All The Star Wars Easter Eggs In DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: Raiders of the Lost Art

Between Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the recently-titled Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars is as prominent of a fixture in pop culture as ever. But in tonight’s Legends of Tomorrow, we saw a glimpse of what the world might’ve been like if the franchise’s creator, George Lucas, had not gone into filmmaking.

Throughout tonight’s action-packed midseason premiere, ‘Raiders of the Lost Art,’ the show paid homage to the film franchise. We did our best to keep track of the various winks and nods to the iconic films.

So…what did we see? What did we miss?

Read on, and comment below.

LOST MEMORIES — When Damien Darhk (guest star Neal McDonough) and Malcolm Merlyn (guest star John Barrowman) try to capture Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) in 1967, they create an Aberration big enough to draw the attention of the Legends. However, when the team arrives they discover that Rip has no memories of his past due to “time drift” and is just a graduate film student.

After trying to convince Rip of who he was, they discover that he possesses an incredibly powerful artifact known as the Spear of Destiny, which the Legion of Doom is after. Ray (Brandon Routh) and Nate (Nick Zano) realize that the Aberration has also affected them personally making it difficult to help the team. Meanwhile, Rory (Dominic Purcell) asks Stein (Victor Garber) for help and makes him promise to keep it a secret from the team.

Caity Lotz, Franz Drameh and Maisie Richardson-Sellers also star. Dermott Downs directed the episode written by Keto Shimizu & Chris Fedak.

George Lucas

Probably the largest Star Wars Easter egg in the episode was, of course, the inclusion of the franchise’s creator into the episode’s plot. 

Legends of Tomorrow imagined the now-72-year-old filmmaker and entrepreneur as a young film school student in 1967 (played by Matt Angel). Legends’ George Lucas befriends Rip Hunter, who has been living as film student Phil Gasmer after a last-minute mishap bonding with time energy. 

After witnessing the Legends attempt to save Rip from the Legion of Doom, Lucas gets turned off from the idea of filmmaking, telling Rip that ‘no film is worth losing your life over.’ This affects the Legends’ timeline, creating a world where Lucas became a car salesman instead of a filmmaker. Because of that, team members Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) and Nate Heywood (Nick Zano) are not inspired by Lucas’ films to go into their respective fields of study, and are useless to the team.

In order to restore the timeline, the Legends go to great lengths to convince Lucas to get back into filmmaking. While they ultimately succeed, they’re put in danger by the Legion of Doom in the process.

Jax’s Wardrobe

While perhaps a more subtle homage to the Star Wars universe, it’s worth noting that Jax Jackson’s outfit in 1967 – a brown and red jacket and black pants – is visually similar to the outfit worn by Finn throughout The Force Awakens.

It’s unclear if that was intentional on the costume department’s part, but the similarities in a Star Wars inspired episode definitely make it worth noting.

Maisie Richardson-Sellers

After Ray and Nate lose their inspiration, it’s up to Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) to get through to the young George Lucas and convince him to stay in filmmaking. She points out throughout the episode that because she is from the 1940s, she is unfamiliar with Lucas’ space films, and therefore does not trip up in front of him like Ray and Nate do.

This has a bit of irony to it, as Maisie Richardson-Sellers herself is familiar with the Star Wars universe. She appears briefly in The Force Awakens as Korr Sella, a commander in the Resistance who meets her end when her planet, Hosnian Prime, is destroyed by the First Order. While her role in the film was small, Korr Sella did have her own trading card, and a recently-released deleted scene showed an exchange between her and General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher).

Only Hope

In convincing George Lucas to get back into filming – and by proxy, restore Ray and Nate’s superhero capabilities – Amaya unintentionally tells Lucas he is the team’s “only hope.”

This little bit of dialogue references one of the most famous lines of the original trilogy, providing a nice meta joke that even the most casual of Star Wars fans can appreciate.

Into The Garbage Chute

In the episode’s third act, the Legends – accompanied by George Lucas – are forced by the Legion of Doom to find a piece of the Spear of Destiny. Since Lucas threw the piece away, the task leads them to a garbage dump, where the Legends are thrown into a dumpster.

What follows is another homage to A New Hope, when Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca accidentally fall into a trash compactor on the Death Star. The Legends even find a large pole to try to block the closing walls of the trash compactor.

This scene has been parodied countless times since the film’s initial release, but the context of it in Legends – especially with a pre-A New Hope George Lucas present in the scene – creates an interesting ‘chicken or egg’ scenario.