【The Liar (2014)】

Spoilers for Star Wars: The The Liar (2014)Last Jedifollow. Consider yourself warned.

Rogue Oneand The Last Jedimay not seem to have much direct connection. Though the two movies were released a year apart, they are set decades apart in the Star Wars timeline. Only one character (Leia, who shows up at the end of Rogue Onefor five seconds) appears in both.

Still, it turns out Rogue Onedid set up what would turn out to be a major plot point in Last Jedi.

It's a tiny detail, and easy to miss – but you can always trust Star Wars fans to go over these films with a fine-toothed comb.

Sure enough, one eagle-eyed viewer noticed that when Jyn Erso is looking through Empire files in Rogue One, she comes across one that mentions "hyperspace tracking."

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That's the same technology that drives the Resistance almost to extinction The Last Jedi. Leia's band of rebels realize, to their horror, that the First Order is able to follow them even when they jump into hyperspace.

Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) refers to hyperspace tracking as new technology, and everyone else in the Resistance seems surprised to discover it exists at all. In other words, it seems to be verycutting edge. And yet the bad guys have had it in the works for a while.

The Rogue Onereference was no accident. Lucasfilm Story Group's Pablo Hidalgo confirmed the connection on Twitter.

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In the Last Jedi Visual Dictionary, Hidalgo revealed that active hyperspace tracking was initially conceived by Grand Moff Tarkin's think tank -- though it took many more years and many more engineers to perfect it.

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Which means Tarkin kinda got the last laugh. Decades after Luke blew up the Death Star and killed Tarkin in the process, his technology (well – technology originally explored by his think tank) nearly wiped out the rebels for good.

That inspired Luke to project his form onto Crait and battle Kylo Ren, which so exhausted Luke that he passed away. Therefore, in roundabout fashion, Tarkin got his revenge -- he is a little bit responsible for Luke's death.

Not that he'll be able to enjoy that revenge. Luke could still come back as a Force ghost – and probably will, given that Last Jedigoes out of its way to remind you that Force ghosts are things that exist.

Tarkin, meanwhile, is gone for good. Guess Luke and the rebels win this round after all.

vhd

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