Every so often, a series comes along which can appeal to fans of every background and demographic, that has something for high brow audiences and the average Joes. Such a series must speak to deep personal truths at the human core, but must also be fun and lighthearted. Star Wars is such a series. So too is Rick and Morty. And since the two could not be further from one another in tone, this speaks to the brilliance of both.
While both are science fiction series, the two have a bit more overlap as Rick and Morty often pays homage to George Lucas's brainchild. Here are the best Star Wars inside jokes in Rick and Morty.
Updated July 8th, 2020, by Darby Harn: Rick and Morty recently returned for a brief half-season (even though a ton more weirdness is on the horizon), and naturally there were a ton of in-jokes, references, and easter eggs for fans to dissect (or however they do it in their universe). Many of those were Star Wars related, once again. A galaxy far, far away seems to have a special place in the minds of the show's creators, so here are a few Star Wars references from season four.
"Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri"
The title of the fourth season finale is a not subtle at all nod to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which makes some sense in that it's the episode where Rick Sanchez sort-of finally acknowledges how bad of a father he is to Beth. Also there's a lot of space stuff. Like a lot. Rick's adventure to recover an invisibility belt - and his family - barely echoes the familial drama of the final installment of the original trilogy, but mostly it's about blowing up a huge planet destroying thing.
For The Glorzo Of It All
Episode seven of season four, "Promortyus," features probably the deepest Star Wars cut the show has ever attempted. It's so granular many if not most fans of a galaxy far, far away will probably miss it. In the episode, Rick and Morty are on the run from a very Alien-like race called the Glorzo, but their name hails from an obscure alien from Star Wars Expanded Universe. Glorzo the Hutt lived during The Old Republic, and is now - presumably - no longer canon.
Clone Beth's Posse
The end of season four answered a major lingering question from the end of season three: did Rick clone his daughter Beth? Turned out he did. Clone Beth shows up in the course of "Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri" and she has a pretty strong Star Wars vibe. Clone Beth is part of The Defiance (which obviously is the Rebellion) and her posse is a motley alien assortment very reminiscent of most Star Wars crews, particularly Rogue One. Among her crew are a Gromflomite and a female Squanchy.
The NX-5 Planet Remover
Another Rogue One-ish reference, but really more in tune with the first Star Wars, also occurs in the season finale (which is just brimming with references to the classic space opera, and other franchises). Clone Beth and her squad of Defiance heroes are after the plans for something big and terrible called the NX-5 Planet Remover, which is just a big wink and a nod to the Death Star. This is the fulcrum of the episode, which started innocently enough (they all do) with that invisibility belt.
Secret Hole
Also winked at is the instructional video they watch to learn how to destroy the NX-5 Planet Remover, which is a little more helpful than the Death Star plans. What's not helpful is that unlike the Death Star, there's no simple goal for The Defiance to focus on.
The NX-5 has no weakness at all - as the Gromflomite says, it has no "secret hole that blows the whole thing up when you shoot it," referring to method with which Luke Skywalker dispatched the first Death Star (and really how they got rid of all of them).
I Thought They Smelled Bad On The Outside
For the first couple of seasons, Rick and Morty introduced the concept of "Interdimensional Cable" as a clip show in the tradition of shows like The Simpsons with a series of short offbeat clips that basically felt like weird jokes the writers regretted having to cut. Then in season three, the new clip show was "Morty's Mind Blowers"- a series of memories Rick had removed from Morty's brain.
In one scene, Rick and Morty cut open an animal companion they love and crawl into its guts to stay warm before a frozen winter descends on them, evoking the killing of the tauntaun in The Empire Strikes Back. Then winter doesn't come after all.
Darth Rick's Double-Bladed Hate-Saber
A lot of Star Wars fans have been disappointed by the prequel trilogy. However, the one thing fans can consistently agree was great from The Phantom Menace was the master of the double-bladed lightsaber, the Sith assassin Darth Maul.
In "The Rickchurian Mortydate," when Rick and President Obama clash with each other over the former President refusing to take a selfie with Morty, the fight is a sprawling cinematic action sequence of pure sci-fi fun. At one point, Rick uses a bo staff that glows at both ends, reminiscent of Darth Maul's lightsaber, even taking on two opponents at once.
