Amy and I got a chance to see Solo: A Star Wars Story a few weeks ago. I’ll post a longer review on my personal website sometime, but something struck me while watching the film.

There are all these nuanced one-liners and scenes that refer back to the Original Trilogy. They are packed throughout the movie, and for the most part they work. I really enjoyed them, but I’m also a huge Star Wars fan which brings up two huge questions.

Does the average fan catch all the inside jokes? Probably not. Maybe. Who knows? But this leads to the 2nd question…

Where’s the larger story that Solo is supposed to connect to? This is the biggest problem with the movie. There’s no larger story that ties it all together. It’s a heist/action/buddy film that uses the Star Wars universe for context. So all the one-liners and nods to the larger Star Wars universe is, for the most part, lost.

The bigger point is, if you don’t have a grander story, all this other stuff is…pointless.

In a way, all of this reminds me of the series we are currently in – The Kingdom. If you don’t understand the grander story Jesus was talking about, the parables are kind of cool stories, but…what’s the point?

The point of the parables was not to make moral people or good leaders. The point of the parables was for the hearers to choose to engage and be a part of a new reality. A reality where Jesus gets the last word and He then begins to make things on earth as it is in Heaven, starting first and foremost with our own hearts.

The Kingdom is about seeing the reality of Jesus in our own lives first. Then He uses the transformed Christ-follower to continue to make things on earth as they are in Heaven. His Kingdom come.