Andor: The best Star Wars Easter eggs and tie-ins

It's been said that the new Star Wars series Andor has little to no Easter eggs, but that isn't entirely true — you just have to know where to look. Here are the series' best Easter eggs for die-hard fans thus far: 

BBY

The first thing we see in Andor is a title card establishing we're in "BBY 5," meaning five years "before the Battle of Yavin" (when Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star in A New Hope).

For years, fans have used BBY and ABY (meaning "after the Battle of Yavin") to mark dates in Star Wars; BBY 5 signals that the show is taking place five years before the first movie. This is, however, the first time a Star Wars show or movie has acknowledged the BBY dating system, which dates back to the 1990s, when it was used in a guide for a Star Wars roleplaying game. As far as we know, though, BBY and ABY aren't used within the Star Wars universe itself. ​

A Luggabeast

While B2EMO is rolling along the road on Ferrix, we see a Luggabeast on the right side of the screen. That's the same kind of creature a Teedo was riding while trying to capture BB-8 in The Force Awakens (Rey soon steps in and rescues the droid).

Familiar yellow arms

At around the 14-minute mark in the first episode, "Kassa," we see Cassian Andor walk by an alien with yellow mechanical arms that closely resembles "Crusher," an alien who appeared on Rey's home planet of Jakku in The Force Awakens. Crusher's arms were cut off by thugs working for Unkar Plutt, forcing the alien to use mechanical ones like his counterpart in Andor.

Wobani

In "Kassa," Timm asks Bix, "Are we bidding on the Wobani run tomorrow?" Wobani is the planet with Imperial labor camps where Jyn Erso was rescued by K-2SO and brought to the Rebellion early in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. (The planet's name also happens to be an anagram of "Obi-Wan.")

We've seen that ship before ...

Near the end of Andor's first episode, there's a scene where Cassian is in a shipyard and we see a WTK-85A interstellar transport ship like the one used by assassin Ochi of Bestoon in the sequel trilogy. A flashback in The Force Awakens showed Rey watching Ochi's ship leave Jakku with her parents on board, and Rey comes across the craft in The Rise of Skywalker. We learn in that film that Ochi — who was working for Palpatine — killed Rey's parents on the ship.

Corellian hounds

In that same shipyard scene, Cassian is given a hard time by Pegla, who's walking two Corellian hounds on leashes. Corellia is Han Solo's home planet, so we previously saw Corellian hounds pop up in Solo: A Star Wars Story (specifically when Han and Qi'ra are trying to escape the area).

Banthas

In the episode "That Would Be Me," we see Cassian with a small toy Bantha, one of those creatures with horns frequently spotted on Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine.

Another mining disaster

We learn in Andor's second episode that records indicate Cassian's home planet of Kenari was "abandoned after [an] Imperial mining disaster." Such an incident calls to mind a moment in Rogue One when Darth Vader noted how the Empire blamed the destruction of Jedha on a "mining disaster," though it had actually destroyed the planet with the Death Star. Might a similar cover-up be afoot in Kenari?

Aki-Aki

Sitting behind Luthen on the ship in the final scene of episode two are a pair of Aki-Aki, the aliens from Pasaana who Rey and the gang encountered during a festival in The Rise of Skywalker.

Fondor

In the episode "Aldhani," Luthen's ship is identified as a Fondor Haulcraft. The video game Star Wars: Battlefront II takes players above the planet Fondor, which is home to key Imperial shipyards and serves as a "critical naval complex for the Empire," notes StarWars.com. Fondor was introduced all the way back in 1979, when it was mentioned in the novel Han Solo at Stars' End.

Partisan Front

In "Aldhani," Cassian references several groups he says Luthen could be from, including Partisan Front. That's the name of the insurgent group led by Forest Whitaker's Rogue One character Saw Gerrera, and the group is seen in that same film. Partisan Front members are considered terrorists and far too extreme for the Rebellion to associate with.

Mimban

In that same scene in "Aldhani," Cassian tells Luthen he "fought in Mimban when I was 16," a reference to the muddy planet on which Han Solo was fighting for the Empire when he met Chewbacca at the start of Solo: A Star Wars Story. The Republic assisted the Mimbanese Liberation Army in fighting against the Separatists during the Clone Wars, only for the Empire to later invade the planet to "install a regime loyal to the Emperor and eradicate the hostiles," as Han Solo's lieutenant said in Solo. But Han raised objections to this, noting, "It's their planet. We're the hostiles."

