You might not guess it from the silhouette, but a Mandalorian's armor is as unique as their
fingerprints. Handed down through generations, the distinctive armor is a defining trait of
the Mandalorian people and their culture. This is the history of Mandalorian armor explained.
The Mandalorians are a nomadic people, but they're not a species. Anyone can be a Mandalorian if they
practice the tenets of their faith. Before The Mandalorian, Boba Fett was one of the
most well-known Mandalorians in the Star Wars universe, but although he wore Mandalorian armor,
he didn't really grow up in the culture and therefore is not a true Mandalorian.
Because Mandalorians are a warlike people who often act as mercenaries,
wearing armor is one of the Six Actions central to their identity, according to Star Wars novelist
Karen Traviss. The other five are speaking the Mandalorian language, contributing to the welfare
of their clan, defending themselves and their families, raising their children as Mandalorians,
and rallying around the sole leader of their people, the Mand'alor, when asked.
Yet even though their armor is a central part of their culture,
Mandalorians like reminding each other that what's inside matters most.
"A warrior is more than his armor" is one popular Mandalorian saying.
Early Mandalorian armor appeared during season 2 of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The episode "The Mandalore Plot" showed a mural depicting ancient Mandalorian
crusaders wearing helmets over their cloaks as they fought the Jedi Knights. To battle the
Force powers of the Jedi , the Mandalorians modified their fighting style and weaponry.
Clone Wars director Dave Filoni once told ComicBook.com.
"The Mandalorian-Jedi War that I have in my mind is very much derived from the oldest
style of thinking of Mandalorians, which was that their weapons,
their arsenal, their technology had a massive increase once they collided with the Jedi
and found these Force-wielding people that had abilities they didn't understand."
Filoni continued,
"Their armor is a reaction to the Jedi, and I've always believed that because that seemed to be
something that would be in the DNA of the Joe Johnston designs of them as super commandos."
Johnston, who directed Captain America: The First Avenger and The Rocketeer,
was a concept artist on the original Star Wars trilogy.
Incidentally, Filoni became the showrunner on the animated series Star Wars Rebels
and is now a writer and director on The Mandalorian.
Both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels delve into other Mandalorian armor
history tied to the Mandalorian Civil War, which split the group into the pacifist New Mandalorians
and the militant Death Watch. Although many fans would recognize a Mandalorian by their armor,
specifically the full-face helmet with T-shaped visor,
this schism revealed other variations, particularly in the helmets.
For instance, the female warriors of Death Watch, known as the Nite Owls,
wore helmets with eye slits that tilt up like an owl's. Sabine Wren, the Star Wars Rebels character
who is a Mandalorian warrior and demolitions expert has a Nite Owls helmet that she inherited.
Speaking of Sabine, she doesn't follow the strict helmet rules that Din Djarin outlines
on The Mandalorian namely, that he can't remove his helmet in front of other people,
or his vow is broken and he's no longer part of his tribe.
Sabine often goes without her helmet, even though she usually wears her armor.
A Mandalorian's armor includes a lot of accessories. The helmet, for instance,
has a comlink with an antenna. It also includes night vision, a tactical display, facial and
vocal recognition, a fingerprint scanner, video recording, links to vehicles and weapons, and
flight controls for the jetpacks that Mandalorians use to be more maneuverable in battle.
In The Mandalorian, Din Djarin receives a jetpack from the Armorer at the end of season 1, which
he uses to fight against Moff Gideon. Mando fares pretty well, considering that he's still learning
the controls, unlike the undignified trajectory of Boba Fett in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
One key part of a Mandalorian's arsenal is the vambrace, a wrist gauntlet chock-full of various
weaponry, including a 25-meter-long retractable fibercord, flamethrower, energy shield projector,
trackers, laser targeting sights, launchers for tranquilizing or explosive darts, a mini
rocket launcher, motion detectors, repulsors, a communications system, and a touchscreen display.
Next to its well-known silhouette, Mandalorian armor is also known for its toughness, thanks
to beskar [BESS-kar], a material that's also called "Mandalorian iron" or "Mandalorian steel."
