Garnering one of the most obsessive fanbases of any major franchise, the Star Wars films continue to draw the scrutiny of the internet, and every now and then, some careful watcher picks up on a detail that even the most dedicated viewer will usually miss.
Just take this new Easter egg observed by Epicstream, which suggests a subtle connection between A New Hope and Attack of the Clones. The observation specifically concerns the scene in the 2002 prequel when Anakin Skywalker learns that his mother has been abducted by Tusken Raiders. Cliegg Lars tells the future Sith that he and his friends already attempted to rescue Shmi, explaining the situation as follows:
“Thirty of us went out after her. Four of us came back.”
Sound familiar? Probably not, but the two numbers mentioned by Cliegg also factor into the attack on the Death Star in A New Hope. To elaborate, once the Battle of Yavin kicks off, an Imperial officer tells Vader:
“We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader.”
Once again, thirty have gone out, and wouldn’t you know it, four come back. You can count them yourself in the shot of the Rebels fleeing the Death Star right before it blows up: two X-wings, a Y-wing, and the Millennium Falcon.
Yes, it could just be a coincidence, but either way, it’s still an amusing little parallel which suggests that George Lucas thinks the idea of thirty going out and four coming back has a nice ring to it. If you really wanted to be a spoilsport, however, you could point out that the Falcon was not among the original thirty Rebel ships that were counted, since it only arrived later in the battle, meaning that only three of those thirty came back.
Regardless, it’s interesting to see that fans of the franchise are still spotting little details in movies that are at least a decade-and-a-half old. On that note, you can expect Star Wars: Episode IX to be the subject of a whole load of scrutiny it arrives in theaters on December 20th, 2019.
