I know there are many reasons for Solo’s underwhelming performance at the box office. I’m sure for many it’s a result of the backlash against TLJ or whatever, but for me it’s because of Rogue One.

For all its flaws, The Last Jedi was a film that added depth to (most of) its characters. You can love or hate what Rian Johnson did with Luke Skywalker, but he added to the character, gave him conflict and gave the audience a look into his thought and emotions.

Rogue One turned me off to the entire notion of these new spinoff movies. I found it to be a shallow film with uninteresting characters that was all plot and no story. And from what I’ve read, the Han Solo movie doesn’t appear to add anything substantive to his character except for answering questions of the most superficial and asinine variety. This is my biggest problem with Star Wars today is that fan service and safe decisions by Lucasfilm are undermining these spinoff movies by making them predictable and inoffensive.

We’ll never know what the Lord and Miller version of Solo would have been like, but at the very least it would have been an interesting diversion from the stock action movies that bore me so much. Nothing could turn me off quicker to Star Wars than a cavalcade of safe, mediocre movies based on already established characters. But I’m probably in the minority.