It's Rumor Time: C-3PO might be in Solo even though that doesn't make much sense
In an appearance on the Cape Up With Jonathan Capehart podcast, Mark Hamill seems to have accidentally dropped a minor spoiler about a cameo in Solo: A Star Wars Story. As reported by The Daily Dot, Hamill brought up the fact that Anthony Daniels has appeared as C-3PO in every Star Wars movie, noting that he made it into all of the prequels, Rogue One, and even Solo—though that last one is actually new information. Hamill threw in a “whoops” after that apparent mistake, adding that it’s not a particularly shocking reveal anyway because “Star Wars fans expect him to be in every movie.”
He’s right, of course, but it will still be a little surprising if C-3PO does appear in Solo. The movie is set long before Rogue One but after Revenge Of The Sith, when C-3PO and R2-D2 were still in the care of Jimmy Smits’ Senator Bail Organa (a.k.a. Princess Leia’s adoptive father). The Rebel Alliance as we know it in the later Star Wars movies definitely doesn’t exist yet in Solo, so there should be no reason for the droids to be anywhere but at Organa’s side on Alderaan or in his senate chambers on Coruscant. Solo looks like it’s going to take place in grimier corners of the Star Wars universe than either of those planets, so it will have to do a little extra work in order to justify a cameo from the galaxy’s snootiest robot.
That can easily be waved away in the movie, but then Solo will run the risk that all prequels face of cramming in too many familiar things just to make fans happy. We don’t really need a repeat of the Revenge Of The Sith scene where Yoda pauses for a moment to specifically address Chewbacca by name