like, ohhhh G D. This would make us sick print on our store. [Slim laughs]
DANNY No pressure.
SLIM And I want to watch it again. And it’s streaming for free. I think it’s on Tubi. You can find out Letterboxd, you can watch it for free. My pick to close out, underperforming film, for Blockbusted Month. Iron Giant.
DANNY Ohhhhhhhh.
PROTO Okay!
DANNY Are you serious?!
SLIM I am not messing around, my friend. Get it out. Danny just reached out behind him. He pulled out the Iron Giant. [Slim laughs] So when I saw this, I was like, this was earlier today. I wanted to DM you guys like immediately, I was like oh my God, I got a pick right now.
DANNY Are you serious right now Matt?!
SLIM So I’m excited. I’m excited to get the print of whatever you got to put together for this.
DANNY Hoollyy cow.
SLIM This is Brad Bird, put him on the map. You know?
DANNY Matthew!
SLIM The Iron Giant. I knew you’d love it. That’s next week. [Slim laughs]
DANNY I am beside myself.
SLIM I accidentally gatekeeper with the pheromone character. And now I’m back in. I’m back in the good graces.
DANNY He’s back baby!
SLIM Proto, we’re way over time this week. Do you have any closing thoughts for this episode?
PROTO Woody Harrelson, he says, you know, the character Beckett, he says to Han, don’t trust anybody, because you know, you get stabbed in the back. Fortunately, here you can always trust us. [70mm theme music fades in] We can always trust each other. We are the Village, we’re a family. And even if we disagree on movies, we have each other’s backs.
DANNY Shooo.
SLIM We’ll see you next week for Iron Giant streaming for free on Tubi. Goodbye.
[70mm theme music ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM 70mm is a VHS Village production featuring original artwork provided by Danny Haas. Spiritual guidance and VGER the robot who loves movies provided by Protolexus. Producer emeritus dale_a. Prints and other merch are available on 70mmpod.com. This episode was mixed, edited and produced by me, Slim, and you can support our Patreon for access to our Discord to talk movies with other Villagers, get early access to episodes, discounts on merch, and a physical membership card mailed to you. If you would like to support our friends at Letterboxd, an upgrade to Pro or Patron status, you can do so with a 20% off discount using the links on 70mmpod.com. Goodbye!
