Examining the Mythos

My relationship to Star Wars is longer than any relationship I have ever had except with my parents.  For several years I would have had to use the Facebook phrase "It's complicated," to describe the relationship.  I love the galaxy far, far away, and yet... yet... there was something a bit wrong.  I came to blame George Lucas, first for stubbornly refusing to make more movies after Return of the Jedi. Then, after The Phantom Menace, cursing him for making more movies, but giving whiny little Anakin and that Jar-Jar Binks buffoon more screen time than Darth Freaking Maul.  I felt like Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Christopher Lee would have carried those prequels so much better if only Georgie boy would have taken a deep breath and actually thought about how best to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker, rather than wallowing in sentimentality and maudlin, inexplicable mood swings.
I will be eternally grateful to George Lucas for making Star Wars a thing in the first place, but a few years back, I breathed a sigh of relief when he let go of his creative control and actually sold out to Disney.  For the first time ever, I was happy that someone "sold out to Disney." First of all, it meant we were going to get more movies, lot's more movies, and some TV shows.  I am of the opinion that the animated series The Clone Wars was actually the thing that was really needed to redeem the prequels, it is the best thing to hit the Star Wars universe since The Empire Strikes Back. It actually shows you more of how Anakin was actually a really talented Jedi, and not just a whiny punk who snapped and murdered a bunch of children because Palpatine messed with his head.  It shows you the complicated relationship between Obi Wan, Anakin and Padme, which really could have been even more complicated if we were telling grown up stories.  Disney ownership means there will probably be more possibility of that sort of thing.
See, the thing is, I was four when I first loved Star Wars, I am nearly 44 as of last night's viewing of Solo.  That's ten lifetimes for that little kid who first trembled at Darth Vader bursting through the bulkhead of the Tantive.  I want different things from movies now than I did then.  Even my kids are outgrowing the really childish stuff.  We were sort of relieved that Star Wars: Rebels a Disney CGI series ended.  The characters had really reached that tipping point where you started not to like their lack of development and just got annoyed with them (ala Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, and Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi). It's not that the characters were bad, it's just that they weren't allowed to really become anything.
Slowly that flaw is starting to change.  The Last Jedi, while it was not universally liked, performed a much needed function, it retired the Skywalker Saga, and in doing so it opened up the possibilities of telling new stories with better characters.  Jin Urso in Rogue one was a prototype, but she didn't outlive her single movie.  Rey very well might be moving in that direction.  Quira, Emilia Clarke's character in Solo, has enormous potential to be an actually complex character, as does Han Solo himself, and (spoiler alert) they have the good sense to bring back Darth Freaking Maul for possible further development.
Solo was a box office flop by Star Wars standards, but Disney is big enough to absorb that.  That is a good thing, because it was also probably the most coherent and well told story of the bunch.  There were only a few "boxes" to check: how Han got his name, how he met Chewbacca and how he won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian.  Solo checked off those boxes and managed to actually weave them into a story, a story that essentially fits neatly into what we already know, for instance about making the Kessel run is less than 12 parsecs.  It develops Han as a character who wants to be a rogue and a bad dude, but who is essentially a good guy.  Again, we knew those things about him, but the stories behind them make the mythology breathe better.  That's what was missing from some of the other efforts, too much box checking for nerds that already know everything and not enough storytelling.
I'm actually encouraged that Solo didn't blow the doors off the box office, because it feels like lately every Star Wars thing has to be the biggest, most significant thing ever, and that doesn't create an environment where actors and directors are free to do new things and try something risky.  Woody Harrelson played a character named Tobias Beckett, who aside from Han himself is essentially the main character of the movie.  He's a one off, but he shows you what Liam Neeson as Qui Gon Jin and Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, could have done, if they had been given a chance, if Lucas had not been so single minded about filling his movies with annoying moppets, brooding teenagers, too much CGI and Sambo stereotypes.  The galaxy far, far away, can bring in actual good actors to elevate the story and make it good for those of us who have been watching for ten lifetimes.
So yeah, I liked Solo, and as is the case with The Last Jedi as well, the thing that I am most hopeful about is where it's going to go from here.  I actually have a pretty good feeling about this.