The Most Blatant Instances Of Star Wars Fan Service (That We Still Love)

The beginning of A New Hope opens with a standoff between Rebels and Stormtroopers inside a blockade runner. This Rebel blockade runner, the Tantive IV , is the ship that Princess Leia is using to try to flee from Darth Vader. But Vader isn't just trying to capture Leia; he's also trying to recapture the plans for the Death Star. So, when Disney's Rogue One came along to tell the story of how those plans were taken, the Tantive IV had to make an appearance.

In A New Hope , Vader only enters the Tantive IV after the shooting is over. Since it's the beginning of the film, we don't see Vader deploy his lightsaber skills and general Sith awesomeness until much later in the movie. But at the end of Rogue One , filmmaker Gareth Edwards had no reason to play it coy. This time, Vader boards the Rebel command ship and personally attempts to take the plans back. Along the way, he mows down a whole squad of helmeted commandos with a combination of Force throws, blaster deflections, and lightsaber slashes. The Tantive IV escapes to be captured later, but it was definitely fun to see Vader in action.

When we first meet Yoda, he's an ancient Jedi master over 900 years old, and well beyond his fighting days. Many fans watching The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi probably had a similar thought: "Did Yoda ever use a lightsaber?" When George Lucas made the prequels, he provided the answer: "Yes, Yoda definitely did use a lightsaber. And yes, it's everything you ever wanted." 

At the end of Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are having a lightsaber fight with the powerful renegade Jedi Count Dooku who fights them both off. With Obi-Wan and Anakin reeling, it's up to Yoda to stop the Count. Dooku barely escapes with his life as the pint-sized Jedi runs circles around him. This scene probably would have been impossible to execute during the first trilogy, what with Yoda being a puppet, but CGI Yoda was more than up to the task. 

Epic, it was. 

Star Wars takes place in a galaxy with a potentially endless amount of exotic planets and destinations. So when a Star Wars property decides to return to places we've been before, it can rub some fans the wrong way. This is how many fans felt about episode five of the first season of The Mandalorian .

In it, the unnamed Mandalorian and the Child need to repair their ship, the Razor Crest, so they head to the nearby desert planet of Tatooine - AKA the most visited planet in the entire Star Wars saga. And not only does the episode take place on Tatooine, it visits many of the same locations and characters we've met before. The Mandalorian meets the same pit droids seen in The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith. He goes to the same Mos Eisley Cantina visited by Luke and Obi-Wan. The Mandalorian's ally for the episode, Toro Calican, is sitting in the same booth where Han sat, with his feet up on the table just like Han's were. Later, the Mandalorian and Calican even run into some Tuscan Raiders, who went after Luke in A New Hope.

To some fans, this episode felt like a retread. But to others, it was welcome. Since The Mandalorian takes place after the events of Return of the Jedi, plenty of fans wanted to see how things have changed since the conflict ended. The canina now allows droids inside. We see the Mandalorian communicate with the Raiders, who were previously depicted as aggressive marauders. And based on all the Stormtrooper helmets stuck on sharpened sticks, things haven't gone so great for the Empire on Tatooione.

The first time Luke Skywalker meets Han Solo in A New Hope, Han talks up both his qualifications as a pilot and the speed of his ship, The Millennium Falcon. "It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!" Han explains to Luke. The line doesn't really make sense - many fans have pointed out over the years that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time - but all the audience needs to know from the line is that Han is a really good pilot. 

So, when Disney announced a movie about Han Solo's origins, Solo: A Star Wars Story, it was inevitable that we'd see how Han's legendary Kessel Run went down. According to the new canon established in Solo, the Kessel Run is a convoluted route leading out of the mines of Kessel. It's normally twenty parsecs long, but Han takes a shortcut. By piloting the Falcon through a gravity well called "The Maw," he does it in 12, thus securing lifetime bragging rights. 

Star Wars fans love to debate, and one of the longest-running Star Wars debates has been about whether Han fired at Greedo first, or whether it was the other way around. In A New Hope , Han is accosted by a bounty hunter named Greedo who plans to turn him over to Jabba the Hutt. In the first cut of the film, George Lucas has Han shoot Greedo under the table to save himself. But in the 1997 re-release, Lucas edited the scene so that Greedo fired first, and Han fired in self-defense. To fans, this moment defines Han's entire character. Either he's a scoundrel who pre-emptively eliminate a threat, or he's an honorable hero who lets his opponent make the first move.

Solo: A Star Wars Story attempts to resolve the question once and for all. At the end of the film, the young Han is facing off against his former mentor, Tobias Beckett. Beckett has taught Han never to trust anyone, and to emphasize the lesson, he's just betrayed Han. While Beckett is trying to explain himself, Han shoots him down mid-sentence. According to co-writer Jonathan Kasdan, this was intentional: “So that the actors knew, and so everyone involved knew, it was explicitly written in the description: ‘There can be no question that Han shoots first.'” Before he ever meets Greedo, it's clear that Han is willing to do whatever it takes to survive.

One of the obstacles George Lucas faced when making the prequels was how to make the story exciting even though the audience ultimately knew the outcome. For example, Attack of the Clones details how Obi-Wan Kenobi trained Anakin Skywalker to become a Jedi. We already knew from A New Hope that Anakin ultimately goes over to the dark side. So, how do you make the story compelling? 

One of Lucas's techniques was dramatic irony. While Obi-Wan and Anakin are hunting for the shapeshifting Zam Wesell, an exasperated Obi-Wan says to Anakin, "Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?" Of course, we the audience know that in the future, Anakin will become Darth Vader and will literally slay Obi-Wan. 

Is this an example of a character struggling with the awareness that his pupil may be beyond his teachings? Or is it on-the-nose pandering? Like most fan service, it depends who you ask.