This might be a Lighter and Softer Lower-Deck Episode of the Star Wars saga, but it doesn't mean this entry is free from scares.
Warning: Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages.
Being chased by the Empire in the most unnavigable corner of the galaxy is bad enough. Cue this thing...
- Han is arrested for desertion and thrown by fellow mudtroopers into a muddy cell/pit to be eaten or mauled to death by a humanoid beast... which turns out to be Chewbacca.
- Although he's always been one of the good guys, Chewie himself can be pretty frightening when enraged by something, as the Pyke sentinel that got his arms ripped off can attest.
- Chewie is thrown in a pit and forced to kill and eat other sapient beings to survive while the mud troopers laugh and cheer him on.
- The Millennium Falcon's crew has successfully evaded an Imperial Star Destroyer and a squadron of TIE fighters... only to bump into the Summa-verminoth, an enormous space cephalopod with countless tentacles.
- And the Summa-verminoth
is possibly the most gigantic creature ever seen in a Star Wars movie — possibly bigger than the Exogorth (space slug) seen in The Empire Strikes Back. - How does Han defeat this space monster? By tricking it into being sucked by the Maw. And we get to see it get ripped apart onscreen.
- The scariest part of it all is the Summa-verminoth isn't just one roving monster in space. It's a member of a species. There's more of those things out there.
- And the Summa-verminoth
- The Maw itself. A black hole that disintegrates everything it pulls towards its core.
- The image of a Star Destroyer emerging from a nebula is as terrifying as it is awesome.
- Han gets captured by the White Worm gang and is taken to their subterranean lair, where he meets their master, Lady Proxima: a horrific, slimy worm-like Grindalid that emerges out of a pool of dark water. Watching her skin get burned by sunlight isn't a pretty sight either.
- Maul's appearance, he's looking both quite alive and very unhappy with the turn of events. And that's without the fact that he was able to successfully create another powerful crime syndicate despite his first foray in building an underworld power base blowing up in his face.
- The battle of Mimban rivals Rogue One in its depiction of War Is Hell, not the least because it kicks off with a jarring Time Skip. Without any warning or buildup, Han finds himself in a broiling, filthy hellhole of chaos and death. Men and vehicles are blasted apart mere feet away, the screams of wounded imperials echo throughout the battlefield, multi-ton walkers are dropped from the sky with no apparent concern for the infantry below, a suffocating cloud of smog is smothering any clarity under a pall of confusion and the muddy trenches look like they are straight out of World War I — which defined War Is Hell in Real Life for much of the Western world. The entire battlefield, with its scorched landscape and fanatical commissars, is also very reminiscent of those in Spain, the Eastern Front of World War II and The Korean War. It only lasts about five minutes, yet it's the most brutal and realistic war zone ever depicted in the Star Wars universe.
- Alden Ehrenreich also does a superb job at depicting how flat-out terrified Han is throughout the encounter.
- Han's immediate superior is gunned down while giving an order to charge, standing up tall and proud and silhouetting himself perfectly for the enemy. What's more frightening: a group of grunts bereft of their only leadership, or the fact that said leadership was so wildly incompetent?
- The situation off the battlefield isn't much safer, as any hint of desertion, disobedience, or disrespect will see you killed by your own men without court martial. They wont even allow you the dignity of a firing squad, or even a quick shot to the head to end it quickly; you'll be dumped into a pit to be slowly and painfully clobbered to death by a hulking brute while sadistic MPs jear at you from above. The whole premise wouldn't be out of place in Warhammer 40,000.
- Dryden Vos. He's so creepy and Affably Evil, it's no wonder Beckett has reservations about double-crossing him or bailing on his job.
- The very first time we see him, he's yanking his blades out of the chest of a hapless victim. He's also breathing deeply even though he killed the man with little to no effort, implying that he REALLY enjoyed the execution.
- A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but some of Vos's servants are Decraniated - those background extras from the Jedha scenes in Rogue One that have had the top halves of their heads replaced with droid brains, and they are much easier to notice here despite Solo being a lighter-hearted film. According to Scum and Villainy, Doctor Evazan was previously employed by Crimson Dawn and made the Decraniated as a money-making scheme (presumably as a cheaper-to-make alternative to fully-built droids). Where Vos and Evazan got the original subjects is anyone's guess.
- Vos' relationship with Qi'ra is obviously abusive, he tells Han "I never ask for anything twice", and his charm is a quickly-discarded disguise for a complete lack of empathy.
- Savareen, despite the beautiful landscape, seems very... off, with the ramshackle settlements and ruins everywhere, the very tired and weary-looking populace, and the fact that none of the residents say a word. And as Enfys Nest heavily implies, there's a very good reason why; the whole populace of that settlement had their tongues cut off for resisting the efforts of a group of pirates. These same pirates would eventually form Crimson Dawn.
- Just the Crimson Dawn itself. Knowing Maul, what he's done to people who got in his way is likely pretty horrific.
- The Pyke Syndicate mining droids, once their restraining bolts are gone, go bananas. Just how badly treated were they?
- The general portrayal of the Galactic Empire, which verges on Fascist, but Inefficient here, and somehow it's even worse than the thought of it being completely invincible. For all their sheer military strength and the fear they project throughout the galaxy at large, once you get past the propaganda the ruling government of the Galaxy is shockingly weak in places. Lady Proxima's henchmen on Corellia think nothing of busting through Imperial checkpoints and pushing stormtroopers around; there's a seemingly pointless military quagmire on Mimban led by officers who seem to be decidedly lacking in competence; Dryden Vos is introduced casually knifing a man the film's official guide reveals to be the Governor of the Expansion Region. All Palpatine's rhetoric about a "safe and secure society" is truly exposed here. The
Lawful Evil Empire is relatively impotent in the face of the Chaotic Evil of the underworld.- Or the Empire doesn't actually care, as long as the criminals keep bringing resources and money in - an interpretation that came up several times in Legends, most notably with Shadows of the Empire.
