• Solo: A Star Wars Story

    ‘I’m an outlaw’, declares Alden Ehrenreich’s young Han in Solo: A Star Wars Story, the latest in Lucasfilm’s line of standalone spin-offs. Emilia Clarke, playing Qi’ra, the One Who Got Away, laughs. She doesn’t believe him. And neither will anyone watching. Kylo Ren’s call to ‘let the past die; kill it if you have to’ is great storytelling advice masked as Oedipal anxiety, and it’s advice that post-prequels Lucasfilm, addicted to the past, is unable to grasp. Lucasfilm can’t kill the past because the past is the golden goose. Solo, written by father-son Kasdans Lawrence and Jonathan, and directed, in…