Easter Eggs You Can Expect To See In The Force Awakens

Today's films have more easter eggs than Paas. So why should Star Wars: The Force Awakens be any different? It's almost a given this film will reward observant little Jedi Masters and Sith Lords with creative, seconds-long gags and callbacks. The only question is, what will director J.J. Abrams and crew concoct? Here are a few possibilities that better become reality, or we're all demanding refunds.

Yes, midichlorians were part of George Lucas's original story vision. That doesn't mean they were a good idea. The revelation that the once-spiritual Force was nothing but a bunch of microscopic bugs has sat poorly with fans since their first mention in The Phantom Menace. The worst thing Force Awakens could do is include them in its story ... unless the filmmakers want to debunk the idea entirely. Show us, somewhere on a corner table for only the observant to see, a book entitled The Great Midichlorian Myth: How Science Attempted To Hijack The Force And Failed. There's no need for any exposition or explanation. Knowing that great galactic minds studied the so-called midichlorians and laughed them out of the lab is a more-than-happy enough ending.

Shortly after acquiring Star Wars, Disney made it clear that their vision of the saga was the only one that mattered. So, every book in the Expanded Universe (stories that take place after Return Of The Jedi or otherwise between the movies) received an official demotion to "non-canon." This was much to the dismay of everyone who read and enjoyed them, not to mention the people who got paid to write them. But we could totally see J.J. Abrams giving them one final sendoff in easter egg form, where our heroes enter a library and walk past the "fiction" section, complete with a dusty shelf full of actual EU books. The implication that these stories were simply based on the true story of the actual Star Wars universe—their version of a Law And order episode "ripped from the headlines," basically—is simply too tempting an idea to pass up.

Under the watchful eye of George Lucas, the Star Wars Holiday Special would never, ever get even the teeniest mention in any Episode, ever. But, now that he's out of the picture, there's no reason that Disney can't pay a bit of lip service to the strangest, most bizarre, and most maligned chapter of the Star Wars saga. We would love to see, somewhere on Chewbacca's side of the Millennium Falcon cockpit, a greeting card from Itchy, Malla, and Lumpy, wishing Chewie and Han Solo a very happy Life Day. Nobody need say anything about the card—any actual attempt to weave the Holiday Special into the narrative would butcher it. But simply seeing the card will be enough to send '70s kids into giggle-fits of holiday happiness.

This one's almost certainly a given. Disney's favorite easter egg of all is shaping random background objects (even ones in their theme parks) to look like Mickey Mouse heads. Why not do the same with The Force Awakens? In fact, this wouldn't even be the first time Mickey's skull makes its way to the galaxy far, far away. As reported by The Huffington Post, Lucas slipped a rather sizable Mickey head into the background of the Luke/Vader battle in The Empire Strikes Back. So now that The Mouse is basically canon, J.J. Abrams has even more reason to pay tribute to him throughout his saga. Just no Darth Donald, please. There's whimsy, and then there's overkill.

Much like with Mickey, it wouldn't be surprising to see Harrison Ford's other iconic character, Indiana Jones, make a tiny background cameo in Force Awakens. The filmmakers could carve him into a wooden beam, or stick him on a poster, or perhaps make him one of many in a crowd full of holograms. It just matters that Disney puts him somewhere—not just because it would be totally awesome, but also because it would be a great callback to films past. As explained by Mental Floss, Indiana Jones movies are chock-full of Star Wars references, from R2-D2, C-3PO, and Princess Leia appearing as hieroglyphics in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, to a nightclub in Temple Of Doom named "Club Obi-Wan." So why not return the favor? We wouldn't say no to Ford's other other iconic character (the President in Air Force One) either.

From a certain point of view, the most devastating force in the Star Wars universe isn't Vader or the Emperor, but rather the Sarlacc. After all, could Vader slowly torture you for a thousand years while keeping you alive the whole time? We thought not. So we feel the giant carnivorous Hell-plant deserves to make it into the new trilogy, but not as a featured character. We've been there, done that, and want the focus to be on whatever new weird creatures Abrams can dream up. But as a background character, in adorable pet plant form, we would be all for it. It could be somebody in the background feeding his pet Sarlacc, with the implication that whatever bug the plant just ate is in for a good, long bit of agony. It's up to the audience to imagine what will happen when the cute lil' guy grows and starts getting real hungry.

There's always room for a comical easter egg, and one based on Star Wars: Kinect would be among the funniest. For the most part, it was a normal Star Wars game, except for the "Galactic Dance-Off": a dancing mini-game featuring Star Wars characters. It's impossible not to laugh while watching Han Solo, Vader, Leia, Palpatine, and others popping and locking to cheesy pop and techno, with dance-move names like "Jedi Dodge," "Dagobah Bump," and "Falcon In Flight." A hologram or TV screen airing footage of the fabled Emperor dancing alongside Stormtroopers like they're Britney Spears and her crew, doing his best "Vader Pose," and overall getting down with his bad self, would be the best Christmas present in the entire galaxy.

Some people like to theorize that Jar Jar Binks will return in The Force Awakens, but this time as an evil and twisted Sith. But it's been confirmed that this will not happen—the character is simply too despised to be anything but a story-ruiner. No, the only way he would ever show up in the new trilogy is in a split-second cameo as a corpse (or simply his grave, if a body's too gruesome for The Mouse). In fact, we foresee not just that, but an entire mass grave full of rotted, bloating Gungan corpses. It'll be visible for but an eyeblink, but it'll be all we need to assure ourselves that the worst thing to happen to the franchise since C-3PO's cereal is truly extinct forever.