Arvala-Six

As the Imperial Security Bureau is introduced in "Aldhani," it is revealed that mining has resumed on Arvala-Six. Arvala-Six is presumably in the same sector as Arvala-Seven, the desert planet where Din Djarin first met Grogu (a.k.a. Baby Yoda) in The Mandalorian.

Scarif

Another one from that ISB scene: An officer references an "increase in construction shipments going to Scarif." Scarif is the beach planet where the rebels stole the plans for the Death Star in Rogue One.

Rakata invaders

Before his mission on Aldhani, Luthen gives Cassian a down payment: A blue Kyber signet (Kyber being what powers a Jedi's lightsaber), which Luthen says "celebrates the uprising against the Rakatan invaders."

The Rakata were introduced in the wildly popular 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and are ancient, savage warriors who used the Dark Side of the Force and developed advanced technology, including hyperdrives. They were also reportedly the first species to figure out how to traverse hyperspace, and ruled what was known as the Infinite Empire, which brutally invaded planets around 30,000 years before A New Hope. None of that is canon anymore, though, so this is the first major Rakata reference since Disney bought the Star Wars franchise and reset its continuity.

Hosnian Prime

As Syril Karn arrives home to his mother in Coruscant in episode four, an announcer on PA system references "travel service to Hosnian Prime." Hosnian Prime was the capital of the New Republic in The Force Awakens, and the planet the First Order destroyed with Starkiller Base, essentially wiping out its entire government.

The antique store

Mon Mothma's visit to Luthen's antique store in "Aldhani" is an absolute Easter egg gold mine.

For starters, Luthen shows Mothma a "Utapaun monk cudgel." Utapau is where Obi-Wan Kenobi fights General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith.

And that's not all. Other notable store artifacts include Mandalorian armor; armor resembling that of Starkiller, who served under Darth Vader in the video game The Force Unleashed; Holocrons, storage devices that contain holographic information for Force users and were seen in Star Wars Rebels; a Kalikori, a Twi'lek heirloom also seen in Star Wars Rebels; a Kashyyyk clarion, a musical instrument used by the Wookiees; and stone tables with hands echoing a painting of the beings from Mortis seen at an entrance to the World Between Worlds, which Ezra Bridger uses to travel through time, in Star Wars Rebels.

In the episode "Announcement," we also see Luthen has a Kel Dor mask like the one worn by Jedi Master Plo Koon in the prequels, as well as the mask of a Jedi Temple guard.

And while it's not technically a Star Wars Easter egg, Luthen appears to have Indiana Jones' whip frozen in Carbonite, complementing the famous R2-D2 and C-3PO Easter egg in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not only that, but he also has what might be the Sankara Stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Does that mean Indiana Jones is officially Star Wars canon? Sure, why not?

Mon Mothma's guests

In episode four, Mon Mothma is arguing with her husband about a dinner with the governor and mentions two event guests in particular: Ars Dangor and Sly Moore. Ars Dangor was an adviser to Emperor Palpatine, while Sly Moore was Palpatine's chief of staff — so you can understand why Mothma, who's secretly aiding the rebels, would be particularly anxious about them coming. Moore is seen throughout the prequel trilogy, and is standing by Palpatine's left when the leader announces the creation of the Empire in Revenge of the Sith.

Mothma notes these guests are from "the Vizier's private chamber," with the Vizier being Mas Amedda, who also served with Palpatine and was also seen throughout the prequels (including at Palpatine's right during the aforementioned Empire creation scene).

Kessel

In the episode titled "The Axe Forgets," Dedra Meero's assistant, Heert, references Kessel, the planet that hosts the famous spice mines C-3PO mentions in A New Hope ("We'll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel…"), as well as the coaxium heist in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Further, it's the Kessel from the "Kessel Run," the route Han Solo boasted about making in "less than 12 parsecs" in A New Hope. The same run was also featured in Solo.

Jakku

In the same breath, Meero refers to "targeting consoles from Jakku," shouting out Rey's home planet in the sequel trilogy. Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku!?

