"Solo: A Star Wars Story," AKA what pisses me off about my fellow nerds

***Minor spoilers for "Solo: A Star Wars Story" herein***

On rare occasions, I manage to avoid trailers before seeing a movie like "Solo: A Star Wars Story." I go in a total blank slate, and I get to enjoy or dislike the movie pure of externally-inherited bias.

That said, apparently it was a particularly good thing I did so with this movie. A couple of articles, as well as this video, have been circulating the web. The consensus seems to be that a good number of people wanted the movie to fail because they don't like that it was a movie about Han Solo that didn't include Harrison Ford as the lead role. Or, they didn't like that the project was greenlit at all. Or...name any of the millions of reasons people could have for hating a movie they haven't seen. I genuinely believe a lot of the Web-based hysteria comes not from people who saw the movie, but fans of certain reviewers.

Apparently film critic Angry Joe, the Forbes writer Dani Di Placido, and many other people seem to think that the whole project was a cynical product of the Hollywood/Disney machine. Regardless of its quality, they wrote that it should fail because its conception was allegedly based entirely on mercenary reasons.

The Forbes writer in the aforementioned article wrote this, which I have not edited at all:

"I want an army of enraged Star Wars fans out in force, furiously Tweeting with their finger firmly on the caps lock button, launching wave upon wave of angry reaction gifs. I want those sexually frustrated guys who edited all the women out of The Last Jedi to recut Solo, without Han Solo. I want Disney to be reeling from an eye-wateringly intense backlash, and be forced to kill off young Han Solo, creating an epic, all-consuming plot hole that can only be rectified by removing Solo from official canon altogether."

Then he says:

"I’m aware that we have literally no idea if the film is any good or not."

He also went so far as to call it a "cinematic cardinal sin," pedaling back and forth between how terrible it was to cast Alden Ehrenreich as Solo because he is a "terrible actor who can't remember his lines," and how Alden Ehrenreich is actually okay and he has no problem with him, because he was in a Coen brothers movie once. 

...what?

Before I get into why this is all kinds of fucked, let me just say a few thoughts I have on "Solo: A Star Wars Story."

1. Emilia Clarke is a really good actor with a lot of range and natural charisma.

Emelia Clarke absolutely stole the show, presenting a new character who is both complex and compelling. They danced close to "damseling" Clarke's character Kira, only to dance away from it at the last moment, which impressed me tremendously and relieved me to a huge extent. 

At one point, the film seemed to be attempting to create tension by putting Kira in an intimate relationship with one of the film's villains, in a scene that was minutes after she and Solo are reunited. Instead, they created tension by giving her power and status as that villain's most trusted lieutenant.

She doesn't "tag along." Throughout the movie she's the one leading Han. Characters interacting with them don't know or care who Han is, but they know Kira, and when she speaks, they listen.

2. Donald Glover was a fantastic choice for young Lando Calrissian.

He totally pulls off the role of a sly, charismatic con man with tons of power. He even sounds like a young Billy Dee Williams at times. Best of all, he doesn't end up being portrayed as the unflappably upbeat black male sidekick to Solo's maverick white male lead role. Actually, by the end of the film they seem more like frenemies than good buddies. I'm genuinely interested in seeing them on-screen again together, because by the end of the film, it honestly seems like the two will never, ever be close.

3. Alden Ehrenreich.

I don't care what anyone says about Alden Ehrenreich - his performance reminded me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance in "Looper." Like JG-L did with Bruce Willis, Ehrenreich totally nailed the mannerisms of a younger Harrison Ford. 

I know supposedly people on set hated his acting so much they apparently hired an acting coach for him during set - what the fuck ever, dude. It worked.

Maybe there were other on-set issues. Maybe there were production issues I am unaware of. I didn't know of any such things going in, and I absolutely loved Ehrenreich as young Han Solo.

4. It was everything I've been missing about "Star Wars."

It was full of pitched space battles with crazy aerial maneuvers so insane, I literally burst out laughing at how awesome they were. My favorite moment was when Solo barell-rolled the Millennium Falcon, smacking a TIE fighter into an asteroid like it had just said something racist.

Poe Dameron and even Kylo Ren's cool spaceship flying aside, nothing compares to Solo in the cockpit of the Falcon.

It was full of fast-paced fight scenes amidst crowded gang hideouts and public centers sprouting from snafus caused by delightfully quirky characters. 

It had none of the rushed, hurried feelings of "The Force Awakens" trying to prove itself...none of the confusing backpedaling of "The Last Jedi"...and none of the dry, extended "why should I care about these characters" pathos deserts from the middle of "Rogue One."

Just a meaty, juicy, satisfying space movie.

5. What I don't like about Solo...

...it has nothing to do with the movie.

Remember those articles I mentioned? That's what I don't like about this movie.

As a lifelong "Star Wars" fan, sometimes I really fucking hate "Star Wars" fans. Then again, the same could be said of gamers, Warhammer players, music-lovers...all groups to which I belong.

I love geeks and nerds...hell, I am one...but for real, we need to talk about something. Something about geeks and nerds that has bothered me for a long time.

Reddit user ArmadilloFour said it perfectly:

"Jesus Christ, can you imagine being such a "fan" of a thing that you actively want that thing to be shitty? Why not spend that fucking energy elsewhere instead of jerking yourself off in this obnoxious display of... I don't even know, faux-superiority?"

Guys, I grew up with "Star Wars," too. I've loved it since I was single-digits years old. I'm just as much a fan as anyone else. I'm even considering getting a tattoo of certain "Star Wars" iconography. So, my nerd cred established, I'm going to say this: we all need to calm the fuck down about "Star Wars."

I just wanna say - for real, to those of you who get so tightly screwed up over these movies...do you even hear yourselves? 

Black people are getting shot by police who then get away scott free...trans teenagers are getting lynched in the American South...Syria is literally crumbling, Palestinian civilians are being murdered, Donald Trump is systematically destroying the U.S. and the world economy with a big stupid smile on his saggy frog face...and you're upset about this?

How fucking spoiled, sheltered and privileged can you be?

It's not an uncommon thing, nerds dedicating disproportional amounts of energy to something that ultimately isn't of the utmost importance. Electronic Arts won "Worst Company in America" not once, but twice, because fans of "Mass Effect" were pissed about the ending of "Mass Effect 3." That title could have been used to shine light on, oh, I don't know...Bank of America, for illegally foreclosing on American homeowners, or BP for their environmentally reckless fracking practices? But no, you're right - EA deserves the shame more because the ending of "Mass Effect" wasn't very good.

I feel like in a lot of ways, being a huge nerd can be a sign of massive privilege. Who else can afford to burn hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on entertainment? It's hard to be a nerd when you're living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Now, would-be film critics railing against the "indignity" of a movie coming out that they felt was a bad project:

Never mind that hundreds, if not thousands of jobs were created by the production of that movie. Never mind that to them, this was a dream job some of the cast and crew never, ever thought they would be lucky enough to be a part of.

Never mind all the stress, work, and sacrifice that went into making this movie...because, if you don't know, making a big-budget Star Wars movie takes a lot of fucking work. Also, never mind that a lot of people loved it. 

You hated it, and your opinion is the only one that matters, and everyone else has a moral right to be just as mad as you.

...that isn't true. You need to figure that out or you're going to ruin Star Wars for everybody else.