SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY - EASTER EGGS, TRIVIA, AND THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
Disclaimer: I did not find all of these easter eggs myself. I watched many Youtube videos and read many articles and gathered the best easter eggs and connections to the Star Wars movies and I compiled them into one organized post. SPOILER WARNING FOR SOLO! Enjoy!
In the movie, there is a reference to the Hutt Cartel, which is an obvious reference to Jabba the Hutt. Speaking of Jabba, Beckett also talks about leaving Savareen for a job set up by a big Tatooine gangster, referring to Jabba the Hutt. While we don’t see Jabba himself in this film, we know from the original trilogy that Han will eventually get into big trouble with him, which we could possibly see if Solo gets a sequel.
Kessek, The Kessel Run, & The Maw
Kessel has been a famous planet in the Star Wars universe long before this movie, as it is the first planet name spoken aloud ever in Star Wars when C-3PO mentions the spice mines of Kessel in the opening minutes of A New Hope, and it is known for “The Kessel Run”, a 18/20-parsec route out of the Kessel mainly used by smugglers.
What makes the Kessel Run so dangerous is that it’s enclosed in a nebula that has Lovecraftian monstrosities and black holes in it, and has been known to be a 20 parsec route (Kessel’s surrounding is called The Maw in both Legends and Solo).
In A New Hope, Han brags about his famous accomplishment of making the Kessel Run with the Millennium Falcon in under 12 parsecs, and we actually get to see it happen in Solo. He basically took a shortcut. This film also confirms that “parsec” is not a measurement of time, but a unit of space.
“I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This”
“I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This” is a line said in all of the Star Wars films, but have known to be twisted or altered in the anthology films. In Solo, Han says “I’ve got a really GOOD feeling about this” during the Kessel Run heist, and in Rogue One, K2SO is cut-off just before completing the line.
The dice first made their appearance in a single scene in A New Hope, and were very prominent in Solo. We see it in the very first scene of Solo, seeing Han hang the dice inside a stolen speeder, and later giving it to Qi’ra as they’re being separated on Corellia; she later regifts it to him before the Kessel Run, and it becomes an essential part of their relationship as they both see it as a token of luck, and a reminder of each other & their bond. A scene was cut from The Force Awakens of Han re-hanging the dice in the Millennium Falcon, however we do see the dice in The Last Jedi, representing Han’s absence and death.
Han Kicked Out of the Academy
When Han meets Beckett and Val, he says that he was kicked out of the Academy, which borrows directly from his Legends origin (expanded universe, not canon). In the old Expanded Universe, Han was also in the Empire, but was kicked out after fighting back when he sees the Imperial Army mistreating Wookiees…which, in the old books, is also how he met Chewbacca!
In the film, we see how the iconic duo meet, which is through Han’s imprisonment, and them fighting before hatching a plan to escape, which is quite different to many fan theories and adaptations of their first meeting in the non-canon Star Wars expanded universe, which sees Han as an Imperial officer freeing Chewie from slavery.
When Solo meets Lando for the first time, Han asks him: “Can I ask you a question, captain Calrissian?”, to which Lando answers: “Anything, Hen!”; Han then answers back saying: “It’s HAN, but it’s okay!” This references the way actor Billy Dee Williams says Han Solo name in the original trilogy, as “Hen”.
Lando says to Han, “I hate you”, to which Han replies, “I know.” This is a play on Han’s infamous I love you/I know scene with Leia in Empire.
John Williams only composed one track for Solo, but composer John Powell included many musical references and motifs from Williams’ work on the previous Star Wars films, including “The Imperial March” and “Asteroid Field”.
The planet Scarif is mentioned when Han and Beckett are trying to sell their coaxium plan to Vos, but considered it too dangerous to infiltrate. Scarif is the same place where Jyn Erso andthe rebels stole the Death Star plans in Rogue One.
