The Arrowverse has never been afraid of making smart, incredibly geeky pop culture references from time to time. Practically every episode of The Flash features Cisco referring to a movie or book of some kind, and it's clear that the creative teams behind the series are more than willing to let their inner voices speak through their characters, especially when it comes to honoring the films and books that were sources of inspiration to them. That sort of zany, tongue-in-cheek self-awareness has just gone on and continued in full force with Legends of Tomorrow too.
Looks like DC's time-traveling series about a group of good and bad guys journeying through time to fight the forces of evil is only going to get even more referential in the second half of its current season as well - based on some new details about one of the show's most-anticipated upcoming episodes being released, that is.
Speaking with EW, executive producer Marc Guggenheim revealed that the ninth episode of the season, titled "Raiders of the Lost Art", will not only feature the return of Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter as a film director in the late 1960s, but will also feature a time aberration in which a young George Lucas (played by Matt Angel) quits film school, thus never making Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Turns out, the change will apparently have devastating effects on two key members of the team also:
“Because of circumstances, the time aberration in episode 209 is George Lucas quits film school. As a result, he never makes Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a result, Ray, who became an engineer because of Star Wars, and Nate, who became a historian because of Raiders, slowly start to lose their brilliance, because those things that inspired them to become who they are didn’t exist.
We were watching a cut of it, and I said to Greg [Berlanti] that 209 is either going to be the episode where we’ll say that the show found a new gear in terms of how zany it can be, or it’s the episode that’s going to get us all fired. It really is. You’re laughing out loud, I think with it, but it’s like, ‘Are we really doing this?’ It’s the ’70s bar fight on steroids. The whole episode is that level of crazy.”
The episode is going to be coming at an opportune time for the series, when fandom levels for Star Wars are higher than they've ever been before really, and an episode dedicated to the strength of those films and the other iconic titles to emerge from the Steven Spielberg and George Lucas camps will likely be welcomed with open arms by fans. Legends of Tomorrow will also be effectively tying the time traveling story into the same episode as Rip Hunter's long-awaited return here, as fans have been speculating and wondering about his disappearance ever since it happened in the season 2 premiere episode.
Guggenheim called the episode, "Flowers for Algernon with Ray and Nate," and seeing how both Ray and Nate's intellects are negatively affected by this particular time aberration should give the series one of its more interesting, and possibly, surprisingly emotional tangents yet - if executed well at least. No matter what, though, it sounds as though Legends of Tomorrow is going to be bringing Rip Hunter back the only way it knows how: in the most ridiculously geeky and zany way possible.
Legends of Tomorrow continues with 'Raiders of the Lost Art' on Tuesday, January 24th, 2017 on The CW.
Source: EW