'Solo' won awards for its trailer and music, a Star Wars Day story

Happy Star Wars Day!  I was expecting to write about the Star Wars franchise's nominations at the Saturn Awards, but those nominations haven't been announced yet.*  So instead of looking ahead to the Saturn Awards, I'm looking backwards at the awards won and major nominations received by "Solo: A Star Wars Story."

"Solo" won its first award at the Golden Trailer Awards.

"Solo: A Star Wars Story" earned its first award — Best Summer Blockbuster TV Spot (for a Feature Film).  It should enjoy it; I'm not sure how many other awards it will win.

Even then, I did not think it would enjoy much success at awards shows.  I was right, as "Solo" so far has only four wins and 21 nominations.  The film really needs the Saturn Awards to beef up the nominations and possibly add another win or two for one or more of Best Science Fiction Film, Best Film Music, and Best Film Special/Visual Effects.  I'm not as optimistic about other categories, especially acting, directing, and screenwriting, where it may miss being nominated for some awards.

That written, here is the winning TV Spot, Solo: A Star Wars Story "Big Game" TV Spot (:45).


Two other trailers earned nominations.  "Crew" competed with the winner above for Best Summer Blockbuster TV Spot (for a Feature Film) and “Something” contended for Best Fantasy Adventure trailer, losing to "The Crimes of Grindelwald."

The film's three other wins came from the International Film Music Critics Award (IFMCA).  "Solo" won Film Score of the Year and Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film for John Powell and Film Music Composition of the Year for John Williams' "The Adventures of Han."  Here it is for my readers' listening pleasure.

Music video by John Williams performing The Adventures of Han. © 2018 Lucasfilm Ltd.

The track "Mine Mission" by John Powell also earned a nomination, competing with "The Adventures of Han" for Film Music Composition of the Year.  Since it also earned a nomination at the Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Composition and Powell needs music to represent his two awards, I'm sharing it here as well.

Music video by John Powell performing Mine Mission. © 2018 Lucasfilm Ltd.

This track lost to "Blut und Boden" from "BlacKKKlansman," which I featured in How do I think the political drama nominees will fare at tonight's Oscars?  The other nominees from speculative fiction movies were Alan Silverstri, for Avengers: Infinity War and Alexandre Desplat for "The Shape of Water," which won Best Original Score at the 90th Academy Awards.

Of course, the biggest honor for a movie is an Academy Award.  "Solo" earned one nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.  BBC Click has a fun and informative video on the topic: Solo: A Star Wars Story: Behind the VFX - BBC Click.

The film Solo: A Star Wars Story has been Oscar nominated in the category of Best Visual Effects. Visual Effects Supervisor Julian Foddy from ILM spoke to Al Moloney about making the film.

"Solo" lost to "First Man" for the award, an upset I halfway expected, as I thought "Avengers: Infinity Wars" and "Ready Player One" were the favorites for Best Visual Effects based on the former's four wins and the latter's two wins at the Visual Effects Society Awards, where "First Man" earned only one award while "Solo" earned three nominations.  The other Oscar nominee was "Christopher Robin," which I didn't think had a shot, although I expect it will get a nomination for Best Fantasy Film when the Saturn Awards finally announce.

I close out today's entry by updating the ranking of "Solo" among the highest grossing speculative fiction films of 2018.  While it is still the second highest grossing film of 2018 at the North American box office with $213,767,512, Box Office Mojo shows that it has fallen from 10th to 12th, as Oscar winners "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "A Star Is Born" both passed it for 10th and 11th place respectively.  I think the Golden Schmoes nominations of the film for Biggest Disappointment of the Year, won by "The Predator," and Most Underrated Movie of the Year, won by "Annihilation," are the best summaries of the performance of "Solo" so far.  "Solo" ended up being both underrated and a (box office) disappointment.  I thought it deserved better from the fans.

Stay tuned for Cinco De Mayo and an entry looking forward to upcoming Star Wars properties for the Revenge of the Sixth.

*I am becoming frustrated with this delay in announcing the nominees.  I put a lot of work into putting together a slate of television submissions, but didn't finish it by the time the Saturn Awards tweeted that the nominations would "be released in a few short weeks," so I didn't finish the project.  That was on March 20th, more than six weeks ago.  I'm not the only one who feels this way; read the responses to the original tweet and see others who have become impatient.  I might just submit my slate of TV shows as is just to see if it gets the selection committee and the Academy off the dime.