Call Forward / Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars has a lot of Call Forwards to Revenge of the Sith as well as the movies set in the Original Trilogy.

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• In "Cat and Mouse":
  Obi-Wan Kenobi: Anakin, I've got enough problems without you becoming one of them.
  • In the same episode, Bail Organa asks Obi-Wan for help against Separatist bombers via a holographic message, just like his daughter will.
  Bail Organa: Help us, General Kenobi. You're our only hope.
• "Clone Cadets": Fives and Echo go to Shaak Ti and ask to be transferred to a different squad, a request she denies. The later-set "Rookies" already established that the two of them are the only members of Domino Squad to survive the battle of the Rishi moon and join the 501^st.
• In "Destroy Malevolence", General Grievous jumps down behind Obi-Wan and greets him with a "Hello, there". Obi-Wan does the same thing to Grievous in Revenge of the Sith in a retroactive Ironic Echo. Grievous also commands the Separatist droids to "kill him" and when that fails, he declares that he'll deal with the Jedi himself, almost exactly like in the film.
• In "Jedi Crash", Anakin is briefly incapacitated by an explosion and placed on life support in a Republic cruiser. While he's hooked up to a respirator machine, the sound effect is the same as for Darth Vader's iconic breathing.
• "Mystery of a Thousand Moons": Anakin and Obi-Wan have to contend with a defence system left behind by the Separatists in the moons of Iego that strongly resembles the Death Star's superlaser and is likely a prototype of it.
• "Storm Over Ryloth": The Resolute is hit in the bridge by a droid fighter, which is similar to how the Executor will be hit by a Rebel A-Wing in Return of the Jedi. Admiral Yularen even reacts in the same way as Admiral Piett. Unlike the Executor, both the Resolute and Admiral Yularen survive the impact. Coincidentally, both ships happened to be under the command of Anakin/Vader.
• "Innocents of Ryloth": Obi-Wan drops his lightsaber during the run-in with the gutkurrs and Commander Cody returns it to him afterwards, exactly as he will do on Utapau shortly before the execution of Order 66.
• When Obi-Wan points out that the Geonosians they're fighting in "Legacy of Terror" seem to be undead, Anakin remarks, "That can't be true! That's impossible!" which is a paraphrasing of what Luke will eventually say to him in The Empire Strikes Back after claiming to be his father.
• "Children of the Force" has an easily overlooked one: Anakin remarks that they tore apart a ship belonging to a bounty hunter named Cad Bane in search of vital information on board. One of Vader's first lines in A New Hope is "Commander, tear this ship apart!"
• "The Zillo Beast Strikes Back": When it turns out that Anakin has improvised a plan to escape the Zillo Beast's clutches by cutting the Chancellor's escape ship in half, sending the front half falling, Captain Rex comments that "A lot of the General's plans involve falling," nodding to a moment in the earlier but later-set episode "Landing at Point Rain" where Anakin and Ahsoka telekinetically drop Rex off a wall they're about to blow up.
• In "Brain Invaders", mind-controlled clone troopers open fire on Ahsoka and Barriss. When they manage to incapacitate Barriss, one of the clone troopers, Edge, remarks that if there is one thing the clone troopers know, it's how to stop Jedi.
  • The main plot of the episode is that a squad of clone troopers is infected by Puppeteer Parasites and wind up attacking the Jedi on their ship, which is just like the execution of Order 66.
    "If there's one thing we clones know, it's how to stop a Jedi."
  • Ahsoka, talking with Barriss about what might happen when the war ends, mentions that she might find Anakin's views on the future "a bit radical", and that she has no idea how peacetime will even agree with him. When she says that last part, a bar of the Imperial March is heard.
  • Anakin has to interrogate the Geonosian leader Poggle to learn how to get rid of a certain batch of mind-controlling worms. Poggle proves uncooperative, and Anakin starts to Force-Choke him; cue the Imperial March, foreshadowing Anakin's impending transformation into Darth Vader.
• "The Deserter": While talking with Cut, Rex lays out exactly why he stays in the army by saying this (let's just say he won't have to imagine it...):
  "Because I'm part of the most pivotal moment in the history of the Republic. If we fail, then our children and their children could be forced to live under an evil I can't well imagine."
• "Voyage of Temptation": Traitorous Senator Tal Merrik is threatening to blow up Duchess Satine's ship, and has put Technical Pacifist Obi-Wan and Actual Pacifist Satine in a bind regarding how they'll deal with him, because as Merrik points out, if Obi-Wan kills him he'll be a hero to everyone on the Coronet except Satine, and if Satine kills him she'll be considered a hypocrite who's abandoned all of her pacifist ideals. Then:
  Merrik: Who'll strike first and brand themselves a cold-blooded killer?
