In The Clone Wars, it’s revealed that Maul actually survived being cut in half through, uh, being really angry—focusing on his hatred, then using the strength it gave him to stop his bisected body from hurtling down the reactor shaft by grabbing a vent. He then stowed away in a trashcan, so he could escape to a dumpster planet called Lotho Minor. There he ate rats and brooded about being a half-man and listened to nu-metal, maybe, while his rodents and his rage kept him alive, until he could finally get some spider legs to scuttle around on while his mind understandably splintered.

Eventually, Maul’s brother, Savage Opress, found him, got him some fancy new, bipedal legs, and restored Darth Maul to his old self again. The two then cut a terrible swath across the galaxy, a story that plays out in The Clone Wars and Rebels, which share the same, pre-A New Hope timeline as Solo, Rogue One, et al. And now, Darth Maul is back in the movies, no longer just a torso and ready for action!

Perhaps the most noticeable visual element is the new film’s dimness. Cinematographer Bradford Young, who was part of the project when Lord and Miller were involved, has created a visually gritty and almost deliberately ugly world in which Han, Chewie, Han’s love interest, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), and Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) operate. Young’s other efforts as a director of photography, such as A Most Violent Year and Arrival, also hint at his willingness to use darkness in any shot; unfortunately, in Solo, it’s often a misstep, especially in the first half-hour. Even once the Kessel Run kicks off, inside the Millennium Falcon, the ship isn’t remotely as inviting as in other films just because it can be so hard to see what’s going on.

One of the most debated and theorized upon conundrums in “Star Wars” is how Han Solo could’ve completed the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs ― as he claims to have done in the original trilogy.

This was one of the problems that writers Lawrence and his son Jonathan Kasdan set out to fix. Lawrence told HuffPost that the sequence that ended up in “Solo” went through “a million changes.”

“It was the hardest sequence in the movie to decide on because we knew we wanted to do it from the get-go,” he said. “But what is [a parsec] exactly? And what makes it as hard as it is? And how long [would it take]? Since a parsec is not a unit of time, it’s a unit of distance. And how do you clarify that thing?”

Like Lawrence noted, a parsec counts for distance, so Han Solo saying he did the Kessel Run ― an 18-parsec route used by smugglers ― in 12 parsecs is sort of like saying I ran a mile-long route in 200 feet.

“It’s a funny problem because it’s one of those throwaway things in the original ‘Star Wars’ that’s very much the essence of what’s so great about ‘Star Wars,’” Jonathan said. “To say, ‘Are you kidding? This is the ship that did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?’ and no one knows what any part of that sentence means.”

The younger Kasdan acknowledged how iconic the original Harrison Ford line about the Kessel Run was, but clarified: “The challenge of actually making that sentence coherent and making it thrilling is really a big one.”

“It’s one we wrestled with from day one,” he said.

It’s official: Solo: A Star Wars Story has gone rogue.

The spinoff had the lowest opening ($103 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend) of any Star Wars film since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, ending a hit streak going back to The Force Awakens three years ago. And it’s only mustered $148.9 million after two weeks, disappointing considering it centers on one of the Star Wars galaxy’s biggest icons, the cosmic smuggler Han Solo. There’s a chance the film's entire haul won't even equal Force Awakens’ $248 million debut.

That massive budget meant that Solo needed to be a considerable hit just to break even. But after a lower-than-expected opening weekend, the movie has now grossed just $8 million on Friday, and is set to earn around $28m in its second weekend - less than half of what box office analysts were expecting. That means that Solo is on track to for a $148 million ten-day total. The last spinoff movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, grossed $155 million in its opening weekend alone.
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Solo's second weekend numbers are particularly concerning because, aside from the lingering success of Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2, there's no real competition to be blamed.
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Forbes estimates that in a best case scenario Solo will manage to scrape $210-215 million domestically, making it the lowest-grossing movie in the Star Wars franchise - even without adjusting for inflation.
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But unlike the Marvel movies, Star Wars doesn't have a strong pull at the Chinese box office, and Disney's franchise entries so far have had an approximate 50-50 split between domestic and international box office. Optimistically, Solo is looking at ending its theatrical run with $400-450 million worldwide.
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Studios tend to be very secretive about the costs of marketing and distribution, and Disney is no exception, but the general rule of thumb is that in order to break even a movie needs to gross double its production budget at the box office - in Solo's case, at least $500 million.
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That doesn't mean that Solo will mark a financial loss for Disney; there's still merchandise and home video sales to take into account (though the audience indifference to the movie at the box office will likely be reflected in those figures as well).

as Qi'ra points out, he actually never ceased being a good person in the end.

Enfys Nest’s arc is a fantastic subversion and reflection of the classic A New Hope story. In the first Star Wars movie we know that our heroes are in the right and that the Empire is undoubtedly wrong. But to the citizens of the Empire and the Imperial soldiers the Rebels are just terrorists who blow things up in the name of an unclear goal. In Solo: A Star Wars Story, Enfys and the Cloud-Riders are presented to the audience as a ravaging band of pirates who love nothing more than stealing from our band of rogues. We don’t question whether that’s who they really are, as we’re standing by Han and his friends. It’s only when it’s revealed that Enfys and her crew are actually attempting to steal the coaxium for use by the burgeoning Rebellion that we understand that all along we’ve been on the side of the true bad guys. Not just the betrayer Tobias Beckett or the criminal syndicate of the Crimson Dawn, but the rich Empire-affiliated elite who’re desperate to stop the Rebellion at any cost.

Enfys’ addition to Solo cuts to the heart of what truly makes Star Wars special and what moves us–people banding together in the face of unbelievable horrors to make a better life for themselves and those around them. Even standing opposed to insurmountable odds, there’s still a chance for a brighter future.