The Han Solo Easter Egg You May Have Missed In The Last Jedi
"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is known for a great many things. But for the sake of avoiding arguments, let's just leave it at being the second entry in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy that arrived following Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. The movie had to accomplish an awful lot, picking up where director J.J. Abrams left off in the incredibly successful "The Force Awakens," which hit theaters in 2015. That movie, as fans are well aware, killed off Harrison Ford's Han Solo in devastating fashion. As such, he wasn't able to appear in director Rian Johnson's follow-up. But he was there in spirit right alongside the Resistance, as evidenced by a pretty neat Easter egg that was, to say the least, rather well-hidden.
The Easter Egg In Question
The Easter egg shows up pretty early on in "The Last Jedi," during the opening scene that sees the Resistance attempting to bomb a First Order Dreadnought out of existence. The scene is harrowing and action-packed with many moving parts It also features perhaps one of the best line readings ever in a "Star Wars" movie, with Captain Canady (Mark Lewis Jones) saying "Fire on the base!" with admirable passion and believability. So much so that it inspired this remix that is, as the kids might say, fire.
But I digress. During this sequence, Resistance ships carrying lots and lots of bombs make their way to the gigantic starcruiser in an attempt to hit it in the sweet spot. At one point, we catch a shot of these round bombs, and one has a bit of writing on it that might otherwise go unnoticed by viewers, especially since it is written in the fictional language Aurebesh, which is a commonly seen fictional text in the franchise. On one of these bombs, a message reads "Han says hi." Yes, one of the bombs that knocked out a massive asset to the First Order had a little message from Captain Solo on it.
Rian Johnson Confirmed It
An Easter egg such as this doesn't carry all that much weight unless it is confirmed as an intentional choice by the filmmaker. Without that, it could just be fans reading too much into something, as "Star Wars" fans are very much capable of doing. I say that as a fan who has read too much into things many times before, and will continue to do so in the future. In any event, this little reference was absolutely intentional, as it was confirmed by Johnson in a roundabout, tip-of-the-cap sort of way.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 25, 2021
As we can see, a fan spotted this Easter egg and decided to bring it up on Twitter, tagging Johnson in his post. Johnson replied confirmed the validitiy of the Han Solo nod, sharing a GIF of the scruffy-looking nerf herder giving a salute.
Justice for Han
In many cases, Easter eggs are just fun little references for the eagle-eyed fans who notice them. It doesn't hurt to miss them, and the scene in "The Last Jedi" works perfectly will without knowing that "Han says hi" is written on one of the bombs. That being said, since Han wasn't able to appear in the movie, given that Kylo Ren killed him in "The Force Awakens," this one might carry a bit more emotional weight.
The fact of the matter is, no matter how much he resisted it, Han Solo was a massive part of the Rebellion and, for a time, the Resistance. He was a key player in bringing peace to the galaxy. This is, in part, why Rey is so infatuated with him when they meet in "The Force Awakens." The fact that Han couldn't be there to help Leia and the Resistance in person hurt. But his spirit was there in that battle, with the captain of the Millennium Falcon sending his regards to Snoke and the rest of the First Order. That's a different kind of justice for Han that we can totally get behind.