After a six-week mid-season break, “Legends of tomorrow” returns to The CW to take up from where it left off in its second season of epic time-travelling super-heroics. What a way to recapture audience attention than with an attractive premise for their comeback episode, featuring probably the most unexpected “historical” character cameo ever in the entire series run. After all, this particular person is still alive and can thus chime in on his portrayal if he wants to. But after watching “Raiders of the Lost Art” I’d like to believe that legendary filmmaker George Lucas would very much appreciate the love letter of sorts that DC Entertainment and Warner Bros.
Television wrought for his creations “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones”. And in that fictional universe he gets to hang out with DC superheroes!
Inspired by Lucas
For those trying to gauge just how big George Lucas and his twin pillar film franchises helped shaped our contemporary world, times and pop culture, look no further than in the subplot depicting how two of the Legends, Nate “Steel” Heywood (Nick Zano) and Ray “Atom” Palmer (Brandon Routh) were affected by how the latest chronological divergences being pulled by the Legion of Doom resulted in a timeline where George Lucas (guest star Matt Angel) decided not to go into directing movies during the 60’s where the team are headed. As a result the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” films never got made, causing Ray and Nate, who were respectively inspired by these franchises to follow their canon career paths.
This is manifested by their losing their specialized knowledge and abilities, in short making them increasingly layman and a hindrance to the rest of the Legends.
And this is merely the tip of the iceberg for the team’s current problems. They’re still on the hunt for the Spear of Destiny, but the pressing matter is that they also found Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), erstwhile leader of the Legends of Tomorrow who disappeared during the scattering of the team right off the bat in season 2.
He’s suddenly a film director in 60s Los Angeles with Lucas working as his prop master. Even worse, his memories have been altered and nothing his former teammates do could jog it. But Legion agents Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) and Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) are waiting on the wings.
Lucas shout-outs
Form here the episode gets to indulge in some rib-tickling homage work.
Vixen (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) gets her Princess Leia on in two separate occasions; and the Legends even end up with Lucas in a trash compactor, where remarkably our man regains his desire to be a filmmaker. This actually repowers Nate and Ray, and while they win the day they still lose boss Rip who is abducted by the Legion of Doom. The CW is really amping things up as the second season of “Legends of Tomorrow” resumes its storyline, reinforcing the strength of DC’s TV shows. Catch episode 10 “The Legion of Doom” on January 31.
