Star Wars Episode 9 - 8 Most Outlandish Fan Theories

3. Han Solo Returns Via Time Travel

Han Solo Return Of The Jedi shrug
Lucasfilm

Kevin Smith is known for his love of all things geeky, with Star Wars being a particular soft spot for the 47-year-old filmmaker. And, just like any fan, he's often guilty of letting his passion for the material trump all reasonable thought, like in this case.

Prompted by the news that Billy Dee Williams would be returning as Lando in Episode IX, Smith took to Twitter and theorised that his addition to the cast could spark a time-travel-infused sequence where the film returns to the scene of Han's death on Starkiller Base.

The short version: Han Solo returns thanks to time travel.

Why It's Outlandish: Harrison Ford originally wanted Solo to die in Return Of The Jedi, and a big part of his decision to appear in The Force Awakens (besides money) was to finally kill the character off. He's never been as interested in Han as everyone else is, and there's no way he'd return for another movie.

And while time travel does exist in the Star Wars universe, it's a TV-exclusive thing, and using it too much could cause many problems - one being that fans would start clamouring for all sorts of characters to return. "Why can't you go back in time and save Qui-Gon? Luke? Mace Windu? Obi-Wan?"

But hey, at least we have Alden Ehrenreich... right? Guys?

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!