The conversation in Obi-Wan’s hut probably has the most densely packed collection of these throwaway lines with canon backstories:
“[Anakin] was a navigator on a spice freighter” - The Twilight from The Clone Wars movie and a couple of episodes from the show.
“You fought in the Clone Wars?” - AotC, The Clone Wars movie and series, RotS
“For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire.” - pretty much everything before Order 66
Other throwaway lines with later explored backstories include:
“We’ll be sent to the spice mine of Kessel or smashed into who knows what!” - introduces both spice and the mines on Kessel
“We go way back, Lando and me.” - explored in Solo
Two throwaway lines that I’d like to see backstories for are:
“The bounty hunter we ran into in Ord Mantell changed my mind.”
“Many Bothans died to bring us this information” - Personally, I want this story to involve Mon Mothma having to go undercover and undergo the same type of transformative surgery that Obi-Wan underwent in the Clone Wars episode “Deception”. This would retcon how her appearance transforms from Genevieve O’Reilly in the prequels, to Caroline Blakiston in RotJ, and then back to Genevieve O’Reilly in the Ahsoka series without devaluing either actress’s performances.
[Edit: The specifics of how Obi-Wan got the nickname “Ben” would also be cool to see. We know it has to do with Satine somehow, but how did that nickname come about and why did he use it briefly in The Clone Wars series and after Order 66?]
[Edit: “I see you have constructed a new lightsaber” - How Luke got his green lightsaber is shown in a comic, but it still would be cool to see in live action or animation.]
The backstory of how Leia got the bounty hunter disguise from RotJ would also be nice to see beyond its presentation in the Forces of Destiny series.
The navigation computer did it. Parsecs are a measure of distance, so it really is just the computer being super accurate with its ability to plot a course and stay on it.
There were three explanations for the line.
1: (the correct one) Han was making shit up to impress a farm boy, as seen by Obi-Wan smirking at the lie.
2: (Lucas’s lie because the audience was dumb) It was a brag about how advanced the navigation computer is
3: (the EU fanon) it was a brag about the engines letting the Falcon cut distance travelled through the Maw.
The scene in Solo incorporated all three. The engines allow the Falcon to barely escape, the droid brain that is the nav computer plots a nearly impossible course, and Han still lies about it to Luke because the number he recounts is different from the line in A New Hope.
It was, quite honestly, a pretty impressive bit of fan theory unification.
I always assumed it was something like that; where even though it’s a unit of distance, they might not have a direct route to get somewhere, so being able to get there in a shorter distance just implies he found a more direct route.
That or because it’s a different galaxy, they simply have different units of measurement and in their galaxy a parsec is a unit of time. 🤷🏻♂️
But shit… Sounds like I hella need to see Solo 🤣
I didn’t want a Solo movie because everything I read in the EU did it for me and it felt like a cash grab. It was, BUT after watching it at home I realized it was a fun fucking movie and ended up loving it.
I suggest giving it a try.
Most yeehaw Star Wars has been since ep4
Solo is pretty decent, and the performances were not a weak point at all, but good lord they try to cram as much lore as possible into one plot. Still, definitely catch it sometime if you’re fond of Star Wars stuff.
Really it was the ghost of L3-37 who managed to do it.