Watching the original Star Wars trilogy, viewers couldn`t help but feel like there was a larger galaxy living just off-screen. The things you didn`t see--battles, characters, and places only mentioned, never shown--sparked the imaginations of millions. As Star Wars spin-offs, prequels, novels, comics, shows, and games have illuminated more and more corners of that far-away galaxy over the decades, the results have been mixed. Over-explaining things that were only hinted at before can take the mystery away. Solo: A Star Wars Story is no exception to that, but there`s good news too: All the references, callbacks, and over-explanations are accompanied by a really fun, solid, and good-looking Star Wars movie.Solo tells the story of famed space scoundrel Han Solo--and I mean the whole story. It feels like Solo explains or shows every aspect of Han Solo`s life that was ever referenced in any previous Star Wars film. This movie covers how Han met Chewie, how he met Lando, how he won the Millennium Falcon, how he completed the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, where he got his iconic blaster, and even how he got his name. If that sounds like a lot of origin to cram into one movie, it`s because it is. Did everything we know about Han`s backstory really need to take place in a single movie? It makes Solo feel at times like a greatest hits collection of events from the character`s life.That stuff is all fan service, through and through. And it`s ever-present throughout the movie. But Solo: A Star Wars Story works because fan service and references to other Star Wars movies aren`t the only thing propping it up. Unlike Rogue One, Solo isn`t completely subordinate to the movies that came before it. Solo has the substance of an actual movie underneath the fan service, with stakes and intrigue and characters who matter.Undeniably the biggest question going into Solo is whether Alden Ehrenreich, a relatively unknown force, will prove in any way capable of filling Harrison Ford`s knee-hi ...
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