Does anyone else get the feeling that this film will serve as an introduction/segue to the upcoming Boba Fett / Bounty Hunters movie? Even though I knew Maul was going to show up in advance, I was still surprised at how much of him they revealed. I figured they’d only show him wit his hood on, and that’s it. Fan will recognize him, casual viewers won’t. But no, he pulled out his lightsaber and everything. I find it weird that Lucasfilm will just drop that scene ad just expect peope to google how Maul is alive. Plus, the whole Qi-Ra subplot wasn’t resolved, so I have a feeling that Crimson Dawn might be a big part of the upcoming Boba Fett movie. And since Han and Fett have knew each other prior to ANH, they might bring back Alden Ehrenreich as well.
As for my opinion of the movie itself; I don’t really have much more to add than what’s already been said here. It was quite fun. A few oddities here and there, but it worked just fine. L3 got a bit too close to Jar Jar territory for me, but she never crossed the line and she ended up being a somewhat small character. Ehenreich worked fine for me. I saw more of Ford in him towards the end of the film, which makes sense as he’s more cynical towards the end (e.g more like ANH Han). If she returns I think he’ll be more Ford-like then. And I’m overall impressed by how much depth they added to his characters. I was surprised by just how sympathetic and engaging (to me at least) the Han/Qi-Ra subplot was.
I do think it’s funny how they made L3 the reason for Threepio’s comment in ESB about the Falcon’s computer having a weird personality. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen some many EU references in a movie before. Even the Pykes showed up, and I find it amusing that they mentioned Teräs Käsi, considering how generally negative opinions are about that game(though I guess that might be part of the joke). (Did anyone else get the impression that the EU stuff might be Jon Kasdan’s work?)
I suspect they’ll fold this into the Boba Fett movie.
It’s sorta reminding me how X-Men Origins: Magneto simply became X-Men: First Class.