A fresh piece of gossip suggests that Lucasfilm may want to prop up the Han Solo standalone with the presence of Star Wars’ biggest and baddest.
Clearly, this week is the one where the stories surrounding the two nearest Star Wars movie are also about nostalgia. Earlier this week, it was for The Last Jedi. Now, it’s for Han Solo’s standalone film. CBR, citing That Hashtag Show, now claims that Darth Vader could show up.
Hey, it worked for Rogue One, right? Granted, CBR doesn’t quite take that angle, instead dutifully noting that this is all quite unofficial at this point.
Let’s game it out for a second. This one seems a little less credible than other known quantities in this film, though. For example, Lando Calrissian makes sense. However, Vader would pose a fairly serious question.
Why in the galaxy would a Sith Lord actually concern himself with a low-level smuggler working for a Tatooine-based crime lord? Yes, Jabba the Hutt mentions that the Galactic Empire concerns itself with smugglers in A New Hope. In fact, it’s why Han takes the fateful job ferrying Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker to Alderaan, because he owes Jabba money for not completing a job and the ensuing running clash with Boba Fett (and it’s how Leia infiltrates the palace two whole movies later).
Even though CBR does posit that it could just be “a cameo” rather than anything significant, if it’s happening, again, to use the favorite word of a certain character played by Leonard Nimoy in an entirely different universe of science fiction, it has to be “logical.”
Here’s a possible explanation. Maybe, just maybe, if the movie takes a nod from the Han Solo Trilogy, which is non-canon (for now), we could see Han spend some time in the Imperial military and thereby justify getting James Earl Jones into a recording booth, because you can’t just have Vader not say anything, sorry.
Next: Galactic Nights return to Hollywood Studios
Even then, though, it’d be a bit of a stretch. You can’t just dilute Darth Vader for the sake of having Darth Vader show up.