10 Easter Eggs In Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker That You May’ve Missed

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker finally hit US cinemas this week, allowing us to see the much-anticipated finale to the Skywalker saga at long last. Unfortunately, early critical reception has not been kind, but maybe that's because what director J.J. Abrams has done is craft something that's 100% intended for Star Wars fans and not critics, as it's stuffed to the rafters with references to the franchise's 42-year history. Many of these are overt and hard to miss, including the much-signposted return of Emperor Palpatine, Billy Dee Williams making a comeback as Lando Calrissian and a visit to the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi. However, there are a load more that will fly past even the most dedicated diehards as there are simply so many on display. Something Abrams was clearly keen to do in TROS was tip his hat to as much of what's come before in the Star Wars universe as possible. In that way, he's succeeded. And on the following page, we begin running down 10 awesome easter eggs from the film that you may've missed. The Emperor's Broadcast Rise of Skywalker immediately throws us in at the deep end with its opening crawl, dropping the major bombshell that Emperor Palpatine is back and has announced his return to the galaxy with a "mysterious broadcast" in which he threatened his revenge. We hardly get any context for this in the movie that follows, but that's because the broadcast was actually already revealed elsewhere. Days before the film released in cinemas, a cross-promotion with Fortnite turned out to be way more significant to Episode IX's storyline than expected. The video game revealed Palpatine's broadcast, with Ian McDiarmid's villain heard to cry: "The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of revenge. The day of the Sith." The Voices In Kylo Ren's Head As the opening crawl suggests, Rise wastes no time in reintroducing Palpatine. In fact, the film's first scenes follow Kylo Ren as he goes on a quest to locate Darth Sidious, eventually finding him on Exegol - the fabled hidden world of the Sith. When he finally arrives, Palpatine reveals that he's been manipulating Ren all along. A brief shot that's easily missed though shows a couple of lifeless copies of Snoke in some kind of incubator. As further proof that the Emperor was the one pulling Kylo's strings all these years, he tells the First Order leader that he's been every voice inside his head. As he says this, he speaks in two other voices - allowing for a couple of vocal cameos. Firstly, Palpatine impersonates Snoke, meaning Andy Serkis gets to reprise his role one last time. Likewise, we also hear the unmistakable voice of James Earl Jones AKA Darth Vader, who was last heard as Vader in 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Did You Ever Hear The Tragedy Of Darth Plagueis The Wise? In a surprise move, after all our theorizing, Rise of Skywalker doesn't offer a definitive explanation for how Palpatine is back, after falling to his doom in Return of the Jedi. It does offer a few suggestions, though, so fans can work it out themselves. For one, Dominic Monaghan's Resistance member speaks of the legends of "dark magic" or the possibility of "cloning" being involved. But the Emperor himself might provide the true answer to Kylo Ren, with a well-placed quote. When questioned how he can be alive, the Emperor tells Ren: "The Dark Side is a path to many abilities some consider unnatural." Any Star Wars fan worth their salt will recognize this as a direct lift from the famed "Darth Plagueis" scene from Revenge of the Sith. In that sequence, then Chancellor Palpatine tells Anakin Skywalker of the Sith Lord who was able to master death...until he was murdered by his apprentice. Fans have long speculated that Sidious was said apprentice and the use of this quote appears to be a nod to that theory, hinting that he resurrected himself thanks to the dark powers he learned from Plagueis. Crew Cameos Star Wars films - particularly, the modern ones - are always home to multiple celebrity cameos. The same's true of Rise of Skywalker. Ed Sheeran and Lin-Manuel Miranda, for instance, pop up as a Stormtrooper and a Resistance pilot, respectively. This time around, though, the film also features a few key members of the crew in easily-missed roles. First of all, BB-8 gets a new friend in TROS in the form of D-O, the misused droid of a Jedi hunter who once killed Rey's parents. He tends to speak in short declarations like "Hello" or "No, thank you" and the character's voice was provided by J.J. Abrams. Likewise, co-writer Chris Terrio serves as the voice of Aftab Ackbar, the young Mon Calamari Resistance fighter. He's the son of the late, much-missed Admiral Ackbar, don't you know. What's more, the legend that is John Williams also finally gets to appear on-screen in Star Wars, after scoring the movies for the past 40 years. Williams can be seen as a composer (figures) at a club on the planet Kijimi. When the gang walk through it to get to Babu Frik, he can be seen shaking his head. George Lucas' Episode VII A major part of the plot is Rey's hunt for the second Sith Wavefinder, which will lead her to Emperor Palpatine on Exegol. It ends up being in the remains of the Death Star II, moored in the oceans of a planet in the Endor system. There's a pleasingly Indiana Jones-esque feel to this storyline, thereby paying homage to George Lucas' other great cinematic creation. But the homage actually goes even deeper than that. This plot point is actually directly lifted from Lucas' original plans for Episode VII. As recently reiterated by Disney CEO Bob Iger, when the studio decided to move forward with a new trilogy, the franchise creator offered his own breakdown of the first installment and it became a point of contention between the two parties