The longest Star Wars movie so far, The Last Jedi is densely packed with tons of details
and easter eggs that even some die-hard fans may have missed on a first viewing.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and today I want to talk about some fascinating
references and hidden details in Episode 8 that have more significance than you might
have initially realised.
And if you're new to my channel, I do regular easter egg videos, movie breakdowns, theories
and deleted scenes, plus giveaways.
To enter my current Star Wars giveaway, just make sure you're subscribed and leave me a
comment about any easter eggs or interesting details you spotted in the film.
Spoiler warning, I'll be discussing scenes from The Last Jedi in depth so take care if
you haven't seen the movie yet.
After Yoda returned as a Force Ghost, reuniting with Luke on Acht'To, the legendary Jedi Master
burned down the island's ancient Force Tree.
And when Luke protested about the destruction of the sacred Jedi texts and Yoda replied
that there was nothing in there "that the girl Rey does not already possess", it seemed
that the ancient books had burned with the Tree, but that Rey had already mastered everything
in them.
However, Yoda's words actually had another meaning which became clear at the end of the
movie.
There's a crucial moment on the Millennium Falcon when Finn opens a drawer to get a blanket
to cover the injured Rose Tico, and as Finn rummages around, you can spot the Jedi books
right there, meaning that Rey actually took them from the island.
So, Yoda's reply to Luke was a clever bit of wordplay and suggests that Rey has more
to learn.
Of course, it also means that Rey and the Resistance still have the old Jedi scripts
which they can use to inspire and teach new Force Users about the Jedi way.
Near the start of the film, Rey tells Luke that the Resistance needs his help to face
their enemies, and he replies, "You think, what?
I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?"
Luke's use of the word "laser sword" is an easter egg to George Lucas's early Star Wars
scripts where that term was used instead of lightsaber; and in The Phantom Menace, we
hear the same term used by a young Anakin Skywalker.
As well as containing a hat tip to the saga's origins, Luke's reply to Rey also foreshadows
the end of the movie.
In contrast to what he said, Luke does indeed walk out armed with just a lightsaber and
confront the entire First Order.
And yet, Luke also stays true to his original words to Rey, because it's not actually his
physical self who faces down the First Order, but rather a Force Projection.
Ahch-To is home to the first Jedi temple which has a curious ancient mosaic on its floor
of the Prime Jedi, the very first member of the Jedi Order.
The mosaic's design is reminiscent of a yin-yang symbol and shows the Prime Jedi "in a state
of meditation and balance", which foreshadows Luke's own position on the island at the end
of the movie.
The image also shows a fusion of light and dark, which is interesting because in The
Last Jedi, Rey and Kylo Ren form a force bond between them and Kylo asks Rey to join him.
Of course, the mosaic also symbolises the tension that Force Users experience of being
pulled between the light and the dark sides.
For example, Kylo struggles with his connection to the dark side and experiences a "pull to
the light", as he calls it.
There's a clear parallel between the hole that Rey climbs into on the Jedi Temple island
and the Dark Side cave that Luke entered during his training on Dagobah.
Both the caves force the entrant to confront their worst fear.
For Luke, this appeared to be the evil that Darth Vader represented, but when the cave
exposed Luke's face inside Vader's helmet, it showed that Luke's real fear was that he
might turn to the Dark side, and it also foreshadowed the reveal that he was Darth Vader's son.
Although we don't hear the reveal of Rey's parents until later in The Last Jedi, we do
get an interesting bit of foreshadowing via Rey's experience in the cave.
Rey's always been waiting for her parents to return to her, but when she sees her own
image endlessly reflected back to her, it foreshadows the discovery later that she's
actually known the answer within herself all along, in other words she is alone.
Or as Maz Kanata said in The Force Awakens, 'whomever you're waiting for [...], they're
never coming back.'
In a call-back to the time Luke crash-landed in a swamp on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes
Back, there's a submerged X-wing on the shores of the Jedi Temple island.
And Luke has salvaged an S-foil from that underwater X-wing to make a door for his stone
hut on Ahch'To.