Ghorman

While arguing with her husband about the dinner in "Aldhani," Mothma says, "We should find some Ghorman guests for tonight and see how amused they are. Your fun friends just cut off their shipping lanes yesterday." Later in the series, during the episode "The Eye," we see Mothma delivering a Senate speech in defense of Ghorman.

In Star Wars Rebels, Mothma resigns from the Senate after accusing Palpatine of ordering an attack on Ghorman. That occurs about three years after Andor begins, so it's possible the show is preparing to depict this Ghorman massacre, and Mothma's subsequent resignation, in live-action.

Climb!

In "The Eye," one of the last things Nemik says before his death is "climb," which he shouts to Cassian as he's flying the ship. This was also one of the last things K-2SO told Cassian in Rogue One before his death.

Devaron

At the end of "The Eye," we see an item in Luthen's antique shop that's described as "Devaron blue." Devaron was a jungle planet seen in The Clone Wars, in which Savage Opress attacks the planet's Jedi Temple.

Wullf Yularen

Near the start of the episode "Announcement," an Imperial Security Bureau colonel with a mustache announces a variety of steps the Empire will take in response to the robbery on Aldhani. This is Wullf Yularen, who was present during the famous Death Star conference room scene in A New Hope — the one where Darth Vader says, "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Yularen was also a character on The Clone Wars. He was once an admiral in the Republic and served under Anakin Skywalker, but he became a colonel in the ISB after the Republic was reorganized into the Empire. He'll end up getting killed when Luke Skywalker blows up the first Death Star in A New Hope. 

Mothma's party

We see some familiar faces in the background at Mon Mothma's party in "Announcement." For one, a purple alien is seen conversing with guests while holding a drink during the shot that shows a long table; we saw this same kind of alien at the casino in The Last Jedi, and The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary identified her as the countess of Canto Bight. Her name? Contessa Alissyndrex delga Cantonica Provincion.

We also see an alien at the party that is the same species as Lexo Sooger, a masseur who also appeared on Canto Bight in a Last Jedi deleted scene.

Ord Mantell

In "Announcement," Major Partagaz asks for an audit of hyperspace lanes leading to Ord Mantell, a planet we recently saw in the animated series The Bad Batch. During the Clone Wars, the Black Sun crime syndicate had a base on Ord Mantell, and in The Bad Batch, Clone Force 99 heads there as part of a mission to rescue Jabba the Hutt's rancor, Muchi.

Han Solo also references the planet in The Empire Strikes Back while talking to Leia on Hoth. As he begins to leave, Leia tells him, "I thought you had decided to stay," to which Han responds, "Well, the bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind."

Belsavis

At the start of the episode "Narkina 5," we hear a shoretrooper directing one of Cassian's fellow prisoners to Belsavis, a planet from the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was an icy planet and home to a prison complex in the old Star Wars canon, so it makes sense that the Empire would be transporting prisoners there in Andor. Belsavis was also a part of the Rakata Infinite Empire, which the show previously referenced.

Tunqstoid

When Cassian arrives at the factory facility in "Narkina 5," one of the Imperials warns that "our floors are Tunqstoid steel." This appears to be an absurdly deep-cut reference to the 2009 novel Fate of the Jedi: Abyss, which has a line about how a pair of blast doors on Coruscant were made out of this type of steel. "The two doors were so heavy they had to be mounted on mag-lev guides instead of tracks," the book noted. The grand total of three people who picked up on that shout-out must have really appreciated it.

Melshi

"Narkina 5" features a major returning character from Rogue One when Forest Whitaker's Saw Gerrera appears. But he's not the only familiar face from that film, as there's also Ruescott Melshi (Duncan Pow). We previously saw Melshi in Rogue One as a sergeant with the Rebel Alliance and a friend of Cassian, who ends up joining him on the mission to steal the plans to the Death Star. "Andor knows Melshi personally and trusts him to carry out the hard task of making his small fighting force feel like a much bigger unit in the eyes of the Empire," the Rogue One visual guide notes. In Andor, Melshi is one of the prisoners at the factory facility, suggesting he and Cassian will form a bond inside and likely break out together. So we know from Rogue One that Melshi does escape Narkina 5, but don't get too attached; like Cassian, he's ultimately killed during the Battle of Scarif.

