Small Details You Missed In The Last Jedi

It was clear as soon as Luke Skywalker tossed away his old lightsaber that The Last Jedi was not going to be a movie about hidden secrets and clever Easter eggs. From that moment on, any speculation about the history of Supreme Leader Snoke or Rey's parentage—or most of the big Star Wars questions left lingering after The Force Awakens—was given a mighty "who cares?" by director Rian Johnson.

Still, The Last Jedi is a film that's filled to the brim with callbacks and nods to obscure aspects of Star Wars continuity. Here are just a few.

Luke Skywalker's love of milk is almost a central theme of the Star Wars saga. When he first appears on Tatooine as a lowly moisture farmer, he's all about the blue milk, which comes from Banthas, the hirsute mounts of the Tusken Raiders. Blue milk even makes an appearance in Attack of the Clones and Rogue One, so you can be sure that there are strong bones and teeth across that entire galaxy far, far away. This time around, however, on the secluded planet of Ahch-To, Luke's getting into the green stuff. In a weirdly gratuitous milking scene, Luke takes it upon himself to squeeze some green milk from a horrifically anatomically correct animal. Breakfast of champions, Luke.

The Force Awakens didn't do much to explain the weirdos hanging out with Kylo Ren. They're seen once in a vision, hyped up in the press surrounding The Force Awakens... and never seen again. One might think that Kylo Ren would have his top dudes at his side while hunting down Rey and Luke, but he sticks to more military and spiritual options instead. But at least we kind of finally know who they are, or were, thanks to The Last Jedi. Kylo Ren's personal goth squad are the Jedi from Luke's training academy, or at least the ones who weren't killed by Kylo himself. Why did they join him? Why weren't they killed? Was it a resistance planned all along? Who knows? But at least we know where most of them came from now.

It's not only humanoid body parts that get the switcheroo, it's also robot parts. You can pretty much track which Star Wars film you're watching based on C-3PO's appearance. Is he all wires and junk? Phantom Menace. Does he have an unexplained silver leg? The Original Trilogy. Does he have a similarly unexplained red arm that the film draws attention to and intentionally refuses to explain (but is explained in a later comic book)? The Force Awakens. And when that arm becomes gold again without any explanation because someone forgot to CGI it in? Well, that's The Force Awakens too, but also The Last Jedi. Sure, it'll be retconned in some visual dictionary or junior novelization eventually, but droids hot-swapping body parts in the middle of a galactic war? There are better things to do.

When you're building a universe of made-up languages, it's pretty easy to come up with words that aren't homophones ... except if you're Star Wars. Krayt dragons have been canonical to the saga since A New Hope, when we see the enormous skeleton of one as Threepio is wandering the Tatooine desert. Obi-Wan Kenobi makes a Krayt dragon noise to scare off a bunch of filthy Tusken Raiders. Even skeletonized, they're probably one of the coolest alien creatures in Star Wars, right after Max Rebo.

So when the rebels decide to hole up in an old base on a salt planet called Crait, which has absolutely nothing to do with the dragons of the same-sounding name, it's a sure indication that the entire galaxy has just run out of new words. But with names like Doda Bodonawieedo, Yarna d'al' Gargan, and Eeth Koth, that may have been apparent decades ago.

There was a lot going on during the Canto Bight scenes, so you'd be forgiven for missing one particular cameo–Carrie Fisher's dog, Gary. Well, even if you saw the alien dog onscreen, you may not have recognized it as anything special, because for one, it was just a dog, and for two, who knows what Carrie Fisher's dog looks like? Regardless, he was there. Director Rian Johnson confirmed that one of the aliens in the casino was holding a dog based on Fisher's own canine. Did it mean anything to the story? Nope! But it was a nice nod to the late Star Wars legend and a cool source of inspiration, if nothing else.

Speaking of Luke's fake hand, director Rian Johnson himself pointed out an inconsistency that may reveal more for the future of the franchise. After Force-projecting himself to Crait to deal with Kylo Ren, Luke vanishes from his rock, by all accounts becoming one with the Force. However, there was one detail missing from that scene. Or, rather, one sound. As Johnson put it, "We were in the other room saying, 'A steel hand should clunk to the ground.'"

Since Luke's prosthetic hand wasn't actually a part of him, it should have been left behind, just like his Jedi robe. Does that mean there's more to Luke's story? Probably not, but you can bet it'll spark a new round of theories before the next movie.

Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo was certainly a short-lived addition to the Star Wars films even though, as we've noted, she's been lurking around the universe for quite awhile now. Although her choice of hair dye drew most of the audience's attention, the production actually put an insane amount of detail into her costume. Particularly her jewelry.

Quick history lesson: Holdo hails from the world of Gatalenta, a posh, upper-class planet that's never been in a movie before and was most likely made up simply to give Holdo a backstory. Be that as it may, Holdo never lost sight of her upbringing, and everything from her hair to her clothing harks back to her Gatalentian youth. Her bracelets, for example, are a map of the constellations seen from her homeworld. It's a crazy little detail that nobody would ever notice, just another small piece that adds to the overall texture of the universe.

One detail in The Last Jedi you probably missed was the necklace hanging around Poe's neck. The guy's basically hanging out with explosions most of the movie, so it's understandable if you missed that tiny detail. But it's there, and as usual, it has a backstory of its own. According to the visual dictionary for the film, there's a ring hanging from that chain–specifically, the wedding ring of Poe's mother, who went the way of the Jedi (so to speak) a few years after the battle of Endor. According to the book, Poe keeps the ring around so he can use it to propose to a pretty lady if he ever finds one.

