4. R2-D2 - Star Trek
Its no secret J.J. Abrams loves Star Wars. Super 8 may have been a homage to the sci-fi suburbia of Spielberg, but the Star Trek films that bookmarked the eighties throwback, not to mention his subsequent career path all point towards a devout love of Lucas first blockbuster franchise. In all his films (although were still looking for Mission: Impossible IIIs) R2-D2 makes a little background appearance. In Super 8 its as a toy on Joes desk and I can guess Episode VIIs will be painfully obvious, but its Star Treks that Im talking about today. During two separate spaceship attacks (the Romulan mining vessel on the Kelvin and the Vengeance on the Enterprise) you can see a very familiarly-shaped hunk of metal being sucked out into the vacuum of space. But its not just in shape these nod to R2; he comes complete with all the blinking lights and blue highlights youd expect. There always seemed to be a major rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek, with the franchises playing a warped game of leapfrog and the fans throwing scorn on anyone who tried to appreciate both. Obviously the Warsing-up of the geekier franchise for the reboot certainly helped cool matters, an acceptance little R2 is incredibly symbolic of.