Beskar protects against blaster shots as well as lightsaber strikes, but it's also lightweight,
allowing the wearers to be much more agile than,
say, Tony Stark learning to fly in his Mark I suit in 2008's Iron Man.
"Okay, this is where I don't want to be. Eee, Not the car! Not the car! Yikes!"
Beskar has such remarkable strength because of both its natural properties and Mandalorian
metalworking techniques. Din Djarin causes a stir when a client pays him in bars of beskar.
Another mandalorian remembers how the rare metal could be mined only on their
home planet of Mandalore and likely was likely stolen during the "Great Purge."
In The Mandalorian's first episode, the Armorer uses a bar of beskar to forge a new pauldron,
or shoulder plate, for Mando.
The colors and markings on Mandalorian armor can be highly varied,
and are often used to express lineage or a state of mind, according to Traviss.
That said, Mandalorians also decorate their armor according to taste.
They'll repaint their armor if they change clans or if they're on a particular task. Sabine Wren,
for instance, often changed her armor's markings much like she changed her hair color, adding a
prominent insignia in her Starbird design, a precursor to the emblem of the Rebel Alliance.
Blue and green are popular armor colors for Mandalorians who like to be conspicuous,
Traviss wrote, referencing another Mandalorian saying:
"It's one thing to see us coming, and another to do something about it."
Mandalorian armor doesn't just provide protection.
It's also an heirloom because beskar can last for hundreds of years. As Sabine Wren once said,
"The armor I wear is 500 years old. I reforged it to my liking, but the battles,
the history, the blood all lives within it. And the same goes for every Mandalorian."
Traviss explained in Star Wars Insider that as a nomadic people,
Mandalorians frugally invested much of their wealth into their armor and weapons.
This was certainly practical because they could take their earnings with them.
Early in The Mandalorian, Mando receives a large payment of Beskar
after delivering the Child to its mysterious Imperial client. After Mando presents the
beskar to the Armorer, she suggests that she can craft a full cuirass [kwee-RASS] for him,
plus "whistling birds," a type of mini-missile. The excess he donates to the foundlings,
the orphaned children that the Mandalorians protect.
Catching up afterward with Greef Karga, head of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, Mando draws several
stares over his shiny new threads, but he's really just following the investment strategy of ancient
Mandalorians. Besides, Karga notes, the grumblers are just jealous they didn't get all that loot.
Mandalorians love personalized armor. Sabine Wren embraced this part of Mandalorian culture
throughout Star Wars Rebels, and not just through her signature design. Rebels fans
know that she kept the armor's insulating body glove but stripped away a lot of other
pieces for maximum mobility. She also upgraded her helmet's electronics, although she used the video-
and image-recording abilities to capture her artwork much more than the targeting viewfinder.
On The Mandalorian, the Armorer has strikingly distinctive armor,
from the fur across the backplate to the shape of her eyes on her helmet. Polygon notes that
her helmet also appears to have Zabrak [zah-BRAK] horns, which could be a reference to Darth Maul,
a Zabrak who briefly ruled Mandalore and headed the Death Watch on Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Mandalorian armor often has sigils, or symbols painted on the chestplate or
helmet indicating their lineage, allegiance, or even awards for bravery, according to Traviss.
The armor also can have a signet [SIG-net] specifying the wearer's particular clan.
When The Mandalorian begins, Din Djarin has no signet. Even though he was adopted by the
Mandalorians as an orphan, was trained as a warrior, and joined their tribe,
he starts the first season as a classic Western lone-wolf archetype. That changes
once he meets the Child, who uses his Force powers to help Din defeat a charging Mudhorn,
a creature that resembles a gigantic rhino. When the Armorer suggests that he has earned
the Mudhorn as a signet for felling the creature, he declines, saying that "It wasn't a noble kill."
But once Din has a change of heart and retrieves the Child from the Imperials who want his power,
the Armorer decides that Din is worthy of such an honor. She forges a Mudhorn signet for him
and instructs him to take care of the green foundling and to return the Child to his own
kind if possible. In the meantime, she says, "You are a clan of two."
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