Spoilers Han's dice

[WarpFactorZ]

After watching Solo, I realized it probably should have been called "Han's Dice: A Star Wars Story" since they go overboard hammering in their significance. However, I was wondering (particularly after watching TLJ): when exactly did the dice become a thing? They were never highlighted in the OT. I honestly never even saw them before TLJ.

Seems like an excuse to make something out of nothing (or rather, a marketing gimmick to sell Disney authorized Han Dice). I thought they at least played a role in how he won the Falcon, so he kept them as a memento. But that wasn't even the case.

 

[fireproof78]

After watching Solo, I realized it probably should have been called "Han's Dice: A Star Wars Story" since they go overboard hammering in their significance. However, I was wondering (particularly after watching TLJ): when exactly did the dice become a thing? They were never highlighted in the OT. I honestly never even saw them before TLJ.

Seems like an excuse to make something out of nothing (or rather, a marketing gimmick to sell Disney authorized Han Dice). I thought they at least played a role in how he won the Falcon, so he kept them as a memento. But that wasn't even the case.

They were a little Easter egg hanging inside the Falcon and just a fun nod.

I thought it was just a fun thing.

 

[Tuskin38]

The dice were in ANH but then vanished until TLJ.

the TLJ visual guide said they were used to win the Falcon

Spoiler

Except Han never used them in Solo

 

[Awesome Possum]

The dice were in ANH but then vanished until TLJ.

the TLJ visual guide said they were used to win the Falcon

Spoiler

Except Han never used them in Solo

They seemed like a good luck charm, you could say he had them on him at the time. I think the old canon was that he used them to win the Falcon and it probably just stuck around.

 

[Reverend]

The dice were in ANH but then vanished until TLJ.

the TLJ visual guide said they were used to win the Falcon

Spoiler

Except Han never used them in Solo

Not exactly, they showed up in TFA too. Indeed, there was a scene shot where Han hangs them back up in the cockpit, but it got deleted.

As for it's absence in ESB & RotJ: I think what they're going with is that these are Han's "lucky dice" and keeps them on his person when he's not flying a ship, so they don't always live in the cockpit. Indeed there's a very good possibility that they were on him when he was frozen in carbonite. That or Lando got a hold of them on Cloud City and returned them to him right before Endor.

 

[thribs]

All this fuss about the dice when they barely mentioned in the proper movies.

 

[Reverend]

The dice themselves aren't really that important. They're just there as a symbol; representing his aspirations and his promise to Qi'ra in Solo, his past self in TFA, and his memory in TLJ.

Similar examples in other movies include the picture of the wife/girlfriend in the cockpit of every WWII fighter/bomber pilot movie ever, Rose & Paige's medallions in TLJ, the flask in Predator, the "lucky gum" in 'The Rocketeer'. They all represent different things and a few of them even have some influence on the plot, but they primary function is always symbolic.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

The dice themselves aren't really that important. They're just there as a symbol; representing his aspirations and his promise to Qi'ra in Solo, his past self in TFA, and his memory in TLJ.

Right, so as I said above, the dice have turned from a background prop to a forefront symbol with a completely fabricated backstory.

 

[fireproof78]

Right, so as I said above, the dice have turned from a background prop to a forefront symbol with a completely fabricated backstory.

So, consistent with the rest of Star Wars? a lot of symbols have become far more important within the franchise, such as the Rebel symbol, Anakin's lightsaber, Mandalorian armor and the like.

 

[Reverend]

Right, so as I said above, the dice have turned from a background prop to a forefront symbol with a completely fabricated backstory.

So what of it? It's called "extrapolation". Also, it's fiction. *Everything* has a fabricated backstory.
Anakin and Obi-Wan's entire backstory with the Clone Wars and Palpatine was all just a little bit of background detail, that is until it was extrapolated into a whole trilogy of it's own. That's how ongoing story telling works.
Jabba was just a name dropped two or three times in ANH & ESB and then RotJ went and "fabricated" a whole thing abotu him being a giant slug with a palace questionable tastes in live entertainment.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

How the dice came to be was not the origin story I was looking for.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Jabba was just a name dropped two or three times in ANH & ESB and then RotJ went and "fabricated" a whole thing abotu him being a giant slug with a palace questionable tastes in live entertainment.

No, sorry, that's absolutely not the same. Jabba was always integral to Han's backstory in the OT. They didn't just "decide" to put him in ROTJ for the hell of it. He was in early versions of the ANH script. Jabba is why Han wasn't going to join the Rebellion in ANH, that's why Han was carbon frozen and taken back by Fett, etc....

Jabba = Dice. Seriously.

 

[Tuskin38]

He was in early versions of the ANH script.

They even filmed an entire scene with him. Lucas wanted to replace him with an alien, but they really couldn't figure out how to do that back in the 70s so it was cut.

It was added back with the SE with a CG Jabba, but the scene is redundant, because it basically repeats what Greedo and Solo talked about a couple scenes earlier.

 

[General_Phoenix]

They even filmed an entire scene with him. Lucas wanted to replace him with an alien, but they really couldn't figure out how to do that back in the 70s so it was cut.

It was added back with the SE with a CG Jabba, but the scene is redundant, because it basically repeats what Greedo and Solo talked about a couple scenes earlier.

Yeah, I can actually live without Jabba in ANH. It already feels like a long time before we leave Tatooine, and the Jabba scene only adds to it. Plus as a kid part of the fun, and mystic was not seeing Jabba until ROTJ. You hear his name a few times in ANH, and ESB, so it gets your imagination going, then the reveal in ROTJ. Same for the Emperor, original ESB you get a grainy hologram image, hard to make out details, then get to see him in the final act.

 

[yotsuya]

How can you be upset that they took the famous ANH cockpit dice and have used them in various ways. The were obviously Han's and if you missed them in ANH they still were there. I can't remember when I first saw them. And you're forgetting what Lucas and Ford's previous movie was. The dice were important to Han and he was a player in the Skywalker Saga and they aren't significant until TLJ because he is gone and the dice represent his memory in that movie. But when you give Solo his own movie, you have to have the dice.

 

[yotsuya]

Yeah, I can actually live without Jabba in ANH. It already feels like a long time before we leave Tatooine, and the Jabba scene only adds to it. Plus as a kid part of the fun, and mystic was not seeing Jabba until ROTJ. You hear his name a few times in ANH, and ESB, so it gets your imagination going, then the reveal in ROTJ. Same for the Emperor, original ESB you get a grainy hologram image, hard to make out details, then get to see him in the final act.

They changed Greedo's lines to cover some of the Jabba scene but when they added the Jabba scene back, they didn't change Greedo's lines back.

 

[General_Phoenix]

Jabba scene is just fan service, the scene ends with Boba Fett breaking the 4th wall, so Lucas knew what he was doing there. The 98 SE Jabba special effect wasn't that great either, it has gotten better with some of the updated releases though.

But the dice becoming a mcguffin is kind of interesting. Mainly because originally the dice were a joke in the '80s, because they disappear never to be seen again (and became a trivia question) now they hold a bit of significance we never knew before.

 

[Reverend]

I'm still waiting for a salient reason why they shouldn't have used the dice as a symbol of the character.

What should they have used in their stead? His blaster? His old jacket? No. The dice are the perfect symbol for a damn near pathological risk taker.

No, sorry, that's absolutely not the same. Jabba was always integral to Han's backstory in the OT. They didn't just "decide" to put him in ROTJ for the hell of it. He was in early versions of the ANH script. Jabba is why Han wasn't going to join the Rebellion in ANH, that's why Han was carbon frozen and taken back by Fett, etc....

Jabba = Dice. Seriously.

This may be difficult to grasp, but broad comparisons do not always translate to 1-to-1 equivalencies. Adjust your thinking accordingly.

And yes, again, they did "just decide" to put Jabba in there, it's just the decision was (provisionally) made when writing and editing ESB. The Jabba debt was something they didn't have to carry forward, they could easily have just assumed Han had paid that debt with his reward money as was his stated intention and not ever bring it up again.
Indeed, in early drafts, he was only mentioned in passing and not at all related to the plot. The major thing with Han was initially going to be some meeting with his long estranged quasi-adoptive father from whom the Rebellion needed a favour.

They however chose to build on what was a minor plot point in the first movie and carry it forward. (Remember, the Mos Eisley scene was still on the cutting room floor at that point and thus didn't need to figure into the decision.) Again: an extrapolation. RotJ built on it even further by actually showing us Jabba and bringing that thread to a close. Again, they didn't have to and again, in early drafts (when they weren't sure Ford would return) no Jabba to be found.

He only seems intrinsic to the trilogy in hindsight, but really he could have become just a passing mention at any point in the process. No more significant than the Kessel Run, the Clone Wars, Dantooine, the Battle of Taanab, the Bounty Hunter on Ord Mantell, or Ducain and the Irving Boys.

 

[fireproof78]

No, sorry, that's absolutely not the same. Jabba was always integral to Han's backstory in the OT. They didn't just "decide" to put him in ROTJ for the hell of it. He was in early versions of the ANH script. Jabba is why Han wasn't going to join the Rebellion in ANH, that's why Han was carbon frozen and taken back by Fett, etc....

Jabba = Dice. Seriously.

No. It's not that simple. Jabba could have just as easily not been there and ROTJ could have unfolded a lot differently.

 

[General_Phoenix]

But how? Without Jabba, Han's arc is incomplete and there is no resolution.