  [Anakin's lightsaber emerges through Merrik's torso, and a few bars of the "Imperial March" play]
• In "Voyage of Temptation", Satine chews out Obi-Wan for his tendency to speak in half-truths:
  Satine: Senators, I presume you're acquainted with the collection of half-truths and hyperbole known as Obi-Wan Kenobi?
• Anakin and Mace become trapped under rubble in "R2 Come Home" and Mace wakes up from it after Anakin does. In trying to free themselves, Mace uses the Force to try and lift the rubble off them but the whole place around them is dangerously unstable and he barely manages to keep more of it from falling on them. Anakin angrily tells him that he already tried that and it's no use, not unlike how Luke yells at Han after he shoots at the magnetically-sealed door of the trash compactor in A New Hope.
• "Overlords": Ahsoka has a vision of a future version of herself warning of the darkness in Anakin and who claims that Ahsoka will "never see [her] future" if she remains Anakin's student.
• During Anakin's and Ahsoka's lightsaber duel in "Altar of Mortis", Anakin disarms Ahsoka the same way Vader will disarm Luke early on in their duel in The Empire Strikes Back.
• In "Ghosts of Mortis", Anakin turns to the Dark Side to stop the Clone Wars, bring peace to the galaxy, and protect his loved ones, even if he has to kill all the Jedi to do so. This is exactly what happened in Revenge of the Sith.
  • Before that, The Son, Anthropomorphic Personification of The Dark Side, gives Anakin a preview of his future. The highlights include the attack on the Jedi Temple, Force-choking Padmé, and the destruction of Alderaan, ending with Vader's helmet and some of that distinctive breathing. Anakin is appropriately horrified. The Father later erases Anakin's memory of this.
• In "Citadel Rescue", as Tarkin and Anakin shake hands before parting, a short section of "The Imperial March" is used as the background music.
• "The Citadel":
  • Anakin's plan for getting past the titular prison's lifeform detectors is to carbon-freeze the entire infiltration team. Fives' apprehensive reaction to the carbon freezer takes it home:
  Fives: Are we sure this thing is safe? I don't wanna end up a wall decoration.
  • The Nexus Route, which everyone is after the coordinates of, is a secret hyperspace route that the Separatists could potentially use to surprise-attack Coruscant.
• "Plan of Dissent": The conversation over the comms when Fives tries to bluff Krell that there's nothing going on in the hangar is reminiscent of Han Solo's attempt at doing the same on the Death Star, complete with Krell demanding the trooper's operating number.
• "Carnage of Krell": General Krell is revealed to be a traitor and Rex and the rest of the clone troopers have to try and arrest him in a sequence that is strongly reminiscent of the execution of Order 66 — albeit with the twist that Krell is genuinely evil and the clone troopers are acting in their right minds and not being brainwashed. In addition, when Rex confronts Krell in the control room, Krell states, "It's treason, then?" before tearing into his would-be captors, much like Palpatine will do in Revenge of the Sith.
• "Escape from Kadavo": Queen Miraj Scintel's death scene is intentionally reminiscent of Anakin/Vader's death scene in Return of the Jedi. She even dies in Anakin's arms, and her last words include "You were right."
• "Crisis on Naboo": Anakin and Palpatine enter a dining room only to find Count Dooku waiting for them, similar to something Anakin himself will pull in The Empire Strikes Back.
  • And, when he has Dooku on the defensive, Anakin performs the same repeated hammer move that he would receive at the hands of Luke on the second Death Star.
• "A War on Two Fronts": Anakin finds Steela's marksmanship "Impressive. Most impressive."
• "The Jedi Who Knew Too Much":
  • Tarkin entering Ahsoka's cell is framed the same way as his entering Princess Leia's cell in A New Hope. He also holds Ahsoka's chin in much the same way he will hold Leia's.
  • The ending is very similar to the climax of The Empire Strikes Back: both involve Anakin/Vader trying to convince someone he cares about to go with him, only for that person to throw themselves into the deep instead.
• When Obi-Wan goes undercover as a bounty hunter during the Obi-Wan Undercover arc, he maintains communication with the Jedi Council using a code name. That code name? Ben.
• In "Crisis on Naboo", Anakin and Palpatine enter a dining room where Dooku happens to be waiting for them ala The Empire Strikes Back, which ironically has Anakin as Darth Vader doing this to Han, Leia, Chewie, and Lando.
• The lightsaber duel between Darth Maul and Pre Vizsla in "Shades Of Reason" involves the latter shooting a capture cable at the former, wrapping it around his legs, like Boba Fett will eventually try on Luke in Return of the Jedi. Just like there, the cable is only a minor inconvenience as Maul immediately cuts it and frees himself.
