Warning: SPOILERS for the Andor episode “The Axe Forgets” are ahead!
When one thinks of Lucasfilm, two franchises should immediately come to mind: Star Wars and Indiana Jones (though bonus points if you also thought of Willow). The Indiana Jones movies have included a handful of Star Wars Easter eggs (among others) over the decades, including a hieroglyphic of C-3PO and R2-D2 being spotted in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the nightspot at the beginning of The Temple of Doom being called Club Obi-Wan. On the flip side, the latest episode of Andor, which Disney+ subscribers can stream now, contained a pretty cool Indiana Jones Easter egg, one which directly calls back to the film series’ second installment.
At the end of “The Axe Forgets,” we briefly reunite with Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, the Rebel operative who met Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor in “Reckoning” and set him up on the mission being run by Faye Marsay’s Vel Sarth. As Luthen is playing around with his radio set and impatiently waiting for an update on how the mission went, we see some of the artifacts on display on the shelves behind him in his shop on Coruscant, and if you look closely to the right of the actor, you’ll see two familiar orange stones in the corner.
Yes, those are indeed a pair of the Sankara Stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There were five of these stones in the 1984 movie, and Mola Ram and his Thuggee cult intended to use them for their nefarious scheme. By the end of The Temple of Doom, all but one of the Sankara Stones were lost, and Dr. Henry Jones Jr., Willie Scott and Short Round brought it back to its rightful home with the people of the village of Mayapore. Now we know that at least two Sankara Stones exist in the Star Wars universe, though do they have the same mystical properties? You know what, I’m overthinking this, let’s just be happy that Andor’s prop team threw this Easter egg in for the Star Wars show’s eagle-eyed viewers.
Full disclosure, this isn’t the first Indiana Jones Easter egg that’s been included in Andor. In the episode “Aldhani,” the first time we visited Luthen Rael’s shop, one of the glimpsed artifacts included Indiana Jones’ whip, albeit encased in carbonite. So is that it on the Indiana Jones Easter eggs in Andor, or are there more coming? Could we potentially see the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail in Luthen’s shop or on one of the planets Cassian visits? Now I’ll be keeping a closer eye on the backgrounds in future episodes, which drop Wednesdays on Disney+.
While you wait for the next chapter of Cassian Andor’s pre-Rogue One journey, check out our breakdown of how to watch the Star Wars movies in order, and where the TV shows fall into the timeline. Andor has also already been greenlit for a second season that will lead into the events of Rogue One.
