One can never discuss movie trilogies without bringing up Star Wars and Indiana Jones as soon as the conversation begins, and with good reason. Aside from being 2 of the greatest achievements in film-making history they’re chock full of series crossovers like George Lucas lending his hand to the development of Indiana Jones and Han Solo himself playing the titular character. The filmmakers knew this and they drop a handful of Easter Eggs to the audience that range from glaringly obvious to hidden in the background and here are some of those references:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
- When Indy is lifting the Ark of the Covenant out of it’s crate there are hieroglyphics on the bannisters with images of R2-D2 and C-3PO etched onto the side.
A long time ago in a galaxy NOT so far away?
- The plane at the end of the opening chase scene has the letters OB-3PO on the tale which is a reference to Obi-Wan and C-3PO. Aside from the numbers on the back the plane’s engine makes the same noise as the Millenium Falcon when it’s hyper drive is failing, which is something that pops up in more than one instance in the trilogy.
Look closely at the tail of the plane
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- The most obvious Star Wars reference in Temple of Doom is of course the opening club in the beginning of the movie being called “Club Obi-Wan”
I wonder if they sell death sticks here?
Others include:
- The sound of Lou Che’s plane failing is the same sound the Millenium Falcon makes when it fails to go into hyper drive during The Empire Strikes Back (and the same effect used in Raiders)
- Indy and Short Round both mutter “We got company”, the same line Han tells Luke in Episode IV: A New Hope
- The throwback scene to Raiders in which Indy confronts two sword-wielding thugs and reaches for his pistol, only to run away in fear is similar to a scene in A New Hope where Han Solo chases stormtroopers on the Death Star only to turn around and be chased himself.
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
- On the ship in the climax of the opening action sequence here are barrels of carboneto that are visible during a lightning strike tied to the base of the ship. They are a reference to the carbonite Han Solo was frozen in during The Empire Strikes back
A delivery to Cloud City?
Other forms of reference:
- In The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles there is an episode where a young Indy steps into a sewer and says “What a wonderful smell you discovered”, a direct retelling of the line Han Solo says in the garbage dumps of the Death Star in A New Hope.
- In 2004 DC Comics ran a short story entitled “Into the Great Unknown” that ran in “Star Wars Tales #19″ and was also approved by George Lucas. This story saw a “meeting” between these two screen legends when Han Solo’s jump to light speed crash landed him on Earth, somewhere in the American Northwest. There were references at first of the jungle being Endor but Han and Chewy are then attacked by a tribe of Indians while Han is murdered in the process. Here are the two panels that followed:
Aside from being terribly depressing we can at least take away the fact that Indiana Jones is still rolling with a grown up Short Round, right?
So there you have some really cool Easter Egg crossovers from the film versions of these 2 beloved franchises and there are countless others popping up from comic books to the recent Lego video games. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a reversal of references and see Indiana Jones Easter Eggs in the newly planned Star Wars trilogy!