Bossk, a lizard-like bounty hunter from The Clone Wars and Empire Strikes Back is mentioned by Val as a possible hire for the crew, and Aurra Sing, an ally to Bossk in The Clone Wars (who was also spotted in The Phantom Menace), is also mentioned, revealing that she was killed by Beckett.
At the end of the film when Han faces off against Beckett, Han shoots first, which is a callback to his scene with Greedo in A New Hope.
In the film, it’s revealed that “Solo” isn’t actually Han’s last name. When registering to be a pilot for the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet, and is given the last name Solo by the recruiting officer.
During the Kessel heist, Beckett wears armor to disguise himself, which looks exactly like the disguise Lando uses in The Return of the Jedi when infiltrating Jabba’s palace.
Qi’ra’s Fighting Techniques
In combat, Qi’ra practices Teras Kasi, a martial art style from the PS1 videogame Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi. This technique is also used by Snoke’s Praetorian guards in The Last Jedi.
Enfys Nest & the Cloud Riders
Enfys Nest’s crew, the Cloud Riders, take their name from a group of space pirates in the Marvel Star Wars comic who are violent outlaws that raid and pillage local villages, which is what we’re led to believe about them in the film, before we find out the truth. Among Enfys Nest’s crew is also a minor character from Rogue One, Two Tubes, who was a Saw Gerrera loyalist.
Warwick Davis, who played the Ewok Wicket in Return of the Jedi, and had roles/cameos in all Star Wars films since The Force Awakens. In Solo, he reprises his role from The Phantom Menace as Weazel, a member of Enfys Nest’s Cloud Riders.
Anthony Daniels is the actor who has been playing C3PO since A New Hope, and though the lovable protocol droid and R2D2 don’t appear in Solo (the first live action Star Wars film not to have a cameo of the lovable duo), Daniels is in the film, as Tak, a human who is enslaved with the Wookies in the Kessel mines, and there is a droid similar to R2D2 in the Kessel scenes as well. Anthony Daniels is the only actor to appear in every single Star Wars film.
In a surprise cameo and twist, Maul appears towards the end of the film via hologram when Qi’ra contacts him after killing Vos. Remember, Solo takes place AFTER The Phantom Menace (since we know Han is younger than Anakin), and in Star Wars canon, he has been known to be alive after TPM, as seen in the Clone Wars animated series; so, when we see him in Solo, post Episode 1, Maul is the leader of the criminal organization Crimson Dawn, and has a robotic lower half of his body due to his fight with Obi Wan in TPM. The Maul cameo reveals that Vos was working for Darth Maul, and due to Vos’ death and the failure of the mission, Qi’ra replaces Vos’ position in the crime syndicate. Ray Park reprises his role as Maul.
The office of Dryden Vos contains very cool Easter eggs:
the idol Indiana Jones grabs in the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Harrison Ford and Lucasfilm reference)
Mandalorian armor (the armor of Boba Fett’s people - this is important because in the Clone Wars series, which is canon, Darth Maul became the ruler of Mandalore).
a crystal skull, a nod to Xim the Despot from the Legend novel, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy
In Solo we finally see Han’s home planet of Corellia, a planet only hinted at in the original trilogy and the animated shows. It is the same planet his future ship, the Millennium Falcon, was built in, it being a modified Corellian freighter.
In Solo we’re introduced to L3-37, a special droid that seems to have grown and developed beyond any original programming by modifying herself in various ways. She is Lando’s droid companion and his navigator, and upon her death in the film, we see that her final fate is to be trapped within the programming of the Millennium Falcon for navigation. This is also perhaps callback to a scene in Empire Strikes Back when C3PO says "Sir, I don’t know where your ship learned to communicate, but it has the most peculiar dialect.”
Mimban is the swamp-like planet where Han is sent into battle with Imperial troops, and where he meets Chewbacca and Beckett, and its appearance in Solo is a reference to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Mimban was a planet that was in the very first Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (not canon), and the story for that novel was adapted from an unused story draft of Empire Strikes Back, following Luke & Leia on a mission to find the “Kaiburr crystal,” a powerful “Force object.” Since the planet was cut from the story, the swamp set designs were re-purposed to in the making of Dagobah. Mimban has also been mentioned in The Clone Wars TV show, but this is the planet’s first appearance.
