Aside from all the weird aliens, roguish bounty hunters and thrilling action sequences, one
thing Disney's flagship series The Mandalorian has in common with the Star Wars saga is that
it's chock-full of subtle references and callbacks to other Star Wars media.
Here are a few you may have missed.
As you'd hope from any decent Star Wars story, The Mandalorian features all kinds of different
alien races and cultures.
Take that first bar scene, for example.
During this scene, a fearsome-looking man with an unruly beard beats up on a blue-skinned
Mythrol, the bounty the Mandalorian is after.
This guy then tries to pick a fight with the Mandalorian himself.
But here's a bonus, for you: the language he's speaking is Huttese, the language of
the Hutts, which is used most notably by Jabba in Return of the Jedi.
After the Mandalorian captures and carts off the Mythrol to collect the price on his head,
the prisoner makes small talk with the stoic, silent bounty hunter back on his ship.
"Yeah, I was hoping to be free for Life Day…"
So what's Life Day?
Well, it's the Star Wars universe's equivalent of Christmas, a time for celebrating and relaxing
with loved ones.
It was first introduced in The Star Wars Holiday Special, an infamous Star Wars-themed television
variety show.
The Special follows Chewbacca's family as they watch futuristic TV and wait for him
to arrive for Life Day.
It even ends with Princess Leia singing a Life Day carol.
Ugh.
Life Day isn't the only Mandalorian callback to that unloved Star Wars Holiday Special.
The show's protagonist also sports a distinctive weapon that should be familiar to longtime
fans of a galaxy far, far away.
It's a cool-looking apparatus with a heck of a past: in Boba Fett's first-ever appearance,
during an animated sequence in the Holiday Special, he's packing the same weapon.
It likely doesn't mean much as far as a connection to Fett is concerned, but it's a nifty nod
to Star Wars lore that proves showrunner Jon Favreau is deeply invested in layering fan
service into his series.
Early on in the episode, when the Mandalorian and his fin-faced bounty are booking passage
back to his ship, they encounter an alien hidden behind a pair of goggles and a long
snout.
He plays a killer flute, and his name is never revealed, but he should've been instantly
recognizable to any detail-oriented Star Wars fan.
This fella is a Kubaz, an alien species who's only shown up one other time over the course
of the Star Wars saga.
Cast your mind back to A New Hope, specifically the scene shortly after Luke and Obi-Wan meet
Han Solo and Chewbacca.
In the alleyways of Mos Eisley, a Kubaz named Garindan contacts the Imperial Stormtroopers
patrolling the streets to let them know that he's found the droids they're looking for.
While it's pretty unlikely that this guy will show up in any other episodes of The Mandalorian,
it's still a pretty cool deep cut into the galaxy's expansive mythos.
Of course, it goes without saying that The Mandalorian is full to the brim of droids.
In one particular sequence, the Mandalorian walks through a marketplace.
One of the objects he walks by is some kind of red and white R5 droid, which looks an
awful lot like that red and white R5-D4 drone from A New Hope, you know, the one with the
"bad motivator."
"Uncle Owen, this droid has a bad motivator unit! Look!"
When the Mandalorian arrives at the fortified headquarters of "The Client," he's also greeted
by a round, red-light equipped droid tasked with security and gatekeeping tasks.
And sure enough, that little fella looks just like the security droid Jabba the Hutt had
installed on the front gate of his palace in Return of the Jedi.
In The Mandalorian, times seem to be especially tough for the Empire and its many underlings.
For example, the man initially known only as "The Client" appears to be an ex-Imperial,
something he's not exactly afraid to flaunt, as he surrounds himself with a squad of those
familiar white-armored stormtroopers.
They're still pretty formidable looking, but they've clearly fallen on hard times since
the end of the Empire, reflected by the fact that their outfits are well-worn, a bit dirty,
and even cracked in some parts.
Perpetually-masked bounty hunter Boba Fett is probably one of the most treasured characters
in all of Star Wars...but he's actually not the Mandalorian, in fact, he's not a Mandalorian
at all.
Confused?
Luckily, the show appears set to teach casual Star Wars fans a little more about the Mandalorians
as a culture.
Not much is revealed in that first episode, but the protagonist does venture into some
sort of special forge in order to upgrade his armor.
Carrying a slab of Beskar steel that he acquired from "The Client," he descends into an area
where numerous other Mandalorians are shown, including one shadowy figure in the background
who looks suspiciously like the long-dead Boba Fett.
It's also in this scene that the show offers a few brief glimpses into the Mandalorian's
past; specifically, the attack that orphaned him as a boy and left him a "foundling," the
Mandalorian term for an orphan.
The forger who makes his new pauldron mentions that the leftover scrap will be used to sponsor
other foundlings, the audience's first clue that, in addition to being a fearsome bounty
hunter, this character may also be pursuing a nobler agenda.
Until now, the Kowakian monkey-lizard has had just one place in Star Wars canon: as
the snickering pet of unsavory characters like Jabba the Hutt.
They're mischievous, they're obnoxious, they seem well-suited for villainy...and, apparently,
they're delicious.
Immediately after the Mandalorian gets his bounty assignment from "The Client," he walks
through the marketplace of a desolate-looking little town in which one familiar alien species
stands out.
Sucks for him, too, because he's being spit-roasted while his horrified buddy looks on.
Honestly, this is a fairly horrific moment, especially when you remember that these animals
are intelligent enough to have a pretty well-developed sense of humor.
But hey, that's the outer rim for you.
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