Via io9.com:

One of the coolest and most controversial things about the latest Star Wars movie is how it incorporates the series’ past. Now it’s been discovered that, aside from folding in characters and digitals recreations of actors from the original trilogy, Rogue One secretly has a musical homage to those movies, too.

Folks on the internet—Redditor cyborgcommando0 and Tufts University professor Frank Lehmann, specifically—noticed that the “Hope” theme from the Rogue One soundtrack had strong similarities to the Imperial March. It turns out that the choral element from “Hope” matches the horn fanfare from the iconic Episode V theme when sped up.

Subtly splicing in that motif is a very cool way of acknowledging the links between the movies. Hats off to composer Michael Giacchino.

Sure *seems* like @m_giacchino hid the Imperial March in #RogueOne‘s “Hope,” doesn’t it? (h/t Brian N. Le) pic.twitter.com/tOiejau2wF

— Bobby (@bobbyrobertspdx) January 16, 2017