The Den of Scum and Villainy
This is another moment from the episode "The Rickchurian Mortydate," in which Rick and President Obama go from being respectful allies to embittered enemies.
After Obama threatens to strip Rick and Morty of their citizenship, the two prank the world leader in a number of ways, including making peace between Israel and Palestine (something the President couldn't do). To quote one of Obama's staffers, Israel and Palestine's leaders "signed something called 'The Pretty Obvious If You Think About It' accord" after Rick "took them to a Star Wars cantina where they smoked perspective-enhancing alien pheromones through a laser hookah." That is some Jabba the Hut level diplomacy.
Mos Eisley Again
In a scene from "Morty's Mind Blowers," Morty begins to relive one memory after another in rapid succession. This sees him go through a number of flashbacks, each about a second long. Some are funny, some weird, and some are mundane examples of him making Rick look bad in some way.
There is a clear reference to the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine in one of these scenes. While no context is given, the art style and design evoke that famous locale from Star Wars: A New Hope where Luke and Obi-Wan met Chewbacca.
No Body's Hologram
Holograms are all over science fiction. In fact, they're now real, being used in real life by people of all backgrounds. Rick and Morty is a sci-fi show, so the science fiction elements would be expected to be more advanced and awesome than the real-life tech people have in the world nowadays.
This makes it all the stranger when Rick has a hologram of himself, because it looks more like a hologram than like Rick himself. The blue color is a clear reference to holograms in Star Wars, a galaxy far far away where people are capable of lightspeed travel but not realistic looking holograms.
Bacta Normal
In the episode "Big Trouble In Little Sanchez," Rick shrinks down into a copy of himself to become Tiny Rick, infiltrating Summer and Morty's high school to help them kill vampires. When they return home, Tiny Rick leads his grandkids to the garage, where his elderly body is in suspended animation in a tank full of liquid.
This is a reference to bacta tanks in Star Wars, which are used in medical treatments. When Luke was hurt on Hoth, he recovered in bacta in The Empire Strikes Back.
Darth Buddha
In the episode "Raising Gazorpazorp," Morty obtains an adult robot doll that he accidentally impregnates. Morty calls Rick to come to his room when the doll transforms into a giant floaty robot ball that moves about the room.
Some details in Morty's room include a tiny action figure of Jesus holding a lightsaber and a poster of what appears to be the silhouette of Darth Vader levitating while in lotus position, only with the clarifying label "Darth Buddha." Whether Star Wars is a religion in this universe or Morty just has weird tastes, this is a cool detail.
Ballers
"Raising Gazorpazorp" crams a lot of Star Wars references into a short amount of time. Beyond the Sith Lord Buddha poster and the Nazarene carpenter action figure with lightsaber action, there is also another reference included in the robotic blow-up doll Morty uses.
When the doll turns into a ball, it moves about Morty's room in a way that seems to emulate the small spherical mechanical droid Luke Skywalker used to train with a lightsaber while aboard the Millennium Falcon. This might seem like a bit of a stretch if not for the fact that there are other explicit Star Wars references literally in the same shot.
That's No Moon
"Rest and Ricklaxation" is an episode that begins with several back to back references to different elements of Star Wars, most of them coming from the events surrounding the Battle of Yavin that formed the climax to A New Hope. After Rick pulls Morty into a short twenty-minute adventure to help a princess, there is a shock cut to them flying through space in an intense battle, lasers firing, enemy spacecraft in pursuit.
They fly into a huge mothership and shoot the core, blowing it up like the Death Star.
Heavy Medal
This is the last part of the long pastiche of Star Wars references in the beginning of "Rest and Ricklaxation." While the sequences before evoked the events of the Battle of Yavin up through the destruction of the Death Star, this is followed by an homage to the award ceremony where Han and Luke were given medals for their valor helping the Rebel Alliance - only in the Rick and Morty version, the princess is an inhuman alien.
After getting their medals, the two break down crying from the trauma of all they've experienced on their adventure together.