If you’ve noticed that hands and arms have been flying pretty regularly in Marvel’s Phase Two movies, congratulations: you’ve found the Empire Strikes Back tribute purposefully placed there by Marvel. Spoilerish information ahead.


In an interview with Cinema Blend, Marvel president Kevin Feige revealed how his love of Star Wars turned into this weird little Easter egg:

So is this a spoiler for Ant-Man… not really. I’m obsessed with Star Wars. Who’s not? I’m 40 years old. I’m in the movie business. I went to USC. So I’m obsessed with Star Wars - and it didn’t start out as intentional, but it became intentional, including that beat that you referenced. It sort of happens in every Star Wars movie, but I was sort of looking at it, ‘Okay, is Phase Two our Empire Strikes Back?’ Not really, but tonally things are a little different. Somebody gets their arm cut off in every Phase Two movie. Every single one.


Cinema Blend has a supercut of the missing arms so far: Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3, Thor in Thor: The Dark World, and the Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Since Feige says this happens in every Phase II movie, that means we’re going to have to keep an eye out in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. So, does the sort of maiming of the armor arm in the Hulk vs. Hulkbuster fight count, or will someone else be losing an arm? I’m betting not Thor, he did his handless duty already.

It seems like the Ant-Man scene will be fairly noticeable, if it was brought up in this interview. While I don’t think we’ll see an all-ant reenactment of Empire Strikes Back, I would love to the see that. LOVE TO.

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