In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the armor worn by the clone trooper CC-1119, also known as Appo (Dee Bradley Baker), of the 501st legion contains a design on his helmet which is a direct reference to the Nickelodeon television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. While the two animated series appear to share little to no resemblance beyond their intricate world-building, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars: The Clone Wars shared a director in Dave Filoni, which helped lead to the common link between the series.
After being cancelled from Cartoon Network in 2014, Star Wars: The Clone Wars received its seventh and final season on the streaming service Disney+ in February 2020. Similarly, Avatar: The Last Airbender, a children’s program which originally aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, also experienced a comeback when the series was added to Netflix’s library in May 2020 ahead of the live-action remake produced by the series’ original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, which is currently in development. A commander during the Clone Wars, Appo is first introduced as a clone trooper assisting Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) during the Order 66 raid of the Jedi Temple within Star Wars Episode III- Revenge of the Sith and later reappears in Star Wars: The Clone Wars during the battle on Umbara.
When Appo appears in Clone Wars, however, his helmet features a new white arrow on the forehead as a reference to the Avatar character, Appa. In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Appa was the beloved pet of Avatar Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), the last Airbender and master of all four elements, who was one of Aang’s last remaining connections to his Airbender roots after the Fire Nation wiped out all of the Air Nomads during the Hundred Year War. Appa was a member of an endangered species known as the sky bison, which were used by the Air Nomads for transportation to and from their Air Nation temples. Believing the bison to be the original Airbenders, the Air Nomads paid homage to the animals by giving themselves tattoos similar to the bison’s markings, a brown arrow in their fur which ran from their tail to their forehead. Inspired by Appa’s arrow marking, Appo the clone trooper has a white arrow which travels from the back to the front of his helmet.
Apart from their matching arrows and similar sounding names, Appa and Appo have a few similarities despite existing in separate universes, including being portrayed by the same voice actor, Dee Bradley Baker. Since Baker and the supervising director for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Dave Filoni both formerly worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender together, Appo’s arrow within Clone Wars pays tribute to their past project. Since Appo was first introduced in Revenge of the Sith, portrayed by Temuera Morrison, Appo’s white arrow wasn’t featured on his helmet until his first appearance in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 4 episode “Darkness on Umbara” after Filoni and Baker added their own personal flair to the character.
While the main inspiration for Appo’s arrow is Baker’s link to the two characters as their voice actor, there may be some unintentional symbolism at work in Revenge of the Sith when Appo's arrow disappears from his helmet. Within Avatar: The Last Airbender, Airbenders would be awarded the arrow tattoos once they had mastered their airbending techniques, a goal they'd been training for since they were very young. In Revenge of the Sith, however, after Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid) has executed Order 66, Appo ironically looses his arrow once the clones, including Appo, accomplish the goal they were made for and wipe out the Jedi Order.
While the arrow on Appo’s helmet within Star Wars: The Clone Wars was simply meant to be a fun reference, the Easter egg works on multiple levels since Appa and Appo both have one major quality in common: loyalty. While Appa’s loyalty to Aang made him a lifelong companion and vital member of Team Avatar throughout Avatar: The Last Airbender, Appo was only loyal to his internal protocol, which led him and all of the other clones to betray their former Jedi allies.