• "Fugitive" takes alot of cues from the infiltration of the Death Star in A New Hope: Fives sets an escape ship from the Kaminoan laboratory to orbit and then jumps out as a decoy, like how Han jettisoned his empty escape pods to trick the Imperials; he subsequently steals another clone's armor to sneak around and do what he needs to; and Shaak Ti's summary of his possible intentions are almost exactly what Vader says about Obi-Wan apparently being on the Death Star, down to saying that escape may not be his intention.
• In "Voices", R2 is rather creeped out when Yoda leaves him alone on Dagobah. When Luke headed to the planet in The Empire Strikes Back, R2 warned him against going there.
  • Yoda, on the advice of the disembodied Force ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, visits the planet Dagobah, and enters the same Dark Side cave where he will send Luke in about 22 years. In said cave, Yoda has visions pertaining to Order 66. And R2-D2, who came along with him, is rather creeped out to be left alone while Yoda goes on his quest, nodding to his dislike of the planet in TESB.
• "Sacrifice":
  • Darth Sidious, in an attempt to break Yoda, makes him have a vision involving him and Anakin, accompanied by clone troopers, attacking the Abandoned Warehouse where Dooku and Sidious meet occasionally on Coruscant. In said vision, Anakin kills Dooku the same way he will in Revenge of the Sith, by scissoring his and Dooku's lightsabers at the man's neck.
  • When Yoda wakes up on Korriban/Moraband after the vision, and talks to the Serene Priestess, as she fades away the sound of the Skywalker twins' birth and Vader Breath are heard. The priestess' last words? "There Is Another... Skywalker."
• In "The Bad Batch", two B1 battle droids outside the Cyber Center have a familiar conversation:
  Battle Droid #1: Do you know what's going on?
  Battle Droid #2: Maybe it's another drill.
• "A Distant Echo":
  • During their holo-call, Anakin and Padmé discuss the progress of the Outer Rim Sieges, a campaign that's still going on in Revenge of the Sith. Also, Anakin looks briefly panicked and angry when Obi-Wan lets him know he knows he was talking to Padmé afterwards.
  • This is not the last time Rex will have reason to comment about someone's lack of stealth on a mission with "So Much for Stealth".
• "On the Wings of Keeradaks": In a Freeze-Frame Bonus for those who read Aurebesh, Tech's collection of creature recordings that he scrolls through on his visor includes bonzami and purrgil.
• "Unfinished Business":
  • Trench's planet-busting bomb is deactivated just in time, but fans of Rebels will recall that Fort Anaxes, the main Republic base in this story, was first introduced as a fyrnock-infested ruin on a planetoid in an Asteroid Thicket…
  • The entirety of Anakin's confrontation with Trench hints at his upcoming fall to the Dark Side, including claiming that he no longer has "weaknesses" like being noble, all capped off by the Emperor's theme playing in the background.
  • After Ahsoka crash lands her speeder in "Gone With a Trace", she adequately calls it a piece of junk.
• Bo-Katan's new helmet markings in this season of The Clone Wars are the same ones that she later has in Rebels.
• "Gone With a Trace":
  • Ahsoka rides a Joben T-85 speeder bike, the same model Kanan will regularly use on Rebels. And when the bike breaks down, she calls it "What a piece of junk!"
  • Pintu Son-El, the guy Rafa owes money to, is the same species as Boss Yushyn.
• "Deal No Deal":
  • Admiral Yularen's transmission to the Silver Angel after Trace accidentally flies into military airspace is, for the second time in the series, reminiscent of Han's bluffing over the comms in the Death Star in A New Hope. Here, Yularen demands the number of Trace's pilot's licence.
  • Anakin sensing Ahsoka aboard the Angel and allowing it to pass is similar to him, as Vader, sensing Luke aboard a stolen Imperial shuttle in Return of the Jedi, complete with him being asked for confirmation on whether to stop the vessel or not. It also serves as a contrast to the scene in "The Siege of Lothal" where Ahsoka and Vader recognize each other.
• "Dangerous Debt":
  • Ahsoka's Force-powered jump over the Martez sisters' heads and a retractable bridge is reminiscent of Kanan's epic leap in "Ghosts of Geonosis".
  • Ahsoka Force-pulling several Pyke guards out from cover so Trace and Rafa can shoot them is reminiscent of Kanan doing the same for Rex in "Stealth Strike".
  • Bo-Katan is accompanied by Sabine's mother Ursa Wren.
• In "Shattered", Ahsoka recites Chirrut's "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me" mantra from Rogue One while attempting to locate Rex's inhibitor chip.
• The very last scene of Ahsoka in The Clone Wars is her wearing a grey cloak in front of the 332nd burial. A similar scene happens in the last episode of Rebels where she appears with a white cloak before going with Sabine to search for Ezra.

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