An interrogation callback

In the episode "Nobody's Listening!," a scene of Bix being interrogated ends with a door closing as the camera pans down to show an Imperial walking across the shot. That's almost an exact recreation of a shot from A New Hope. When Princess Leia is being interrogated on the Death Star by Darth Vader, an interrogator droid approaches her holding out a needle, and the scene ends with the door closing as the camera pans down to an Imperial walking across the shot. It's like poetry. They rhyme.

Kafrene

During an ISB scene toward the end of "Nobody's Listening!," we learn a rebel pilot was taken into custody while on his way to Kafrene. In Rogue One, the Ring of Kafrene was the trading outpost where we first met Cassian Andor and where an informant tells him that the Empire is making a planet-killing weapon, a.k.a. the Death Star.

The garbage will do!

In the episode "Daughter of Ferrix," after Cassian and Melshi escape from prison, they come across a quadjumper, a kind of ship we previously saw in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When Rey and Finn are fleeing on Jakku, they start running toward a quadjumper, but after it gets destroyed in front of them, Rey declares "the garbage will do," and they take the Millennium Falcon instead.

Dr. Ock

One of the aliens Cassian encounters while trying to steal the quadjumper in "Daughter of Ferrix" appears to be Cycyed Ock. We previously saw him in Rogue One, and he's one of the partisans in Saw Gerrera's group of rebels. According to the Rogue One visual guide, "The cyber-optic wired into Ock's brain grants him sharp vision," and with this, "he analyzes kyber deposits and exames microcircuitry."

Musters mash

When Cassian returns to Narkina 5 in "Daughter of Ferrix" and sneaks around the place he was living before his arrest, he tries not to wake a sleeping alien. This appears to be the same kind of alien we saw sleeping next to Jyn Erso when she was in prison at the start of Rogue One. That specific alien in Rogue One had the incredible name of Oolin Musters, and it's of the Blutopian species.

A Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser

Near the end of the episode "Daughter of Ferrix," Luthen is confronted by Imperials on a Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser, a kind of ship that was first designed for Star Wars: A New Hope and named after concept artist Colin Cantwell. Though this ship didn't end up appearing in A New Hope, it was later used for 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Your father would have been proud

The episode "Daughter of Ferrix" ends with a shot of Cassian, after finding out his mother has died, on the beach looking out at the horizon — echoing the way Cassian will ultimately die in Rogue One: on the beach looking out at the horizon before being blown up by the Death Star.

When Cassian calls about his mother, he also says that she would "be proud of me." This echoes his last words in Rogue One, where he tells Jyn Erso, "Your father would have been proud of you." Who's cutting space onions?

Canto Bight

When Mothma confronts her husband about a supposed gambling problem in the season finale, "Rix Road," she says, "You can't live without a casino? Fine. You go to Canto Bight and do whatever it is you need to do. But not here." Canto Bight is the casino Finn and Rose went to in The Last Jedi to recruit the master codebreaker — or at least a codebreaker.

Death troopers

"Rix Road" features the triumphant return of the death troopers, those stormtroopers in black armor who accompany Dedra Meero to Ferrix. We first saw this kind of stormtrooper guarding Orson Krennic in Rogue One. 

According to the Rogue One visual dictionary, the death troopers "comprise an elite unit created to defend the most important operations and operatives within the Imperial military hierarchy" — and their name comes from a rumored Imperial project that was supposedly "designed to animate necrotic flesh."

Under construction

This one falls into the category of tie-in, rather than Easter egg, considering it's right there in your face ... unless you turned off the finale before the credits were over, that is.

In a chilling mid-credits scene of "Rix Road," the camera pans out to reveal the Death Star being assembled (and it appears to be almost completely finished). This is presumably taking place over Scarif, the beach planet from Rogue One, as foreshadowed earlier in the season when we heard about an "increase in construction shipments going to Scarif."

But aside from just reminding us of the danger looming on the horizon, the scene reveals that Cassian and the rest of the prisoners on Narkina 5 were actually helping to build the Death Star all along — meaning Cassian contributed to the construction of a weapon that will later kill him. As Palpatine might say ... Ironic.

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