How Han Solo could return in Star Wars Episode IX

Once you fall in love with a character, it’s hard to let them go. Fans are still holding onto hope that Han Solo didn’t actually die on Starkiller Base.

Is Han Solo really dead? We saw him take a (probably) critical blow to the chest at the blade of his son’s lightsaber.

And if that didn’t kill him, the fall – and the absolute obliteration of Starkiller Base shortly thereafter – (probably) did.

Or did it?

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The character may not have appeared in The Last Jedi. But that absence has left fans plenty of time to formulate theories as to how the character could return in Episode IX.

It all started in 2016, when Jimmy Kimmel asked Harrison Ford whether he knew if the character would return to the franchise, the actor, of course, dodged the question.

Technically, he could have been alluding to the forthcoming Solo film. The character of Han Solo did appear in another movie after The Force Awakens, even though Ford didn’t portray him and the film took place decades earlier in the franchise’s storyline. But still.

He wouldn’t be the first Star Wars character to survive direct lightsaber contact and an apparent fall to the death. Darth Maul got chopped in half and he still made it off Naboo alive.

Granted, Naboo didn’t explode. But we never saw a body, and look what happened.

Here’s the hope fans are clinging to. Their theories aren’t totally impossible.

He fell into a ‘time warp’

Star Wars doesn’t play with time travel the way many other science fiction and fantasy stories do. But some fans speculate that because Starkiller Base was using dark matter to power its offenses, it actually tore a hole in time and space … and Han fell right through it.

He’s totally out there somewhere. And what’s left of the Resistance is going to find him. Right?

It’s Cloud City all over again

Luke Skywalker almost fell to his death in The Empire Strikes Back. But thanks to Leia’s then-unknown Force abilities, the Millennium Falcon arrived just in time to save him.

Maybe she sensed Han was in trouble and rescued him just in time. And she had to “fake” a funeral and all that grief to protect him.

Where is he now? Stiill hiding in his ship’s super-secret cargo hold? It could happen.

Leia did say the Resistance has everything they need “right here.”

He survived the sub-zero temperatures of space and … what?

Han Solo survived carbon-freezing. His wife used the Force to survive in space for a few minutes. By Star Wars logic, at least some of this Reddit user’s theory makes sense. Or all of it. Did anything Mortis-related really make sense? Did it have to?

Comment from discussion Trispar’s comment from discussion "Is Han Solo still alive?".

The internet is a beautiful place. All the upvotes for space-hibernating-actually-a-Jedi-Solo.

And finally, the most plausible theory …

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He’ll appear in a flashback

Or one of Kylo Ren’s force visions, or something.

Ford has shown zero interest in playing Solo again … as a full cast member. He could stand to be on set for a day to appear in Episode IX for, like, 30 seconds, right?

Give us a one-line voiceover. A five-second cameo. Something.

Episode IX hits theaters on December 20, 2019.

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