Spaceballs 2 is already firing at ludicrous speed. After years of speculation, last week finally brought the official announcement of the film’s production, along with a photo for the ages. It included the cast and crew of the highly anticipated sequel sitting around a room, in stark black and white. For some, that’s where it ended. For others, the layers were staggering and spoke directly to the potential this movie holds.
As many (but not all) people noticed, the cast photo was a direct parody of one Lucasfilm released back in 2014 for The Force Awakens. The staging, the coloring, all of it. And while fans at the time hypothesized and speculated all about that image, it never really materialized into much.
The Spaceballs photo, however, leaned right in. It is jam-packed with winks and nods to the franchise, and maybe even a few teases of what’s to come.
So, outside of that big obvious joke that it’s a riff on The Force Awakens, here are nine other Easter eggs we loved in the Spaceballs 2 table read photo.
Water cooler talk
R2-D2 is the only character from The Force Awakens to make an appearance in that original photo, and, in his place in the Spaceballs 2 photo, is a similarly shaped water cooler. Does that mean the film has a watercooler-shaped droid in it? Or is it just a funny joke? We don’t know, but with Joan Rivers no longer with us to voice the droid Dot Matrix, it would make sense if a new droid debuted in the film.
New toys?
Rick Moranis is back as Dark Helmet, and one thing we know about Helmet is that he loves playing with toys. We aren’t sure that’s what we’re seeing here, but in the back right corner, there is a tiny model castle on the table. Could Helmet have upgraded his toy collection with a playset?
A bunch of assholes
In the middle of the room is a table with a big, black sphere. That, we assume, is a helmet of a Spaceball, basically the stormtrooper helmet of this universe. Since the film is called “Spaceballs,” we assumed the evil Spaceballs would be back, but this prop seems to confirm it.
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