Alan Tudyk Just Noticed This Star Wars Easter Egg in Firefly
Alan Tudyk, who played Serenity pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne on Firefly, just discovered this sneaky reference to Star Wars in Joss Whedon's cult favorite sci-fi series.
Even all these years later, Firefly alum Alan Tudyk is still mining fresh delights from the short-lived sci-fi series created by Joss Whedon.
The Resident Alien star recently replied to a Threads post from a user named Alison Young, who discovered a sly Star Wars Easter egg in episode 12: "The Message."
The reference appears around the 18-minute mark when Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite) listens to the recorded message from Tracey while lounging in a hammock aboard the Serenity spaceship. If you look in the background, you'll see a miniature version of Han Solo frozen in carbonite from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
"I have been watching Firefly since 2004," wrote Young. "This is the first time I have seen Han Solo frozen in carbonite."
Tudyk, who played Serenity pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne, quoted the post, writing: "Holy s--t me too."
Indeed, the miniature replica of everyone's favorite smuggler turned Rebel Alliance hero actually pops up several times throughout the show, as evidenced by this Reddit post.
"Honestly, I was shocked when he responded and very surprised that he didn't already know about it," Young told SYFY WIRE. "I heard about it years ago. This was the first time I found one."
Alan Tudyk just noticed this sly Star Wars Easter egg in Firefly
Despite including that callback to Han's fate in Empire Strikes Back, Whedon is not a huge fan of how the film left fans with a major cliffhanger.
"It's not an ending," he said during a 2013 interview with Entertainment Weekly (via Slash Film). "It's a Come Back Next Week, or in three years. And that upsets me. I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn't end I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can't just build off the first one or play variations."
Nevertheless, he did concede that Episode V is still one of the greatest sequels ever made along with The Godfather Part II.
Firefly ran for a single season of 14 episodes on Fox in 2002. The show gained a strong cult status, allowing Whedon to wrap up the story in the 2005 film Serenity. Over the last two decades, the franchise has expanded into comics, novels, board games, and more.
Tudyk, of course, went on to join Lucasfilm's galaxy far, far away as reprogrammed Imperial droid K-2SO in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and season two of Andor.
