Solo serves as a mix of fan service fill in the story blanks from the original trilogy, and well, little else.

If someone asked you to describe the plot to a Han Solo stand alone film I don’t think it would be much different than what eventually is seen on screen. On one hand it’s paint by numbers because we know pieces and results of the story. We know about the Kessel Run; we know he gets the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian through gambling. We know pieces. The problem is Disney plays it super safe. One: they want to make a ton of money. (You can’t win them all!) Two: Star Wars has a pretty toxic, unrelenting fan base. (Not you, of course.) There’s little room for creativity when someone is ready to yell “Canon! But the canon! But!” at any whiff of something outside of a character’s preconceived traits. I suspect this is one reason the original director was fired during production and replaced by a much safer choice in Ron Howard.