How does Solo: A Star Wars Story compare to Rogue One? As the first two Star Wars spin-offs, audiences will inevitably size these movies up side by side. Conceptually, these two films are the first Star Wars spinoff movies, a whole new type of adventure set in the beloved Galaxy Far, Far Away. Rogue One explored an untold chapter in Star Wars history, revealing the heroes who made Luke's Death Star run possible; Solo, in contrast, has finally revealed the true backstory of the galaxy's favorite scoundrel, Han Solo.

There's a sense in which Solo: A Star Wars Story is cursed by the success of Rogue One. That film broke $1 billion at the global box office, cementing the idea that a successful Star Wars movie should break one billion. No studio was ever going to be able to live up to that, but sadly this remarkable success makes Solo's initial box office performance all the more painfully noticeable. Solo has currently delivered an estimated $83.3 million opening weekend against Rogue One's $155 million. Given the sheer scale of Solo's reshoots, it's actually possible the film's box office won't recoup its costs.

But comparisons between Rogue One and Solo have the potential to be far more instructive than just tossing out figures from the box office. These two Star Wars spinoffs take a subtly different approach, and as a result they give real insight into just what kind of Star Wars story has the potential to perform well. Meanwhile, both productions were actually remarkably troubled - but in the case of Rogue One, smart marketing prevented tales of the reshoots dominating the conversation. Let's take a look at how these two films compare.

Comparing the Concepts of Rogue One and Solo

Felicity Jones Jyn Erso Rogue One disguise

Let's start with the high-level concepts. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm back in 2012, the House of Mouse had to make a difficult decision; would they retain the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, with its complex web of continuity, or would they erase it? Disney chose the later, reducing the official canon down to the already-extant films and animated shows. Rogue One and Solo both illustrate the wisdom of this decision; both are essentially big-screen versions of concepts the EU had explored a long time ago.

But that's not to say the high-level concepts are the same. Rogue One director Gareth Edwards pitched the film to Lucasfilm as a Vietnam War movie. He literally photoshopped rebel helmets on the tops of photos from conflicts in the Middle East and World War II, and used those as part of his pitch to the studio. Edwards knew that George Lucas had been influenced by the Vietnam War back when he first created Star Wars, and this film was an attempt to return to those roots. It gave Rogue One a unique style, and caused the film to end in a bittersweet fashion, with the deaths of the protagonists. The first Rogues had triumphed, but at a terrible cost.

In contrast, Solo's high-level pitch is a simple one; it's Han Solo's origin story. Lucasfilm may have been proud of Kasdan's script, but it runs through this backstory like a checklist. Given the film focuses most of it's runtime on just a few days, it compresses all the major events in Han's life into a remarkably short period of time. Within (what seems like) less than a week, Han has become a smuggler, won the Falcon from Lando, earned a copilot in Chewie, and even pulled off the Kessel Run. The stylistic overtones of a heist movie logically flow from the plot, rather than the themes and ideas dictating it as in the case of Rogue One.

Both of these films are essentially tangential to the Original Trilogy. In the strictest sense, neither is actually "necessary" in order to make sense of the main Star Wars Saga; while they subtly reinterpret some scenes from Lucas's original films, it's all done so carefully and reverentially. As a result, both movies had to justify their existence in order to succeed. They both pull it off - but Solo's weaker marketing meant audiences didn't actually know the film pulled it off beforehand.

The Troubled Productions of the Star Wars Spinoffs

Curiously enough, both Rogue One and Solo had significant behind-the-scenes productions issues. In May 2016, there were reports that Lucasfilm was unhappy with Gareth Edwards's cut of Rogue One, with discussion of extensive reshoots - including claims that up to 40% of the film would need to be reworked. Tony Gilroy, who was brought in to write the reshoots, recently gave a sense of the behind-the-scenes problems. "They were in such a swamp," he explained. "They were in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you could do was improve their position." Gilroy reworked the entire narrative, recognizing that the script had lost its tight focus. The ending was compressed, explaining why a lot of footage from the trailer wasn't in the final cut, and Gilroy insisted that the heroes should actually die. "It's a movie about sacrifice," he explained, and that meant there had to be sacrifices.

The scale of these changes was mostly kept under wraps until the film's release. Then it became obvious because entire sequences from the trailers were missing. Jyn facing down a TIE Fighter, flashback sequences featuring a younger Saw Gerrera, and of course Jyn's "I rebel" speech. The Internet swiftly became fascinated with discussing the reshoots, but there's a sense in which it didn't matter; they hadn't really dominated the online narrative until after the movie's release, meaning their impact on the film's reputation was muted.

Related: Solo: A Star Wars Story Reshoots: What's Lord & Miller And What's Ron Howard?

