The Sad Truth About Life On The Millennium Falcon

The Millennium Falcon: beau idéal of the Rebel Alliance fleet, legendary icon of the criminal underworld and all-round fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Life aboard the Falcon would be a life of excitement and danger, more than worthy of a place in the world's most beloved sci-fi saga. Who wouldn't want to call it home? Well, if you've got any sense, you wouldn't. It might feel tempting to hop aboard and begin living out your days as a devilish rogue or heroic starfighter, but you're probably better off keeping your feet on the ground.

Listen, this isn't going to be easy to say, and it probably won't be easy to hear: Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn't worse than hepatitis. It's difficult when you spend the whole lead-up to a movie building your expectations only to have them subverted like this, but what can you do? Sometimes a multibillion-dollar franchise specifically designed from its inception to be a crowd pleaser winds up actually pleasing crowds.

Star Wars tech is super-cool, but we usually have to accept that it only exists in the movies. However, some scientists and engineers aren't content on letting that happen, and have worked to create tech that resembles the stuff we see in the Star Wars movies.

The Star Wars franchise is unlike anything else in pop culture history. It's unfathomably big in terms of not just box office draw but cultural influence. What other movies could make people stand in line for days to await tickets? What other movies could pull in well over $9 billion in worldwide ticket sales while still going strong? And that doesn't even take into account the assorted merchandising and related materials which, by 2014, had produced more than $37 billion, according to Wired.

We love Star Wars — a lot. We are some binge-watching, theorizing, cosplaying uber fans. That being said, there are some really interesting, dark asides to these films we should discuss. Darker than Darth, even. Stuff like ...