that The Force Awakens didn't follow it. Part of Lucas' narrative saw Luke and his apprentice Kira, who evolved into Rey, traveling to the underwater second Death Star to find the Emperor's throne room, which held a powerful Sith artifact. Take out Palpatine's throne room and put it on Exegol and you pretty much have The Rise of Skywalker. Spot The Ships When the Resistance launches their attack on the Sith's fleet in the skies above Exegol, Poe Dameron calls out across the galaxy for back-up. At first, it seems that - just like in The Last Jedi - no one has come to their aid. However, countless ships soon arrive just in time to save our heroes' necks. And as you'd imagine, many of these ship designs have been pulled from across Star Wars history. Let's run through a few we noticed. Most significantly, there's the Ghost, the ship that Ezra Bridger and his friends call home in Star Wars Rebels. Others include the Crucible (owned by Hondo Ohnaka in The Clone Wars), the Shadow Caster (belonging to bounty hunter Ketsu Onyo), the Eravana (abandoned by Han in The Force Awakens), the Outrider (from the special edition of A New Hope) and the Colossus, which hails from the recent Star Wars Resistance animated series. Wedge Antilles The fleet of volunteers is led by Lando Calrissian and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon. And it seems Lando reached out to an old friend. After Calrissian pulls off a neat manoeuvre with the ship, we cut to a cockpit piloted by none other than Luke's old flying partner, Wedge Antilles, who says "Nice flying, Lando!" That's the extent of his screentime, but it was great to see the Rebellion pilot again all the same. Denis Lawson was previously supposed to show up in The Force Awakens but had scheduling conflicts. Thankfully, he made it work this time. Prior to his return in the flesh, though, he did provide a brief vocal cameo back in Rogue One. This marks his fifth time playing Wedge, then, after he made appearances in each of the Original Trilogy films. All Of The Jedi Live In Rey When all hope seems lost and the Emperor has seemingly killed the redeemed Kylo Ren and is about to destroy the Resistance, Rey comes to and is visited by the spirits of the Jedi that have come before her. What follows is an epic barrage of vocal cameos from stars drawn from across all Star Wars media. Due to the fact there are so many and we don't see their faces, you may not have been able to label all of them. But no worries, as here are all 10(!) guest stars in this scene: Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker (Prequels) Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi (Originals/Prequels) Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn (Prequels) Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu (Prequels) Frank Oz as Yoda (Originals, Prequels, Sequels) Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano (The Clone Wars, Rebels) Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus (Rebels) Olivia d'Abo as Luminara Unduli (The Clone Wars) Jennifer Hale as Aayla Secura (The Clone Wars) Angelique Perrin as Adi Gallia (The Clone Wars) As cool as it is to have Neeson and Jackson back, Christensen's return as Anakin probably means the most out of the prequel cast's cameos, seeing as there's been so much speculation about a potential role for him in Rise. What's more, characters exclusively created for TV appearing in this way is a pretty big deal. Especially Ahsoka Tano making her movie debut in some form. Some people have claimed to hear Sam Witwer in this scene, as well. Though he's voiced Darth Maul and Palpatine in animation, if Witwer did cameo here, he was presumably reprising his role as Garen Malek from The Force Unleashed video game. However, he isn't currently listed on the film's IMDB page, so his involvement is yet to be confirmed. Wicket's Back As soon as we saw the wreckage of the Death Star in the trailers, fans were sure we'd be returning to Endor in Rise. When its remains were revealed to have crashed on a different planet in the Endor system, though, this appeared to not be the case. But Abrams pulled a late-in-the-day visit to the moon in the movie, which also saw the return of the Ewoks. Once the Emperor is defeated and his fleet of Star Destroyers destroyed, we cut to a couple of familiar locations to see their inhabitants celebrating. One of them is Cloud City on Bespin, revisiting the floating city that used to be under Lando's jurisdiction, introduced in The Empire Strikes Back. More notably, though, we drop in on the forests of Endor where Wicket the Ewok briefly shows up. That's Warwick Davis reprising his first ever Star Wars role from Return of the Jedi, the role that launched his career. With Wicket is Pommet, who we can presume is Wicket's son - because he's played by Davis' own son, Harrison. The Suns Set On The Skywalker Saga This is one of the more obvious kisses to the past in The Rise of Skywalker, but we couldn't end this article without mentioning it. The final scene of the movie directly references the first time we meet Luke in A New Hope, thereby bringing the Skywalker saga full circle. After the celebrations, the film jumps to an undetermined time later when Rey has traveled to the deserts of Tatooine, where Luke was raised by his Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru. It's here where she buries Luke and Leia's lightsabers in memory of them. A local then tells Rey that no one's been around here for a long time. When she asks who the stranger is, Rey replies that she's "Rey... Rey Skywalker." Luke and Leia's Force ghosts are standing by, smiling. The final shot then sees Rey, with BB-8 beside her, outlined by the twin sunset. Most fans had guessed that Abrams would choose to end Episode IX like this and though it was predictable, you can't deny that it's the most fitting way to end the story in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.