Solo: A Star Wars Story - 10 Best Callbacks To The Original Saga Explained
3. The Kessel Run
In the first act of 1977's A New Hope, Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi meet Han Solo and Chewbacca in the cantina, looking to hire him as a pilot for their trek to Alderaan. When Ben asks if the Millennium Falcon is a fast ship, Han boasts that "it's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs."
This statement has generated debate among Star Wars fans ever since, considering that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time.
Some wrote it off as simply being an error on George Lucas' part, whereas other have presented the theory that Han managed to pull off the Kessel Run in a shorter distance by using unorthodox methods, cutting corners, or both.
As Solo tells us, it was the latter all along.
The Kessel Run is apparently a very notorious and very dangerous route that Han and company are forced to take as their escape route following their big heist. When a Star Destroyer blocks their path, Han is forced to improvise, taking a shortcut that very nearly gets them all killed. Ultimately, however, Han's piloting skills prevail.
As Lando points out, no one has ever completed the Kessel Run in less than twenty parsecs. But once all is said and done, Han brags that they did it in twelve. Chewie attempts to correct him, before Han adds that he's rounding down.
In other words, Han was stretching the truth a bit in A New Hope (which should be expected from him by now), but definitely wasn't outright lying.