One of the points of watching* The Clone Wars* is catching all the allusions to the live-action movies. Even young children get at least some of the references and sight gags that call out A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, and the series obviously depends on the prequel trilogy. And DVRs make this game all even easier.
The folks at LucasFilm took advantage of the fact that this week's a rerun ("Children of the Force") to distribute a list of references (things that they seem to think you'll get) and Easter eggs (which most people won't get, but insiders and obsessives devotees might). Some of them are more, um, compelling than others:
- After Cad Bane escapes from the Resolute, Anakin angrily holds his arms behind his back and storms off. This is a foreshadow/echo of Darth Vader’s similar action at the end of The Empire Strikes Back after the Millennium Falcon escapes from his clutches.
- When Admiral Yularen says "No! Lock them all down, hurry!" it is a reference to C-3PO's line in A New Hope, as he frantically admonishes R2-D2 to shut down the trash compactors aboard the Death Star.
- The holographic mobile hovering over the Gungan toddler's crib includes a colo clawfish, an opee sea killer and a sando aqua monster, the three massive underwater beasts that attack Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's submarine in The Phantom Menace.
- The Jedi shuttle's design shares features with several classic ships – its cockpit is quite similar to the *Millennium Falcon, *and it changes orientation in flight just like Boba Fett's *Slave I *and the Rebel B-wing fighter. Its shape, though, is based on a background cruiser barely seen in Attack of the Clones.
- In a gambit later used by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker aboard the first dreaded Death Star, Cad Bane disguises himself in trooper armor to escape notice and slip past security.
- Anakin Skywalker and Chancellor Palpatine share a private meeting in this episode, as they also do in Episode II and Episode III. The fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu would prefer to keep the Chancellor out of Jedi affairs is a thread that continues powerfully in Episode III.
- When Mace Windu slides under a slamming blast door and snatches his lightsaber at the last possible moment, it is an action reminiscent of Indiana Jones’s iconic whip-grab in Raiders of the Lost Ark and hat-grab from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- Mustafar is, of course, featured prominently in Revenge of the Sith, but Darth Sidious’ secret installation in ‘Children of the Force’ is a different location than the mining facility from the live-action saga – although the architecture does share similar shapes and lines.
- Cad Bane attacks Ahsoka Tano with a wrist-launched lariat similar to the devices used by Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones and Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi.
- Jan-Gwa City closely resembles the bubble city of Otoh Gunga seen in The Phantom Menace, except that it is only partially submerged in a lake.
This list has everything that's fun and irritating about the show. The mythos-building ranges from subtle (ship design) to overt (repeating lines and physical actions), and the detail about the mobile is pretty cool. But if you have to make distinctions such as, "the location is different even though looks basically the same," then you're probably on thin ice.
