Despite the fact that it really was a great film, it is pretty likely that in a fair few years, Solo is going to be remembered as one of the weakest of Disney’s live-action Star Wars films. It wasn’t exactly a box office bomb, but it was no reason for the conglomerate to celebrate, either.
They still love their fan service, though, and made sure to hide various Easter eggs amongst the tale of Han Solo’s exciting upbringing.
The Reason Behind The Name
This particular Easter egg wasn’t one we ever really needed. Nobody had ever asked, “ooh but why is he called Solo?” Everyone just assumed it was his second name, just like Luke’s was Skywalker. Apparently not, according to this film.
As Han is signing up for the Imperial Academy as a youngster, he is asked for his affiliation. When he doesn’t have one and the officer realizes he is alone, he decides to jot down: Han Solo. Great.
Corellia
This isn’t so much an Easter egg, but an inevitability. The long since referenced home planet of Han Solo had never actually been seen on screen before Solo. It wasn’t mentioned by name in the original trilogy, and only had passing references in detailed expanded universe stuff like The Clone Wars, but during the scenes of Han’s early life, we finally got to lay eyes on it. It ended up being pretty bleak, like a massive industrial estate. Maybe we didn’t really need to see it.
The Dice
Although they actually are visible in the original trilogy, Han’s cool metal dice are never focused on or seem to have a particular significance. This all changes in The Last Jedi (released just a year before Solo) when Luke gives them to Leia just before facing off with Kylo Ren. In Solo, we are treated to a bit of backstory. The opening scene sees Han hang them in his speeder before giving them to Qi’ra as a gift. Eventually, she gives them back to him just before he attempts the Kessel Run.
The Kessel Run
Speaking of The Kessel Run, Solo makes yet another attempt to fix something that didn’t really need fixing. Han brags about making The Kessel Run in 12 parsecs during the original trilogy, but lovers of plot holes were keen to point out that a parsec is a unit of distance, rather than time.
Solo chucks in a nice bit of fan service to those eagle-eyed viewers, essentially making their years of complaining wrong. When Han makes The Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, he actually uses a shortcut, making the Run itself shorter in distance, thus making parsecs a very valid unit of measurement.
Anthony Daniels
As the only person to appear in every single Star Wars film, it was only right to allow Anthony Daniels a quite cameo in Solo. They managed to plant C-3PO and R2D2 into Rogue One quite well, but it didn’t come so easy in Solo. As such, Daniels plays a slave called Tak, who is friends with a Wookie named Sagwa. He doesn’t have much of an impact on the plot, but it is nice to see him pop up in every theatrical Star Wars release.
Warwick Davis
Another actor who is particularly familiar in the Star Wars world is Warwick Davis. He was, of course, just a child when he embodied the Ewok called Wicket, but almost forty years later he returned in human form.
The thing that turns this into an even more incredible Easter egg is that we had seen this character before. In Solo, Davis’ character was called Weazel; this is the same name as the character he played in The Phantom Menace, who stood near Anakin on Tatooine all those years ago. Small galaxy!
“Move Along”
When Obi-Wan, Luke, C-3PO and R2D2 are moving through Mos Eisley, the stormtroopers give the command for them to “move along”. This must be quite a common phrase amongst The Emperor’s evil guards because the exact same words come from a stormtrooper over at a Corellian spaceport.
“I Know”
When you’ve got a franchise as well-loved and iconic as Star Wars at your feet, it is understandable that there will be a few particularly enduring lines of dialogue. One of them comes from the mouth of Han Solo himself, as he tells Leia, “I know” when she explains that she loves him.
A great call-back to this iconic line comes when Lando says, “I hate you” to Solo, who gives that charmingly dismissive “I know” straight back.
Musical Motifs
Star Wars XI may be the final Star Wars film that the incomparable John Williams is ever going to score, but he had already decided against contributing to Rogue One or Solo in any detailed capacity. He did provide ‘The Adventures Of Han’, but otherwise, the music of the film was left in the capable hands of John Powell. That isn’t to say that Powell was forced into a corner in which he could only compose new music. In fact, that isn’t the case at all. With so many incredible themes from across the history of the franchise, Powell draws on many of Williams’ motifs. Be on the lookout for these references, from the incredibly subtle, to note-by-note replaying.
Darth Maul
The inclusion of Darth Maul barely counts as an Easter egg by this point. If you didn’t notice it, then you must have quite literally not been in the room, because it ends up being the most impactful set piece of the film. If you didn’t understand it, then you haven’t seen The Phantom Menace, and as such, that does indeed allow it to count as an Easter egg.
The very fact that Darth Maul is even alive should only make sense to those who had seen The Clone Wars, though. Brought back to life through his hatred of Obi-Wan and fuelled by a pair of spider legs, Maul was certainly canonically alive at this point in the series’ canon, and his appearance was, quite frankly, a stroke of genius.
