“Stealth Strike” stands out as an episode of Rebels that features a plethora of visual call-backs to the original trilogy (not unusual for the show, but at an even higher volume here), but also at least one key and noticeable reference to the The Phantom Menace.

Actually, I’m sure there are many smaller examples of artistic influence from the prequels throughout Rebels; though the concept art generated by Ralph McQuarrie for the original trilogy is clearly the visual foundation of the show, Dave Filoni and crew are no doubt drawing inspiration from George Lucas’s more recent vision of the Star Wars universe in more subtle ways as well.

This shot of Ezra sabotaging the reactor core of The Interdictor seems to be an example of that kind of approach. While the room and structures are most noticeably similar to the scene in A New Hope in which Obi-Wan shuts down the Death Star’s tractor beam, the design also draws on the Theed generator complex from The Phantom Menace. The verticality of that structure led to an incredibly dynamic scene, and the Rebels crew takes full advantage of that aspect of this reactor core room in “Stealth Strike,” with Ezra moving up and down between platforms as he reflects blaster bolts back at the Imperial troops above. In one of the best episodes of the season so far, this reactor core scene is able to pay tribute to both the original trilogy and prequel trilogy eras while creating an exciting new sequence of its own.