Since the second trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi landed on Monday, fans have been watching it over and over, dissecting it within an inch of its life for any clues they may find. Even those who’ve watched it a hundred times might still have missed this tiny reference to Return of the Jedi that was hidden within it, though.
In the trailer, we finally get to see the follow-up to the cliffhanger at the end of The Force Awakens, as Luke accepts his old lightsaber from Rey. In this moment, we see a close-up of his robotic hand. As it lacks human-like skin, fans weren’t previously sure whether this was the same cybernetic limb he had in Return of the Jedi.
But, if you look closely, you can see that the plate across the back of the hand is damaged. This is the exact same place a stray shot hit Luke while on Jabba the Hutt’s barge in the 1983 classic. Check out the photo below and see for yourself.
It’s such an easily missed detail, so it’s great that the production crew went to the effort of keeping in this little part of continuity even when no one would notice it. Well, OK, they did. But that’s just over-attentive Star Wars fans for you.
This isn’t the only nod to the original trilogy in the trailer, either. Fans have also picked up on a correlation between Kylo Ren’s outreached hand at the end of the teaser and when Darth Vader reached out to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. In both cases, the villain is attempting to coax the hero to the Dark Side. But will Rey reject Kylo as Luke did his father?
Speaking of Luke’s dad, the recent poster for The Last Jedi might also contain another subtle easter egg. According to some, the layout of the characters resembles the shape of Darth Vader’s helmet, representing how the villain’s shadow still looms over the lives of the movie’s characters.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives in cinemas on December 15th.