Tatooine is perhaps the most famous planet we know from the Star Wars universe, as it is the planet where the epic saga began, and home to Luke Skywalker. In Solo, Beckett mentions to Han that he’s thinking of going to a Tatooine gangster (Jabba the Hutt) before double-crossing him with Vos, and at the very end of the film, after acquiring the Millennium Falcon, Han and Chewbacca leave for Tatooine, where “a gangster is putting together a crew for a heist”….
Sabacc is the card game played between Han and Lando (basically space poker) and how Han won the Millennium Falcon from Lando. The first time Sabacc was ever mentioned was in an early draft of Empire Strikes Back, when Han says that Lando won Cloud City in a "sabacca" game. The first mention of Sabacc as we now know it is in a non-canon novel from 1983 titled “Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu”, and would later be part of the official canon in the 2014 novel A New Dawn, which is a prequel to the Rebels animated series.
Swoop bikes are the motorcycles of Tatooine, as seen ridden by Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones (they are different to Speeders, which we see in Return of the Jedi). In Solo, Enfys Nest rides a vehicle that like a Swoop bike modified with pod-racing parts (pod-racing was also featured in The Phantom Menace). The bikes were first introduced in non-canon Shadows of the Empire novel/comic/video games, and because Shadows was being developed at the same time as the Special Edition re-releases of A New Hope, they were digitally added to the film, with a swoop bike gang member riding it through Mos Eisley.
Tag and Bink are two characters from the Dark Horse Star Wars Comics, which are no longer canon. Solo co-writer Jonathan Kasdan, who plays Tag (as seen from Ron Howard’s tweet), said that they appear in a scene that was deleted from the final cut of the film, showing Han’s training at the Imperial Academy.
Lando references doing business for Dryden Vos on Felucia, a planet that appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith, where the Jedi Aayla Secura was killed after Palpatine enacted Order 66.
Darth Maul tells Qi’ra to go to Dathormir, his home planet and the first appearance of the Nightsisters in season three of Clone Wars.
In the film, The Pyke Syndicate, one of the oldest business, criminal, and underworld organizations in the galaxy, operates the Kessel mines, who were first canonized in The Clone Wars show. They were part of Maul’s Shadow Collective (a sort of United Nations of crime in the galaxy which operated for a very short period of time) and also responsible for killing Sifo-Dyas, the name the Kaminoans give in Attack of the Clones for the person who ordered the creation of the clone army.
Sharu, Oseon, and Starcave Nebula
While Han and Beckett work on the Kessek heist, Lando stays aboard the Millennium Falcon to record “The Lando Calrissian Chronicles”, which are stories of his adventures. He mentions Sharu, a reference to the title of a novel about Lando’s adventures, “Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu”, and mentions of Oseon and the Starcave nebula are references to the novel trilogy “The Lando Calrissian Adventures”.
Chewbacca ripping arms off
In Solo, Chewbacca rips off the arms of a guard during the Kessel, and in A New Hope, Han mentions that when Wookiees lose, they rip off people’s arms, and in Solo is the first time we see it happen on screen.
When Han goes to Vos to give him the coaxium, Vos offers him a claw fish snack; we have seen this creature on Naboo in The Phantom Menace, attacking Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
Lady Proxima’s goons talk about getting portions, which is reminiscent of Rey getting portions from Unkar Plutt on Jakku as payment for her scavenged discoveries in The Force Awakens.
At Corellia’s spaceport, stormtroopers tell people, “Move along,” which is a callback to the stormtroopers on Mos Eisley telling the same to Obi Wan in A New Hope.
In Solo we see Han flunking out of the Imperial Naval Academy on Carida, and in Legends titles, Carida was home to a major military training establishment; another location appearing in Legends is Coronet City, the city where Han and Qi’ra go to leave Corellia.