Solo's issues were even more severe, and became the movie's main talking point. The announcement of Solo had been greeted with more than a little skepticism, but Lucasfilm had dealt with that by making a surprising choice as to the film's directors; they chose Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Unfortunately, late in the day the "creative differences" between Lord and Miller and Lucasfilm became irreconcilable. The directors were fired, and a thousand rumors swirled online as to the reason. Lucasfilm hired Ron Howard, a "safe pair of hands," to fix the film; he reportedly reshot nearly all of it, at almost twice the budget. Where the scale of Rogue One's production issues had been kept mostly under wraps, Solo's were public knowledge, damaging the film's reputation before the marketing campaign had even begun to kick into gear. That meant marketing for Solo was always be a tricky proposition.

Page 2 of 2: The Marketing and Critical Response to the Star Wars Spinoffs

Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon with Rogue One

The Marketing for Solo and Rogue One

Rogue One was the most anticipated movie of 2016, in large part because it was riding the crest of Disney's reinvigorated Star Wars brand. The franchise was fresh and new, and the idea of a Star Wars spinoff was unheard of. Lucasfilm released the first trailer in April 2016, but dialed back on the marketing until about eight weeks before the film's release. The studio joined forces with five global brands - Nissan, Duracell, General Mills, Gillette and Verizon - to partner on an extensive promotional campaign. The most impressive part of this was Verizon's Rogue One 360 Experience, which placed users in the cockpit of a Rebel starfighter.

But Solo was released against a very different context. The marketing of modern blockbusters tends to kick off six or seven months before release, and by the end of 2017 viewers were wondering just where the Solo trailer was. The problem for Lucasfilm was that Solo was releasing too soon after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the studio didn't really want to be promoting two films at once. As a result, the first trailer for Solo wasn't actually released until the Super-Bowl Weekend in February, just three months before Solo would hit theaters. A strong TV campaign finally kicked off in April, supported by some creative new approaches such as a video-tour of the Falcon (hosted by Donald Glover) and another 360 degree experience set around Han and Lando's game of Sabacc. This time around, promotional partners included Nissan, Snapchat, Google, Esurance, Norton, and Solo Cups. Solo premiered at Cannes in an attempt to drive conversation that wasn't particularly successful.

Related: Solo: A Star Wars Story's Director Problems - What Really Happened

In theory, Solo's marketing should have worked. In reality, the film was releasing too soon after the last Star Wars movie, and Lucasfilm's reluctance to market two films at once meant things kicked off far too late. Making matters worse, the departure of Lord and Miller had already soured public opinion on Solo, and marketing had launched too late to catch viewers' attention.

The Critical Reaction to the Spinoffs

Critical response to Rogue One left Lucasfilm delighted. The film settled at 85% on the Tomatometer, giving it a score on Rotten Tomatoes that's actually higher than Return of the Jedi. Star Felicity Jones received particular praise, as did K-2SO. In our review, we described Rogue One as "a rousing sci-fi drama packed with thrilling action set-pieces, charming characters, and fun nods for viewers at all levels of Star Wars fandom." Critics and viewers alike were enthralled by the movie's "shades of gray" morality, which explored some of the darker ideas of what it means to be a Rebel in the Star Wars galaxy. While the film was hardly viewed as perfect, it was genuinely seen as adding something of tremendous value to the Star Wars Saga.

Solo may not have performed well in terms of the box office, but critics have actually been fairly positive about the movie. It currently sits at 70% on the Tomatometer, which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It's been praised as a fun - albeit rather bland - prequel movie. While Solo was praised for being the most intimate Star Wars movie to date, it just wasn't seen as a risk-taker. Most agreed that Alden Ehrenreich performed well as the titular hero, but in truth Solo just didn't win the critics over in the way Rogue One did.

The contrast between the critical responses essentially revolves around the word "risk." Rogue One actually dared to take risks in the Star Wars galaxy, telling a different kind of tale to the ones viewers have seen before. In contrast, Ron Howard's deft reshoots removed all sense of risk from Solo (assuming it was there previously), resulting in a film that's perfectly acceptable - but frankly fairly generic.

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Ultimately, the sad truth is that the comparison between Rogue One and Solo is between one film that succeeded beyond Lucasfilm's wildest hopes - and another that has sadly underperformed. Looking back, though, comparing these two films offers instructive lessons as to just why Solo is struggling. As Rogue One proved, problems during production can be overcome, and reshoots don't need to be a problem for a film. What you need, in order to make a success of even a Star Wars movie, is both a strong central concept and a confident marketing push.

More: Solo Makes Star Wars: The Last Jedi Look Even Better

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