Since that's an extremely random detail to just throw out there, and since Rey and Poe were all smiles with each other at the end of the movie, there's a good chance that old Mrs. Dameron's ring will find its way onto Rey's finger eventually. That, or she'll get cut in half with a lightsaber halfway through the next movie. Anything's possible these days, really.

Like a lot of other characters in The Last Jedi, Snoke's personal bodyguards, the Praetorian Guard, were introduced, then killed off without much explanation. Fortunately, these faceless red warriors made the most of their time onscreen and gave audiences one of the best fights of the franchise.

Amidst all the action, you may have missed a peculiar detail about the Praetorian Guards–although there are eight of them, they're organized into four pairs, with each pair dressed and armed with identical weapons. According to the Visual Dictionary, this was done to emphasize the symmetry of the First Order philosophy: "What is past is future."

If you've ever wondered who the first Jedi was, you're not alone. Googling it awards you with a million pounds of nonsense, and Wookiepedia doesn't exactly offer any shovels to dig your way out with. But The Last Jedi may have an answer. On the floor of the Jedi temple on Luke's island of Ahch-To is a mosaic of the Prime Jedi, the first guy to be part of the Jedi Order. It shows up in several scenes during the movie, most clearly when Luke is telling Rey his first abridged version of the "We Need to Talk About Kylo" story.

So who is the Prime Jedi? Does he have a name? Unfortunately, the movie doesn't have any explanations there, but at least now we can safely say he existed, and he probably wasn't human.

Just before Chewie knocks in Luke's door on Ahch-To near the beginning of the film, the camera moves through Luke's hut and rests on a few of his belongings. Some fans were quick to notice that a necklace hanging in the hut seemed to contain a red kyber crystal–the crystal used to power lightsabers. Turns out, that's exactly what it is, but the story actually doesn't end there. Going back to the film's visual dictionary, it's described as a fragmented Sith lightsaber crystal, but the necklace itself is a Jedi Crusader pendant.

That's significant. When Disney purchased Star Wars, the head honchos purged most of the Extended Universe from the official canon, including fan favorite video games like Knights of the Old Republic. Although there have been hints that KotOR specifically was creeping its way back into canon, this may be the biggest indicator of that yet. See, the Jedi Crusaders were a Jedi faction introduced in Knights—they were also known as the Revanchist, named after their leader Revan, a Jedi who eventually succumbed to the dark side and became Darth Revan.

Does this tiny detail in The Last Jedi reinstate Revan as a canonical character? Fans can only hope.

In the realm of Star Wars one-liners, the phrase "I have a bad feeling about this" ranks right up there with "May the Force be with you" and "I hate sand." The line popped up twice in A New Hope, and it's since appeared in some form in every single Star Wars movie.

So the line's apparent omission in The Last Jedi came as a surprise, but rest assured, it was in there—it just wasn't said by a human. Rian Johnson confirmed that the line was spoken by BB-8 during the scene when Poe Dameron attacks the First Order Dreadnought, to which Dameron replies, "Happy beeps here, buddy. Come on."

The planet Crait isn't a snow world, but it bears some similarities to the galaxy's frozen planets, specifically in the blinding white salt layer that covers its surface. And if you pay attention to the stormtroopers marching into the Resistance base, it's apparent that the First Order didn't neglect to notice those similarities. Instead of sending regular stormtroopers after the fleeing rebels, they deployed snowtroopers, who have helmets designed to reduce glare.

The first snowtroopers were seen on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, although it was only later that they were referred to by that name.

The addition of an upgraded model of AT-AT walkers on Crait was a nice detail for fans of the old movies. These new walkers are AT-M6s, and as you can see, they've had a few design upgrades in the 30 years or so since the events of The Empire Strikes Back.

One of the most important? Extra armor on the legs. Design supervisor Kevin Jenkins explained that the AT-M6 walkers were upgraded for the exact reason you'd expect: to prevent speeders from tripping them up with tow lines, like the Rebels learned to do on Hoth. As Jenkins told StarWars.com, "You can't take these down with a snow speeder."

After an epic (if abrupt) sendoff, Captain Phasma has departed for shinier pastures without offering any hints to her backstory, as so many fans wished for. If you want to learn more about Phasma's origin, you'll have to go through the trouble of reading about it, in a book, like a total drain on society. Even Luke hates reading, so we know we're in good company.

That said, Phasma does have a past, and The Last Jedi shows us some of the fruits of that past life, even if it never explicitly explains any of it. Specifically, Phasma's chromium armor comes from her early days in the fledgling First Order, when Hux took command of a chrome-plated Imperial yacht that had once been used by Emperor Palpatine. Phasma later used parts from the ship's chromium hull to craft her own unique armor, both to set her apart from the other stormtroopers and to link the First Order with the Empire by giving Palpatine's personal ship a new purpose.

One of the core plot devices in The Last Jedi is the First Order's ability to track ships through hyperspace, an ability that most of the characters (and audience) believed to be impossible. There's a brief mention of the technology coming from research done by the Empire, but other than that, it feels like a new trick introduced purely for The Last Jedi.

Well, it turns out that the tech needed to track a vessel across hyperspace has been mentioned before, but to find that reference, you need to turn to a different movie altogether: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Released a year before The Last Jedi, Rogue One features a brief scene in which Jyn Erso is trying to hunt down the plans for the Death Star. She shuffles through a bunch of unrelated projects, reading them out as she goes. One of them is a plan for hyperspace tracking.

At the time of Rogue One's release, nobody batted an eye, but now that it's become a major plot point in Episode VIII, it makes for a crazy Easter egg spanning multiple films.