In Solo, the word “moof-milker” is said, which is a direct callback to The Force Awakens when Han says “Some moof-milker installed a compressor on the ignition line!”
Viper probe droids kill Val, and they’ve made appearances multiple times throughout the Star Wars franchise, most notably on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.
Black Spire and Dok-Ondar
In the movie L3-37 says Lando couldn’t get to Black Spire without her, and Qi’ra comments on making sure Dok-Ondar, a guest of Dryden’s, is taken care of. Both Black Spire and Dok-Ondar are references to the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge areas at Disney Parks; Black Spire’s the name of the city and Dok-Ondar is a collector who will have a role in Galaxy’s Edge.
Rio Durant mentions a mynock roast; mynocks are the creatures that latched onto the Falcon in Empire Strikes Back.
Beckett tells Han about that he doesn’t want to end up with a price on his head, which foreshadows Han’s life, as its the same reason why he leaves the rebels in Empire Strikes Back, he tells General Rieekan there’s a price on his head.
During his showdown with Lady Proxima, Han threatens her with Thermal Detonator and even makes a clicking noise to “arm” the detonator. This is a callback to Leia threatening Jabba with a real Thermal Detonator in Return of the Jedi when she’s disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh.
Star Destroyers Built On Corellia
When Han and Qi’ra are on Corellia, large domes can be seen being pulled through the sky, which seem to be the shield generators from the command modules of the Empire’s Star Destroyers, which can be seen being built in the sky.
In Solo we see how Han got his iconic DL-44 blaster, from Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett during the campfire scene. There’s also a recreation of this shot from A New Hope.
During the campfire scene, Val talks about her dream team for the big job they have coming up and mentions “The Zan Sisters,” which is most probably a reference to Zu and Zan Pike from the expanded universe, twin criminals for hire originally introduced in the Shadows of the Empire novel. They are also connected to the Black Sun criminal organization run by Darth Maul.
As Val talks about her dream team around the fire, Tobias says he’ll retire to a distant planet and learn to play the Valahorn, which is a musical instrument found on Yavin 4 that was first introduced in the Star Wars video game Star Wars Galaxies.
Clint Howard & Cheryl Howard
Director Ron Howard usually includes his brother in his films, and he made an appearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story as the man running the droid fights that L3-37 is against. He also considers his wife his ‘good luck charm’ and tries to give her cameos in his films, and while her initial scene was cut from the film, she was digitally added to another scene later on.
The Decraniated are robotic humanoid creatures have the tops of their heads sliced off and were first introduced in Rogue One; in Solo, one is seen serving in Dryden Vos’ sky yacht. The backstory of the The Decrainated goes even deeper, as they were created by Dr. Cornelius Evazan (the pig-nosed man) who tries to fight Luke in the Cantina in A New Hope.
The Falcon’s Hiding Place
As Han and the crew loaded the Coaxium onto the Millennium Falcon, a shot lingers on the the cargo hold that they put it into. The cargo hold/hiding spot is the same place where Rey and Finn hid from Han and Chewie in The Force Awakens, and it’s the same spot where Han, Luke and the original crew hid from Stormtroopers during A New Hope.
We see Beckett introducing Chewie to the galactic holo-chess game, Dejarik. The Dejarik table on the Millennium Falcon famously appears in the original trilogy and The Force Awakens, with Chewie resuming his game in TFA from the original trilogy. And in the non-canon Star Wars Legends, Chewie is a prized Dejarik player and the one who asks Han to install the table on the Falcon.
Han is seen speaking to Chewie in the Wookie language. This is the first time a non-Wookie is seen speaking the language, as well as the first time the language is translated on screen with subtitles.
No Jedis, Skywalkers, or the Force
Solo is the first Star Wars movie that doesn’t mention Jedis, the Jedi Order, or anything related to Jedis at all, such as the Force, and doesn’t feature any character from the Skywalker bloodline.
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