In The Last Jedi, we get to meet Snoke close up and although we still don't know his backstory,
there's one item he owns which reveals some secrets about his connection to the Dark Side.
The gold ring the Supreme Leader wears on his finger is etched with symbols of the Four
Sages of Dwartii.
The Four Sages were philosophers from the planet Dwartii who, in the early days of the
Republic, stirred controversy, promoted the study of the Dark Side of the Force, and were
popular among the Sith.
In fact, Palpatine had statues of them in his office in Attack of the Clones.
Snoke also has a link to another legendary Sith Lord, as the black stone in the ring
is actually obsidian mined from the catacombs below Darth Vader's Castle on the volcanic
planet Mustafar, which was also the location of Anakin and Obi-Wan's fateful duel in Revenge
of the Sith.
The way Poe Dameron toys with General Hux at the start of the film, pretending he can't
hear him and is waiting to be patched through by Hux's communications officer, is reminiscent
of the start of The Force Awakens where Poe made fun of Kylo Ren after being captured,
asking who should talk first and saying it was hard to understand him through the mask.
And in The Last Jedi, Poe's line, "Tell [Hux] Leia has an urgent message for him... about
his mother" is a dig at the fact that Hux is an illegitimate child whose mother was
a kitchen worker, a fact which was revealed in a recent canon Star Wars novel.
Speaking of Poe, after he struck up a bromance with ex-stormtrooper Finn in The Force Awakens,
it was nice to see them reunite when Finn woke up in his Bacta suit.
And after Finn got dressed, he donned Poe's old jacket which, if you look carefully, you
can see has been repaired after Finn's run-in with Kylo Ren in Episode 7.
In fact, it was Poe who stitched the jacket back up while Finn was recovering, a detail
I'm sure fans of Stormpilot will particularly like.
BB-8 got to do some pretty cool things in The Last Jedi and, while on board the Supremacy,
Finn disguised him with a black metal can making him resemble a rather large mouse droid.
He even scoots along making noises that are uncannily similar and match the pattern made
by an MSE-6 repair droid in A New Hope.
To top it all, BB-8 also bumps into a Stormtrooper on the Supremacy, just like the mouse droid
ran into Han and Luke disguised as Stormtroopers alongside Chewie in Episode 4.
After Leia recovers from her time in space, there's a nice call back to one of her first
scenes in A New Hope.
When she bursts through the door to confront the mutinous Poe Dameron, she's dressed in
white like we saw her in Episode 4 and she uses her blaster in stun mode on Poe, sending
out blue circular blasts, just how the Stormtroopers blasted Leia to catch her at the beginning
of A New Hope.
Leia's scenes in The Last Jedi have, of course, taken on an added poignancy since Carrie Fisher
passed away.
And although it's unclear what exactly will happen with Leia in Episode 9, Episode 8 was
a real Fisher family affair, with both her daughter Billie Lourd playing Lieutenant Connix
again, and the additional bonus of a space cameo by Carrie's dog Gary.
Look out for him on Canto Bight in the casino scene where an alien dog appears whose design
was based on the much-loved actress's famous pet.
During the battle on Crait, the Millennium Falcon loses its radar dish again.
As Chewie tries to outmanoeuvre some TIE fighters, the ship gets caught in a tight spot in some
underground caves and one of the TIE fighters gets a shot on the sensor dish, blasting it
off.
The original circular sensor dish was lost when Lando flew the Falcon in Return of the
Jedi.
The astonishing ending to The Last Jedi also has some important easter eggs and call-backs
from binary sunsets on Tatooine, to Sith force projections, and Luke becoming one with the
Force.
I go into detail on these and more in my Last Jedi ending explained video as well as talking
theories on Episode 9.
If you haven't seen that, just tap in the top right to watch or click the link in the
video description.
Now, did you spot any cool details or easter eggs in the movie?
And what were your favourite moments?
Leave me a comment below and make sure you subscribe to enter my Star Wars giveaway for
an awesome Last Jedi Funko Pop.
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and in the meantime, check out more of my videos you're sure to like here!
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee ki-yay, movie lovers!