Star Wars: Visions Season 3 Features A Back To The Future Joke You Won't See Coming

The unique thing about "Star Wars: Visions" is that the animated anthology series can get away with things that other "Star Wars" projects cannot. For example, it would be difficult for "The Mandalorian" to include an episode featuring a musical number like "Visions" season 1's "Tatooine Rhapsody." Similarly, it's difficult to imagine "Ahsoka" handling X-wing pilots the way Aardman Animations does with the "Visions" season 2 episode "I Am Your Mother." But that's what's so great about the show. Usually, tongue-in-cheek Easter eggs are shoved into the background (like when the Sankara Stones from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" made an appearance on "Andor"), assuming they're going to be used at all. "Visions," on the other hand, can put them front and center in ways you'd never see coming in a million years.

That's exactly what happens in season 3's "The Lost Ones." As the episode opens, we're greeted by the sight of a person in a radiation suit extracting some sort of liquid we learn to be concentrated carbonite gas from a stone. They press a button on a corded device, which causes a mechanical device to clamp down harder on the rock, and the process continues. It might not immediately seem like a laugh out loud moment, but it is. You see, this is actually a Darth Vader cameo; it's just not the Vader that initially comes to mind. Rather, this is Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan, as seen in 1985's "Back to the Future."

Recall that in "Back to the Future," the film's protagonist, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), uses his radiation suit and Sony Walkman to threaten his father in the middle of the night in 1955. He tells his future-dad that he's Darth Vader from planet Vulcan, warning him that if he doesn't ask Marty's future-mom out to an upcoming dance, his brains will be melted. Marty also "tortures" his father by making him listen to the high volume guitar riffs of Van Halen via his cassette player and headphones. It's a clever ploy that gets Marty exactly what he wants (his father to take action), as well as a clever way for co-writer and director Robert Zemeckis to nod to the "Star Wars" movies.

This, of course, isn't the first time the "Star Wars" franchise has playfully referenced this joke, nor is it the only connection between the property and "Back to the Future." Perhaps most notably, the latter's Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd, shows up in the "Mandalorian" season 3 episode "Chapter 22: Guns for Hire." Still, it's not the sort of thing you'd ever expect to see coming in a "Star Wars" TV series, especially right in your face and at the start of an episode. It's a striking image, but one that swiftly evokes laughter. It's an interesting choice as well; "The Lost Ones" is otherwise pretty dramatic and light on laughs, so one wonders how subtle its director, Hitoshi Haga, thought they were being. It's really quite blatant once you notice it. Even so, if you're a fan of "Back to the Future" (and most folks are), this gag is bound to put a smile on your face.

"Star Wars: Visions" season 3 is now streaming on Disney+.