I honestly don't remember. Did Rogue One have an opening crawl? Solo: A Star Wars Story does not, and I missed it.

Otherwise, despite the plentiful naysayers, Solo proves to be an admirable entry in the Star Wars canon.

True, the first half of the movie feels more like a big-budget episode of Firefly than a Star Wars movie. And, despite a strong performance by Alden Ehrenreich, he doesn't quite persuade me that he's a young Han Solo (because Harrison Ford is irreplaceable).

But hey, it worked for James Bond, so maybe we can accept a Han Solo who's played by different actors. And yes, I would like to see a sequel to Solo, something that follows up on his sundered romance with Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke), who is quite obviously more of a life partner for Solo than Princess Leia (the late, great Carrie Fisher) could ever be. (Face it, fanboys, their marriage didn't last, and she showed more passion for her brother anyway.)

This review is long overdue. While once it was unthinkable that I wouldn't see a new Star Wars movie in the theater, Disney has so oversaturated the market, much like it has with the Marvel universe, that now I'm not in such a rush to see new films on the big screen. Solo, based on its premise and its replacement of Ford in the title role, didn't inspire a rush to buy tickets.

So I waited for a video release, and got it as soon as Netflix had a copy to offer. It was worth the wait, and yet I don't feel like I missed much by waiting.

The first part of the movie could be called Oliver Twist in Space, as Han and Qi'ra lead a hardscrabble life, stealing to survive and dreaming of better days. The starting setup is a slight twist on the Jabba plot from the first movie, but it changes things up soon enough.

Han escapes their hard-luck life on Corellia but Qi'ra doesn't. You know that's going to haunt him, right?

The film spends a lot of screen time filling in the blanks in Han Solo's backstory. Where did he get such an on-point last name? How did he end up in imperial service before becoming a smuggler? How did he meet Chewbacca? (It's not how I expected.) How did he meet Lando Calrissian, and how did he win the Millenium Falcon from him?

After deserting from the space force, Han ends up with a merry bunch of smugglers and thieves led by Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and also including Val (Thandie Newton), Rio Durant (voiced by Jon Favreau) and, eventually, Chewie (now played by Joonas Suotamo). They end up in debt to a crimelord, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), who reintroduces Qi'ra to the plot and sends the team scurrying to Lando (Donald Glover) for help before setting off for the spice mines of Kessel for, you know, crime.

There are a lot of nice touches, such as the use of the soundtrack's famous "Imperial March" on a recruitment ad for stormtroopers and a scene that clearly shows, beyond all reach of remastering, that Han shot first. There's a brief droid rebellion, incited by Lando's mechanical co-pilot L3-37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), that leaves viewers wondering if droids are more slaves than companions after all.

There aren't big stakes in this movie, so don't go looking for the high drama of any previous Star Wars films. Nothing here is going to shake the galaxy to its core; it's a heist film, and a buddy film, but it's not a Star War, as such. Still, it's a fun cruise through the galaxy with a notable rogue -- and it does finally explain what Han meant when he said he made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.