Jackie Chan's shock return as Hr. Han in continues the trend set in motion by of bringing back characters from the series' classic era, but who made their franchise debut in 1994. Chan's role in the Karate Kid: Legends cast is arguably as meta as it is exciting, as he first played Mr. Han in the 2010 then-remake of the original 1984 movie. So, although it originally made sense why he never appeared in Cobra Kai, now he seems like a glaring omission.

With all the Karate Kid movies now all being set in the Miyagi-verse, the franchise no longer has two branches. Instead, it's now just one big saga. The franchise has managed to make the Karate Kid and Cobra Kai timeline feel far more cohesive thanks to the sequel show's obsessive willingness to acknowledge the legacy characters from its universe. , especially since there's still one movie that has been almost completely ignored.

Cobra Kai functions brilliantly as a self-contained narrative, as flashback sequences and archive footage essentially make the Karate Kid movies optional viewing. It's better to have also seen the films, but it's not strictly necessary to do so. Alongside Cobra Kai's original characters and storylines, the show has continuously tapped into the original movie trilogy with Ralph Macchio and brought familiar faces back into the fold. However, and the failed fourth movie has been left out in the cold.

Now that Jackie Chan's story is being revisited 15 years after its debut, skipping over The Next Karate Kid seems very much like an intentional move rather than anything else. Macchio's trilogy and Chan's 2010 movie now all feel like they're part of the same continuity, but . Sure, it's not a great movie, but Macchio's first two sequels also had incredibly weak elements, and Cobra Kai validated them by giving them a chance not afforded to The Next Karate Kid.

The only significant way for Cobra Kai to give The Next Karate Kid some attention is to bring back Swank before the show ends. There has been a small nod to Swank's Karate Kid movie in Cobra Kai season 6, with Mr. Miyagi's first name differing from the one established in the original trilogy. Instead, it's listed as his name in The Next Karate Kid. So, , or it could be a perfect way to set up a last-minute Hilary Swank cameo.

The Cobra Kai cast and crew have been very coy and largely tip-lipped about a Hilary Swank comeback, but the consensus seems to be that it won't happen. That being said, Hollywood is great at being deceptive with these kinds of things, so it could still take place. On the other hand, with season 6 preparing to wrap up, and set for release, the focus will be other storylines, so there's unlikely to be enough time to include a Julie cameo and introduce her to the other franchise characters.