The Mandalorian: 11 Questions Coming Out of the Season 2 Premiere
Thank the Force! The Mandalorian returned with Season 2 on Friday, a full 10 months after its freshman finale landed on Disney+. And with it came some questions.
Chapter 9 aka “The Marshal,” fully recapped here, revolved around the titular Mando (played by Pedro Pascal) teaming with Cobb Vanth (Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant) — the self-appointed, Boba Fett’s armor-wearing lawman of a Tatooine town — and a local band of Tusken raiders to vanquish a Krayt dragon. Once that bit of pest control was tended to, Mando and the Child resumed their quest, as a familiar figure looked on….
Here are some of the questions that I and others had coming out of the premiere — keeping in mind that my own Star Wars consumption never ventured much further than the movies and a few EU novels).
Was Peli Mott’s R5 unit the same droid from Episode IV: A New Hope?
Yes, as TVLine reader Playhouse was quick to comment on our recap, that was the same R5-D4 that Luke Skywalker’s uncle nearly bought from the Jawas — but when it malfunctioned, C3PO nudged the farmer to go with R2-D2 instead.
Has Mando’s POV on droids changed?
It appears so, given how he OK’d Peli Mott’s trio to give the Razor Crest a once-over — possibly because of how IG-11 helped out in so many ways in the finale?
Have we seen a Krayt dragon before?
Live-action, and in the flesh? No. But we did see the skeletal remains of one in Episode IV: A New Hope, shortly before C3PO was “rescued” on Tatooine by the Jawas’ Sandcrawler.
Why did Cobb Vanth’s landspeeder look a bit familiar?
Because it seems to be driven by a single engine that is very much in the vein of young Anakin Skywalker’s custom-made podracer from whatever Episode I was called — which makes sense, since that sequence of course took place on Tatooine as well.
Was the Krayt dragon’s cave the Sarlacc pit (from Return of the Jedi)?
Ha, that’d be quite a coinky dink. And as was indicated, there are many Sarlacc pits. I think if they wanted us to think/know it was the same one from Return of the Jedi, into which Boba Fett eventually “fatally” plunged, they would have hammered us on the head a lot more with, like, a flyover shot hinting at its familiar mouth.
What was the sphere the Tusken triumphantly fished out of the dragon’s remains?
As we saw, when a Krayt dragon rises up for a big chomp of something, he gobbles a lot of dirt and rocks along the way. The bigger rocks that don’t get digested instead tumble and rumble around in its stomach, slowly but surely polished to a high gloss. In Star Wars lore, such a pearl has considerable value, rare as they are to be taken from a slayed Krayt dragon. (They can sometimes also contain fragments of Kyber crystals, as in those that power a lightsaber.)
What did Cobb Vanth mean by pointing out upon returning his armor, “You tell your people I wasn’t one who broke that”?
He was specifically pointing at the jet pack, either alluding to when a “blind” Han Solo in Return of the Jedi unwittingly jabbed Boba Fett in the back with a stick, igniting the jet pack unit — or, possibly, to when Mando himself purposely struck/triggered Vanth’s jet pack during their scuffle with the dragon.
Was that definitely Boba Fett at the end?
It’s very, very likely, much as some may deem it sacrilege to retcon the character’s grisly death by a thousand years of slow digestion. It’s no small leap to accept that once Boba Fett somehow cheated that fate, he would stick around that same desert planet and maybe even keep close to Cobb Vanth, the one who wound up in possession of his armor. (Plus, this particular Jango Fett clone was allowed to age normally, so his older appearance — played as he is by Temuera Morrison of 2002’s Attack of the Clones — makes sense.) But will Boba now stay on Mando’s heels? We shall see.
What exactly is the plan to locate the Child’s kind?
Though Mando said that finding another Mandalorian will let him “chart a path“ through their “network of coverts,” it’s unclear at this point how that will help lead him to Baby Yoda’s kind — unless the idea is to find someone well versed in Mandalore the Great who might have a bead on other Jedi.
