Space Jam: A New Legacy features a handful of references that point to the original movie existing in the same canon. Michael Jordan had no part to play in the Looney Tunes’ team-up with LeBron James, but the experiences he shared with them in the 1996 classic were quietly acknowledged in the new movie. The basketball-themed Looney Tunes movie shares the same basic concept as the original, but it was stated by James in 2020 that – as hinted by its subtitle – Space Jam: A New Legacy is not a direct sequel.
Instead, LeBron James described the new Looney Tunes’ story as being totally separate from the first film starring Michael Jordan. That aspect of the movie was highlighted by the setup for the plot, which is the idea that Bugs Bunny and all his friends exist in a virtual reality world populated by Warner Bros. characters. It’s not the same as what was established in Space Jam, which is that the Tunes live in an underground world that has somehow gone undetected.
Given these differences and James’ comments, there was an implication the events of Space Jam didn’t actually occur in A New Legacy’s continuity. However, various lines of dialogue and Easter eggs throughout Space Jam 2 suggest otherwise. Early in the story when Don Cheadle’s Al-G-Rythym was doing a presentation on the Server-verse and the movies in Warner Bros. library, a Space Jam poster was shown on-screen for a brief moment. In a later conversation between James and Bugs Bunny, the latter remarked that teaming up with a NBA star “sounds familiar.” Lola Bunny made a similar statement when she discussed the situation with Bugs during the movie’s Wonder Woman sequence.
Yet another Easter egg was dropped when the Tunes first suited up to play basketball. Before they received their CGI upgrade from Al-G-Rhythm, the characters were dressed in the same Tune Squad uniforms they wore in Space Jam. Also, at halftime when Sylvester introduced Michael B. Jordan as Michael Jordan, the character explained his mistake by saying he thought the basketball star had “aged gracefully” in 25 years, which is the amount of time that has gone by since the original hit theaters. What this line reveals is that Sylvester (and presumably, all the other Tunes) did meet Jordan in 1996.
Arguably the strongest link to its predecessor in Space Jam: A New Legacy is its Monstars cameo. The villains, who were original to Space Jam, were among the hundreds of Warner Bros. characters spectating the match between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad. Rather than being seen in their memorable monstrous transformations, the aliens were depicted in their diminutive forms, which makes sense because that’s how they looked when Space Jam ended. The Monstars’ role cemented the connection between the two movies and confirmed that Bugs Bunny and the gang have now had their world saved by two different NBA legends.
