Star Wars: The Last Jed — Is Han Solo dead?
By Zoe West
Han Solo has been one of the most magnetic characters in the Star Wars franchise. Will he somehow appear in Star Wars the Last Jedi?
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Han Solo set out on a journey trying to reunite with his son. When Ben Solo was sent to Luke’s Jedi academy he came under the influence of the dark side, and he turned on Luke and the others.
As the audience learned through The Force Awakens, Ben had shifted his allegiance to the Supreme Leader Snoke and became Kylo Ren. When Kylo and Han found each other on board Starkiller Base, Kylo used the opportunity to kill his father. Han was stabbed in the chest with a lightsaber and thrown off a (very) high bridge. Then the planet imploded. It’s pretty safe to say he would not have survived.
In the past, some characters who die join with the Force and can appear and communicate with the living. These apparitions, known as “Force ghosts,” appeared several times throughout the original trilogy. Obi Wan told Luke to flee and save himself after Vader killed him in A New Hope. He also helped convince Yoda to begin training Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, and he, along with Yoda and the Force ghost of Anakin Skywalker (post-redemption) showed up at the big celebration in Return of the Jedi.
While these characters have appeared in the past (and may do so in the future as well), the reason they have been able to do so is their connection with the Force. Han possessed no such connection, so he does not possess that ability. We get some moments with his lucky dice, still hanging from whatever the spaceship equivalent of a rearview mirror is, but that’s about it.
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Additionally, it has been known for some time that Harrison Ford supported the idea of killing Han in Return of the Jedi. Obviously that didn’t happen, but it seems likely that his death in The Force Awakens would have made the movie more appealing to him. Who knows, maybe he made that a condition in his agreement to reprise the character: “I’ll do one movie, but you had better give Han the death I’ve been asking for for over 30 years.”
The long and the short of it: Han Solo is still very, very dead.