Incredible, incredible news. The new trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story suggests that all the cynicism and pessimism around it might have been completely unnecessary, that the behind-the-scenes drama has all been worth it, and that somehow, magically, this is going to be completely brilliant. The trailer is great fun, look:
There’s so much gold in there, and tonally it’s all swashbuckling, derring-do, seat-of-pants kind of stuff. Indiana Jones in space, which is as good a description as any film could or should ever aim for. Duels, one-liners, swaggering, riffs on classic phrases (“I’ve got a really good feeling about this”), revelations about Chewbacca and Donald Glover just looking like the best dude, the bestest dude. Honestly, they could do a movie that was just Donald Glover saying cool, self-aggrandising things wearing a succession of extremely nice space-coats and it would get five stars all round.
Plus there’s finally a proper look at Paul Bettany’s space-gangster baddie and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s droid L3-37. And a curly-wurly train! They’ve found a way to take one of the most beloved tropes of action cinema - the fist-fight on top of a moving train - and make it more exciting by making the train all curly-wurly. And what looks like a whip made of lightsaber, which to be honest makes no less sense than regular lightsabers.
The journey this film has taken to the big screen has been pretty turbulent, with high-profile sackings behind the scenes and extensive reshooting, but you know what? It looks like it’s all worked out pretty flippin’ awesomely.
The whole feeling is of a movie where nobody ever walks, they strut. Nobody stands up straight, not when they can lean with a cocked hip like a pirate. And that’s a great thing , a big silly punchy adventure where everyone’s ridiculously good-looking and stuff keeps blowing up. That’s why cinema exists, god damn it.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is out on May 25th.
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