Star Wars franchise's most underrated movies, and yet there are so many reasons why I love it. Unfortunately, 2018's Solo wasn't exactly a success. After all, it's notably the first Star Wars movie in history to have lost money during its theatrical run. That said, I can almost guarantee that for most people, Solo is much better than they .

Solo's lack of box office success was due to several factors. Released in the divisive shadow of The Last Jedi, behind-the-scenes drama and director changes were also highly publicized. Solo, releasing in the same window as Avengers: Infinity War didn't help either, which was the bigger priority for Disney marketing. In the aftermath, Solo's failure caused massive problems, motivating Lucasfilm to abandon their anthology plans and how it uses legacy characters. It's also a big reason why we've had no movies since 2019. However, here are some key reasons why I still love Solo, and why it deserves more love from the fandom.

10 Alden Ehrenreich Was A Fantastic Young Han Solo

He Owned The Legacy Role

Alden Ehrenreich was cast to play a young Han Solo during the Dark Times, growing up as a petty thief on Corellia with dreams of leaving the planet behind and becoming a pilot alongside Qi'ra, his first love. Overall, Ehrenreich absolutely owned this role and made it his own. While Ehrenreich did embody some of Harrison Ford's classic Han Solo mannerisms in the 2018 movie, they felt very organic rather than an attempt at forced mimicry/overt impression.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty confident Solo's underperformance led Lucasfilm to learn the wrong lessons. I think it partly explains why we got a digitally de-aged Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Lucasfilm likely didn't want to risk the casting of a younger actor to embody the legacy role, something which hasn't been seen since Solo.

9 Donald Glover As Lando Calrissian

No One Could Have Played Lando Better

To an even higher degree than Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian was a stroke of genius, and easily Solo's best casting. Portraying the iconic and suave con-man first brought to life by Bill Dee Williams, it's so easy to see this young Lando becoming exactly like the Calrissian we see in the original trilogy. With any luck, the Lando movie that's long been in development will come to fruition in the near future.

8 Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra

A Truly Dynamic Star Wars Addition

A new Star Wars character introduced in Solo, Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra provided some great depth to the movie. This was especially true with her inner conflict over the past she once had with Han and the future she'd earned with Crimson Dawn. Likewise, it was very exciting to see how Qi'ra knew Han's future as a hero and the "good guy", even when Han himself didn't see it at the time.

All in all, it's no wonder Qi'ra became the focal point of an entire trilogy of canonical Star Wars comics in 2021. Having taken command of Crimson Dawn, Qi'ra and her forces instigated a major bounty hunter war, kicking off a series of events in a bid to destroy Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Remarkably, Qi'ra nearly succeeded before Crimson Dawn was dismantled, though it would be very exciting to see Qi'ra return in the future of the Star Wars timeline.

7 Visiting Corellia For The First Time

Han Solo's Homeworld

Despite having been featured and referenced in all sorts of Star Wars books and comics, Solo marked the first time Corellia was shown on screen. Best known as a key ship-building world, the first act of Solo depicts Han and Qi'ra desperately trying to flee their homeworld and its high levels of crime and corruption. In the years after, Corellia was featured again in 2023's Ahsoka.

6 Han Solo's Gradual Evolution From Thief To Legendary Smuggler

Witnessing Several Key Origins

Solo is full of key moments of evolution for young Han, ranging from the origin of his last name to his first meeting with Chewbacca. Many of these moments are very cool to see, like how exactly Han won the Millennium Falcon from Lando in a game of sabacc "fair and square", and what the Falcon originally looked like before becoming "a hunk of junk". One of my favorite moments is when Woody Harrelson's Tobias Beckett is talking to Han at the campfire, modifying his blaster with different attachments before handing young Han the classic DL-44 blaster used by the smuggler seen in the original trilogy.

5 L3-37, One Of Star Wars' Most Iconic Droids

"Follow Me, Compatriots!"

There are so many great droids in the Star Wars canon, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge's L3-37 is easily one of the best. Incredibly opinionated and determined to achieve rights for all droid-kind, L3 was an incredibly entertaining and hilarious addition to Solo. I especially loved the reveal that she was able to live on after being shot on Kessel, as her brain module was incorporated into The Millennium Falcon's navigation system by the end of Solo, providing the perfect explanation for why C-3PO found the ship's computer so rude with a "peculiar dialect" in the original trilogy.

4 Explaining The Kessel Run

"Less Than 12 Parsecs..."

Finally clarifying that parsecs are a measure of distance and not time, Solo explained the infamous Kessel Run and why it was such a feat to complete it in less than 12 parsecs (so long as you round down). As such, the result was one of Star Wars' best starship sequences, especially as it was Han's first time in the pilot's seat of The Millennium Falcon. Featuring a dangerous maelstrom, pursuing Imperial TIE Fighters, and a giant summa-verminoth, Han Solo's Kessel Run was far more epic than I'd ever imagined (and it's no wonder he boasted about it).

3 "Reminiscence Therapy"

Solo's Incredibly Fun and Nostalgic Score

Solo's score was composed by John Powell, who's best known for his work on iconic DreamWorks movies like How To Train Your Dragon, Ice Age, and Kung Fu Panda, as well as more recent movies like Wicked. While Powell did create some great new themes for the 2018 Star Wars movie, the Kessel Run in particular featured a wonderful medley of John Williams' scores from A New Hope entitled "Reminiscence Therapy". One of my favorite Star Wars tracks ever, it was the perfect inflection of nostalgia as Han Solo and Chewbacca piloted The Millennium Falcon for the first time.

2 Paul Bettany Was A Great Star Wars Villain

Dryden Vos

Paul Bettany played the perfect Star Wars crime lord as Dryden Vos in Solo, the face of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate who had hired Tobias Beckett to steal coaxium from the Empire. A completely unhinged and temperamental sociopath, I love how Dryden always feigned concern and care before making his lethal threats. That said, the twist where Qi'ra elects to stay with Crimson Dawn after she kills Dryden was perfect, allowing her to take over Crimson Dawn in the service of the syndicate's true leader.

1 The Return of Darth Maul in Live-Action

Bringing Back Everyone's Favorite Former Sith Lord

Solo's cherry on top was naturally the return of Darth Maul in live-action. Revealed to be the true leader of Crimson Dawn in the shadows, Maul was played once more by The Phantom Menace's Ray Park while being voiced by The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels' Darth Maul actor Sam Witwer. At the time, seeing Maul at the end of Solo built up so much hype about one day seeing Maul on the big screen again, potentially in a Solo sequel. That said, the next best thing is coming next year with the former Sith Lord's very own animated series: Maul: Shadow Lord.