So I went and saw Solo: A Star Wars Story a few weeks ago. I hadn't really planned on seeing it opening weekend because, frankly, I thought it looked pretty bad, but everyone I knew who had seen it loved it.
I kept hearing the same thing from people: "Go see Solo. Go see Solo. Go see Solo. Stop listening in on our conversation...but go see Solo."
So I went to see Solo, and...okay, it was actually really good. No, Alden Ehrenreich isn't Harrison Ford, but that's not exactly a fair measure. It was literally impossible to get this movie made with Harrison Ford, so let's just get past that.
That man defines cool. Seriously.
Oh, and Woody Harrelson belongs in Star Wars. That man can do no wrong.
But one of the first things that happens in this movie is that we're introduced to "coaxium," the fancy new name for hyperspace fuel, something we didn't even know people used or needed before The Last Jedi.
And one of the first things we learn about coaxium, which is a far better name than "unobtainium," is that it is highly explosive. Like...really, really explosive.
So the whole time I'm watching this movie, I'm trying not to think about how explosive this stuff is and how it would make a really good weapon.
And then all I can think about is how explosive that stuff is and how it would make a really good weapon.
When these movies keep getting made, when sagas are constantly being updated, you can't really avoid this problem. Especially when you go back in time and start telling the story before the story.
I remember when the first Star Wars prequels came out. The first previews featured shiny, chrome space ships and much sleeker looking technology. And why was it all so much sleeker? It had been almost 20 years since the last Star Wars movie got made, so filmmaking technology had grown up quite a bit. You could create whole planets in computers, and even more so now, so you didn't have to rely on little models to achieve your filmmaking dreams.
There had been some narrative gymnastics and high-level retconning done in order to explain why the technology of the Star Wars universe had suddenly relapsed not a few decades later. The story usually revolved around the Empire's philosophy driving away from advanced technology, or that the Emperor's reign was some kind of outer space dark ages.
Because, of course.
"Boy, I sure hope we have enough coaxium to make the jump to hyperspace." - Something someone in the Star Wars universe should have said before now.
So now instead of the old high-tech/low-tech problem, we have the "Why didn't they just do...?" problem. You saw it in The Last Jedi with the hyperspace bomb, making us wonder why nobody had ever done that before, and now you see it again with coaxium. Interestingly enough, I think the coaxium plot point was created specifically to resolve people's complaints about this new concept of "hyperspace fuel" in The Last Jedi, so you've just got problems on problems on problems on the back of a giant, space-faring turtle.
I'll offer one pretty simple explanation for both the "hyperspace bomb" and the coaxium bomb issue: cost. To turn an entire ship into a hyperspace bomb, you would have to use up a lot of resources. Similarly, using rare and expensive coaxium as a weapon just isn't cost effective. But people don't really care about the financial reasons behind a Star Wars plot (ahem...Lucas). We want explosive space battles, dang it!
But even if you can wave away these concerns with a semi-satisfying real world explanation, it doesn't change the surface level issue of new movies and new lore, especially new lore in the past, radically altering the landscape we thought we knew as an audience.
I thought it was great how The Last Jedi introduced the concept of hyperspace tracking. It was a unique obstacle to be fixed, and it showed that the technology of Star Wars is changing and progressing, especially when presented with a very real problem in that world, just like technology in the real world follows progressing trends to solve important problems. That was great.
And it worked because The Last Jedi was the future (or present) of Star Wars narrative and not the past.
As long as Star Wars wants to mine the past for these new stories, and as long as other franchises choose to follow their lead down what could be seriously lucrative path, you're going to keep on seeing these sort of narrative hoops get unsuccessfully navigated. There will always be some new information or new spin on the past, even if unintentional, that will set the movie and the franchise's world askew. Even just the tiniest bit.
For instance...finding out that some Imperial paper-pusher gave Han the last name "Solo" as what essentially amounts to a bad joke makes the cool-cat rogue's introduction in Star Wars: A New Hope really, really frustrating.
Why'd y'all do that? Seriously.
NOTE: What continuity errors bug you? What prequel problems have stood out to you? What totally inconsequential moment completely changed the way you saw a beloved film somewhere down the line? Tell me in the comments!
All images pulled directly from StarWars.com and their official Solo gallery and are the sole property of Disney and LucasFilm.