Guardians Of The Galaxy: 20 Easter Eggs & References You Must See

14. "Ark Of The Covenant, Maltese Falcon Vibe"

Having been abducted from Earth at a fairly young age, Peter Quill - aka Star-Lord to nobody but himself - has a fairly limited knowledge of popular culture. In fact it pretty much gets cut off around the early eighties, which means that when he's trying to describe the process of breaking into the lost tomb where he recovered the orb at the beginning of the film, he described in terms that he understood: old movies. First Indiana Jones, and then a particularly self-aware shot out to possibly the quintessential MacGuffin, from the forties adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's classic hard boiled detective novel. This is more than just your average pop culture reference, of which Avengers was particularly steeped in, mind. Not only does Quill invoke the name of Raiders Of The Lost Ark when talking about the orb, but the scene when he collects it seems pretty strongly modelled on the opening of the classic Steven Spielberg film, as Harrison Ford's treasure hunting hero weighs up his options before snatching an ancient idol from a booby trapped pedestal. We're not just reading into things, by the way, James Gunn has said that's exactly the sort of vibe he was going for with that scene, and the film as a whole. In an interview the director said that he wanted Guardians Of The Galaxy to be like "those movies that I loved as a kid. Whether it's Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars or Back to the Future."