You may or may not know that there are a few hidden Star Wars references peppered into each of the Indiana Jones movies. This is unsurprising when you consider all of those films were from the mind of the same guy, George Lucas.
I’m sure that most self-respecting Indiana Jones fans are aware of some of these but on the off chance you’re not a huge fan, or have somehow missed them all these years, here’s a little bit of cool trivia for you...
The most well known of these little Easter eggs is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) when R2-D2 and C-3PO can be seen as hieroglyphics in the Well of Souls as Indy and Sallah discover the Ark of the Covenant. It’s on the post to the left of the shot over Indy’s shoulder.
There’s another Star Wars hieroglyphic that unfortunately can’t be seen in the movie but is apparently featured in a behind the scenes documentary. This one shows an image of Princess Leia recording her holographic message to Obi-Wan Kenobi into R2-D2s data bank while C-3PO looks on.
The very first nod to the movies though is early on in the film when Indy narrowly escapes Belloq’s clutches after exiting the temple with the idol. The plain he escapes in has the markings “OB-CPO” - clearly a reference to “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “C-3PO”.
That’s not all…
Talking of Obi-Wan Kenobi, in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984) the night club Indy and Willie escape from at the beginning of the film is called “Club Obi-Wan”. This can briefly be seen as they speed off in the getaway car driven by Short Round - (Look out for Dan Aykroyd as the guy who greets them at the airport).
Finally (at least to my knowledge), there’s a slightly more obvious nod to Star Wars in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) when Indy utters Han Solo’s famous line, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” - but the less said about that movie the better…
Did you know about these? Did I miss any out? Let me know in the comments.