Was “The Marshal” the longest episode of The Mandalorian thus far?
Yes, whether counting by total running time (52 minutes, minus recap) or actual content (47 minutes, also subtracting the closing credits) — besting the record set by the first season finale.
Is Baby Yoda still cute?
Do both suns sometime shine on a womp rat’s tail?
Want scoop on The Mandalorian, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
From a writing perspective, I feel like the implication is that it WAS the same pit from RotJ, because that would explain how Boba Fett escaped certain doom: the huge krayt dragon ate the sarlacc that was eating him.
But it’s true that they didn’t follow through on that visually – the mountainous cave setting in the show looked vastly different from the flat sands of the film.
1. It could be
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2. Quite possibly
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3. I thought his speeder looked familiar
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4. Well they said at one point it was an empty Sarlacc pit. I was under the impressiony that there are other pits in Tatooine.
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5. Could it be an egg?
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6. Well he bartered the crystals for the armor; he received a used item…buyer beware.
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7. Until the reveal otherwise I’m going with Boba Fett
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8. Yup, thus far.
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9. I’m going to say yes…it’s going to take a couple of decades before he physically ages to adolescence.
#5 was answered above.
the krayt dragon was in knights of the old republic
Which was not live action, and I believe is considered “Legends” rather than Star Wars canon.
Krayt dragons were mentioned in the novelization of A New Hope that Alan Dean Foster ghost-wrote for George Lucas. If memory serves, Ben does a krayt dragon call to scare off the Sandpeople from Luke. We only know what it is because Luke identifies it after Obi-Wan let’s another one go shortly after getting Luke to his feet. That’s canon.
Sure. And as they point out above, 3PO walks past a krayt skeleton in episode IV. They certainly existed in canon, this is just the first time we’ve seen one alive and in person (again, as the article above correctly states.)
I’m sorry – I thought you were talking about krayts being a part of Legends and not KOTOR. My bad. Your post had me go back to the OPs comment and I realized the error of my ways lol
To say that Boba Fett died in the sarlacc was a retcon, not that he survived. That he was a clone was a retcon that cheapened his character. Idk. Starwars is something else nowadays.
In one of the recent disney era books they tell Cobbs story, and how he came across the armor and fought gangsters. Was cool to see him on-screen.
In many of the books now referred to as legends, Boba Fett survived and lived on until his cells began to degrade at an older age. so perhaps they using ideas from both the current canon and legends.
Disney seems to be porting over Legends material when they see fit. They brought Thrawn over from Legends into Canon, I’m sure more popular Legends characters & ideas (such as Revan and Bane) will probably follow.
Wasnt that dude at the end armed with the same gun Princess Leia was armed with when she went undercover to rescue Han? I must be high.
Not quite – Leia was carrying a different stick-like weapon (a force pike), as opposed to the Sand People weapons (a gaffi stick and cycler rifle) that probably-Boba-Fett is carrying in that final shot.
Not sure whether or not that means you’re high, but there you go.
Return, not Revenge, of the Jedi.
Sorry ’bout that; I always preferred the original title, often conflate them.
“Jedi don’t want revenge.” – George Lucas, allegedly
Anyway, R5-D4 is clearly meant to be the same droid from Star Wars. The camera even pauses briefly on the scorch marks where the motivator that blew.
The podracer engine is, I think, meant to resemble Anakin’s pod engine, but I don’t think it’s meant to actually be Anakin’s pod engine. It’s just to show the people of Tattooine reusing whatever they find.
I kind of hope that isn’t Boba Fett just because I want the show to do things that are unexpected.
I’ve tried to watch it but it only streams in spainish. ?????
Umm…must be your settings
“There’s no such thing as an abandoned Sarlacc pit.”
“There is if you kill the Sarlacc.”
…I think the takeaway here is: Yes, Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc, and yes, he did so by killing it from inside–as Mando does the Krayt dragon in this episode.
But I could be wrong.
Nope, he said, “There is if you EAT the Sarlacc.”