New 'Solo' Star Wars Theory Would Forever Change the Millennium Falcon

A new theory emerging about the famed Millennium Falcon’s origins in Solo: A Star Wars Story, if true, could forever change how we look at the beloved light freighter.

On Tuesday, Alex Leadbeater at ScreenRant unleashed a complicated new theory about the upcoming Star Wars movie that would explain exactly what makes the Millennium Falcon so special: The ship’s computer might get harvested from Lando’s droid at some point during Solo.

As Leadbeater points out, diehard fans want “an explanation for how the Millennium Falcon’s computer works.” The ship itself can communicate directly with droids and has its own unique personality; that’s been the case since the very first Star Wars Movie.

In Empire Strikes Back, C-3PO “talks” to the Falcon to figure out what’s wrong with the hyperdrive. “I don’t know where your ship learned to communicate,” the anxious golden robot says, “but it has the most peculiar dialect.” The Last Jedi novelization also includes a scene in which R2-D2 converses with the ship and explains the Falcon’s unique personality:

“The Falcon had always been cantankerous, its three droid brains quarreling endlessly unless forced to work together,” a passage reads from R2’s perspective. The droid notes that “none of the brains could stand C-3PO,” which is something many of us can relate to. R2 also notes that one of the brains “had a fondness for both romantic gossip and dirty jokes,” which seems remarkably similar to the quirky sense of humor supposedly due from the newest Star Wars droid we’ll meet in Solo.

We don’t often get much characterization of the Millennium Falcon in any of the Star Wars movies, but if the ship itself has “three droid brains quarreling endlessly,” then that’s pretty noteworthy. That, coupled with its “cantankerous” personality, sounds an awful lot like what we’ve learned so far about Lando Calrissian’s copilot in Solo, the droid called L3-37.

Solo scriptwriter Jon Kasdan explained L3-37 as “a self-modified droid” that is “sort of a mutt, if you will, of various parts of different kinds of droids who has improved upon herself.”

Does that mean she could have three different droid brains?

These similar characterizations might be intentional, because this droid eventually becomes the Millennium Falcon. Maybe L3-37 sacrifices herself during Solo to enhance the Falcon’s computer processing just enough to save everyone? It would mirror K-2SO’s death in the other Star Wars Story we got with Rogue One (but to be fair, everybody died there). But this would be so much bigger, because it would mean that every time we’ve seen the Falcon on-screen, it was more like the Knight Rider car or TARDIS on Doctor Who, some kind of vessel with its own personality.

Jon Kasdan also explained that L3-37 has “a working relationship with Lando, and it’s very sophisticated and informed by years of working together.” So if theory pans out, it would also explain why Lando is so protective of the ship later in life: The ship itself is all that’s left of perhaps his closest friend in the galaxy.

Yeah, this theory’s pretty out there, but even in A New Hope, Han teased “special modifications” that were made to the ship, and there’s evidence throughout the original trilogy that the Falcon is more special than most ships in the galaxy.

Curiously enough, Solo director Ron Howard did tell Entertainment Weekly that the Falcon was “a character in the movie, without a doubt.” If this theory turns out to be true, then that comment takes on a whole new level of meaning.

Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters May 25, 2018.

Rewatch the trailer right here: