– The droids duking it out in the fighting pit are GNK power droids, better known as “gonk droids” because of the distinctive noises they make.

– The droid fighting pit could be a reference to robot combat shows like Robot Wars and BattleBots. L3-37 would HATE those shows.

– The six-eyed alien that is trying to peek at Han’s cards during the first sabacc game is an Azumel named Argus “Six Eyes” Panox. He is a reference to the “many-eyed” giant from Greek mythology named Argus Panoptes. Also, don’t the Azumel sorta resemble the three-eyed Gran?

– Classic Star Wars species who appear in Solo include Twi’leks, Wookiees, and Trandoshans.

– The planet Kessel, best known for its harsh conditions and mines operated by slave labor, has been around since the very beginning of Star Wars. Kessel was first mentioned by C-3PO in A New Hope and has subsequently appeared several times in the Expanded Universe.

In George Lucas’ Journal of the Whills outline for what would eventually become A New Hope, Kessel appeared as a star system called “Kissel,” which contained the planet Utapau (you may remember it from Revenge of the Sith as General Grievous’ final resting place).

Kessel first appeared in the flesh in a comic strip published by Los Angeles Times Syndicate called “The Second Kessel Run.” You guessed it: it’s about Han and Chewie attempting a second run through the dangerous smuggling route.

– In the Legends timeline, Kessel was the home of a huge spice mining operation (this was totally ripped from classic 1965 sci-fi novel Dune by Frank Herbert). However, it seems that coaxium is Kessel’s main export in Solo.

– The Kessel Run, the infamous smuggling route, was also first mentioned in A New Hope by Han while boasting about the Millennium Falcon. The route is 18 parsecs long.

– It should also be noted that parsecs are a unit of distance, not speed, in the real world. The original line from A New Hope is “It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs,” which would indicate that parsecs are a unit of speed. George Lucas later explained in the Star-Words letters section of Marvel’s Star Wars #6 (1977) that the error was a hint that Han was lying about the Falcon’s exploits while negotiating with Luke and Obi-Wan.

According to Wookieepedia, writer Kevin J. Anderson later retconned the explanation, turning parsecs into a valid unit of distance in terms of the Kessel Run:

“The Kessel Run is through the Maw. Event horizons around black holes are dependent on the speed at which you are traveling. A standard ship has to do the run in eighteen parsecs because to cut the route any closer, the ship would get sucked in. The Falcon, however, is fast enough to straighten the route and cut over six parsecs off the distance traveled.”

Okay, that’s enough about the parsecs…

– The rescue/revolt scenes in the spice mines are reminiscent of those in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which features Indy saving children from slave labor at the hands of the evil Kali cult.

– Droids featured in the revolt on Kessel include both astromech and protocol droids.

– Speaking of droids, this is the first Star Wars movie to not feature C-3PO or R2-D2, who even popped up briefly in Rogue One.

– Scarif is also mentioned in passing. This tropical planet first appeared in Rogue One. Jyn Erso and the other Rebels infiltrate Scarif in order to steal the plans to the Death Star.

– Savareen, the final planet introduced in the movie, first appeared in a West End Games role-playing publication, Star Wars Journal 9, in 1996. In both the old and new canon, the planet is known for is brandy.

– John Powell is only the third composer to score a live-action Star Wars movie (John Williams and Michael Giacchino are the other two, of course). His excellent score features a few homages to Williams’ original music, including sections of “TIE Fighter Attack,” “The Asteroid Field,” and the “Main Title” theme. All of these musical cues are just exquisite.

– You can also hear a slightly modified version of “The Imperial March” in the recruitment video for the Imperial Academy on Corellia.

– Warwick Davis, who first played Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi, makes a cameo in Solo, reprising his cameo role from The Phantom Menace, Weazel, who was first introduced as a thief and member of the Hutt gang on Tatooine. He’s become a spy and Enfys Nest’ lieutenant since then.

– Clint Howard, Ron Howard’s brother, makes a cameo as the guy running the droid fighting pit. He’s appeared in several of his brother’s movies.