Interesting how much they’re throwing in the prequel references
That has been the case for all SW prtoductions released after 2005. Not even to mention SE references. Binding the 2 trilogies together has been one of the moto of all SW Productions even before Lucas sold to Disney.
Only when references are more necessary. At the start of Disney’s era of Star Wars they seemed hell bent on ignoring the prequels - The Force Awakens actively steered away from them and you can tell, meanwhile they announce two spinoff movies and a series set in the OT era. Dave Filoni perhaps chose to include a lot of Clone Wars characters, setting etc in Rebels because he knew there were many TCW fans that would love it, and Gareth Edwards included Bail Organa at the Yavin 4 base, but that’s mostly because it makes sense. Now the prequel references come totally voluntarily. Having Din fly an N-1 fighter and retracing the podracer route seems much more directly like a love letter to The Phantom Menace.
Ok first of all, he’s in a ship that starts in Mos Eisley and he travels through that city and Mos Espa, of course you’re going to see all those references, especially from The Phantom Menace’s Boonta Eve track and Beggar’s Canyon. He’s on a test flight, that’s going to happen.
The 2nd reason that he does this, is so they can save a little production money and reuse those shots already created for Episode I. They saved a few thousand by doing this.
The 3rd reason is the nostalgia factor, oh look, it’s Anakin’s pod racing track from the movie, so cool.
I don’t mind that they did this, we did get to see new aliens and new places in this chapter. It’s all very plausible in my opinion.
Just have to put this out there, I loved The Rocketeer reference, which the director of that movie was Joe Johnston, who helped create Boba Fett, amongst other things in Star Wars. He also directed Captain America The First Avenger.