Blu-ray Review: 'Solo: A Star Wars Story (Multi-Screen Edition)'

(C) 2018 Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018, The Walt Disney Company’s home media division, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, released Solo: A Star Wars Story in four formats – DVD, Blu-ray, UHD 4K Blu-ray, and digital download. The home media release of Solo – the 10^th live-action entry in the Star Wars franchise and fourth produced in the post-George Lucas era – comes six months after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi on home media; it is widely seen as Disney’s attempt to recoup the financial losses from Solo’s underperformance at the box office earlier this year.

Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in Solo: A Star Wars Story, an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his mighty future copilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars saga's most unlikely heroes. – Package blurb, Solo: A Star Wars Story

I have already reviewed Solo: A Star Wars Story here; since I’ve critiqued the film and given A Certain Point of View’s readers a brief account of the film’s troubled production, I’ll just focus on the Multi-Screen Edition I got from Target last Tuesday.

Now, I’m not an expert on the technical aspects of home video; I couldn’t tell you what “crushed blacks” or “digital noise” are, for instance. Those details are the purview of people who know more about the art and science of digital technology, home electronics, and A/V stuff. 

However, I am a long-time DVD/Blu-ray consumer and a Star Wars fan from way back (the fall of 1977, to be precise), and I do know what I like in home media releases of movies and shows set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

Overall, the Solo Blu-ray is a solid offering from Buena Vista Home Entertainment. I have the Multi-Screen two-disc edition, which consists of:

Disc One: The Feature Film. As you might expect, this disc contains Ron Howard’s 2-hour and 15-minute film set approximately 13-10 years before the events depicted in Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope. It presents the second Star Wars Anthology film in 1080p high definition video, with four audio tracks (English 7.1 DTS-HDMA and 2.0 Descriptive Audio, Spanish and French 5.1 Digital sound) and subtitles in English (for the deaf and hearing impaired), French, and Spanish.

Disc Two: Blu-ray Bonus Extras. Because Buena Vista Home Entertainment dropped several editions in different formats (DVD, UHD 4K, HD Blu-ray, and digital copies for download and streaming, the extras will vary from one edition to another. The multi-screen one I got at Target last week offers the following featurettes:

Solo: The Director & Cast Roundtable (1080p, 21:44): Ron Howard moderates a discussion between members of the film's major cast. Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Joonas Suotamo, Emilia Clarke, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, and Paul Bettany. discuss how they got their roles, talk about auditions, dissect various scenes, character relationships, and backstories, and give viewers an inside look at how the film was made. 

Kasdan on Kasdan (1080p, 7:50): Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan talk about their long association with the Star Wars franchise and Lucasfilm, and Larry explains why Han Solo is his favorite character of the saga.

Remaking the Millennium Falcon (1080p, 5:36): This featurette gives viewers a brief overview about the Falcon’s role as a “supporting character” in the Star Wars saga and how the Solo team worked to redesign it to reflect Lando’s influence on the ship he owned till he lost it to Han in a high-stakes card game.

Escape from Corellia (1080p, 9:59): A discussion of the movie's timeline and how Solo fits into the overall Star Wars mythology. There’s a detailed breakdown of a pivotal chase sequence on Han’s homeworld of Corellia.

The Train Heist (1080p, 14:30):  Like the previous featurette, this is a detailed breakdown of one of the film's largest action pieces. 

Team Chewie (1080p, 6:41): A brief exploration of the “When Han Met Chewie” story element of Solo: A Star Wars Story

Becoming a Droid: L3-37 (1080p, 5:06): An exploration of the character, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's performance, and the practical and digital effects that bring her to life.

Scoundrels, Droids, Creatures, and Cards: Welcome to Fort Ypso (1080p, 8:02) A look at the sequence in which Han and Lando become Star Wars’ most prominent duo of “frenemies.”

Into the Maelstrom: The Kessel Run (1080p, 8:28): A look at how the production crew created one of the most famous elements in Han Solo’s backstory.

Deleted Scenes (1080p, 15:13 total runtime): Included are Proxima's Den, Corellian Foot Chase, Han Solo: Imperial Cadet, The Battle of Mimban: Extended, Han Versus Chewie: Extended, Snowball Fight!, Meet Dryden: Extended, and Coaxium Double-Cross.

My Take

Overall, I’m pleased with my Multi-Screen Edition Blu-ray of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It’s not my favorite Star Wars film; 41 years into the franchise’s storied history, that honor still goes to the original 1977 film written and directed by the Maker himself, George Lucas. Still, as I said in my review of the film, Solo “is a fun, exciting romp set in a galaxy far, far away.” It has an excellent script, outstanding visuals, good pacing, and a crackling score by John Powell (aided by a new original theme composed and conducted by Star Wars composer John Williams).

The Blu-ray was mastered from the original film’s digital files, so if it looks a bit murky or washed out in comparison to, say, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story or the Saga films, it’s because Solo was shot that way. The visuals are supposed to convey Han’s hardscrabble life as a scrumrat on Corellia and his subsequent involvement with the galaxy’s criminal underworld. As a result, the images are not as pretty or awe-inspiring as those in The Empire Strikes Back, The Force Awakens, or The Last Jedi.

The extras? Well, I’m extremely picky about behind-the-scenes materials and tend to favor in-depth documentaries that aim to inform the viewer about how a film was made rather than simply be another tool in the promotional department’s toolbox at Buena Vista Home Entertainment to sell the movie to skeptical viewers.

For me, there were two major letdowns regarding the Blu-ray extras: the superficiality of the extra features and – once again – the lack of a director’s audio commentary track in the first edition of a wide-release Blu-ray.

First, as I suggest above, the extras listed above are okay for casual viewers and young kids who could care less  about the firing of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the pitfalls of Disney greenlighting so many Star Wars projects at once, and the fallout from the expensive reshoots and Solo’s unfortunate failure at the box office. I assume that Lucasfilm would rather accentuate the positive in these situations, so on that level, I understand why the negative issues related to Solo were glossed over.

On the other hand, the tone of the extras – especially the Roundtable with Ron Howard – feels too much like the studio said, “Okay, let’s not even go there with the Lord/Miller issue. Let’s just gloss that over as if it never happened.” Heck, even the Alien Quadrilogy addressed the conflict between 20^th Century Fox and Alien 3 director David Fincher – and in great detail, too. So, yes. That omission, while understandable to some degree, was unnecessary, to say the least.

Second, my biggest beef when Buena Vista Home Entertainment is that with the exception of The Last Jedi, the wide-release Blu-rays lack audio commentary tracks by the director and/or cast and crew members. 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm had, in the pre-Disney purchase era, included commentary tracks on the various DVDs and Blu-ray releases of the Star Wars Prequel and Classic Trilogies. Heck, Warner Bros. had audio commentary by Dave Filoni and Catherine Winder on the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie’s home media release. BVHE, in its infinite wisdom, either saves those tracks for the expensive 3D Collectors’ Editions or avoids them altogether. Bad decision, I say.

Mainly, though, Solo: A Star Wars Story on Blu-ray is a solid, watchable home media release. On a good 1080p TV with a home theater sound system, the viewing experience is an enjoyable one. Not as good as, say, watching  Solo in theaters, but it’s a close second.