Jon Favreau explains the ending of the first episode of The Mandalorian

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Mandalorian. Consider yourself warned. The first episode of The Mandalorian premiered just days ago on Disney+ and brought with it several mysteries which will hopefully be solved over the course of the season. Taking place several years after the events of STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI and well before the events of STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, The Mandalorian follows a lone bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) in the outer reaches of the galaxy as he sets out to collect a particularly difficult prize. The conclusion of the first episode revealed the identity of the bounty, and it's probably not what anyone expected.

After taking out a group of criminals with the help of IG-11 (Taika Waititi), it's revealed that the bounty which The Client (Werner Herzog) tasked The Mandalorian with retrieving is a young creature from the same species as Yoda. Although it appears to be an infant, the mini-Yoda is actually 50 years old. Very little has ever been revealed about Yoda and his species over the years, so this could potentially bring about some major revelations, and series creator Jon Favreau explained the ending while speaking to Variety (via Collider) in a video which has since been deleted.

I wanted to surprise people, and I wanted to—well there are bigger arcs that go through the whole season and the whole throw of the show. So as fun as it is to reveal new characters and surprise them, it also fits into a larger narrative about what’s going on in the galaxy after the revolution, and this is an important character.

Keeping that reveal under wraps was likely no small task, and Favreau is surprised that they actually pulled it off. "What I’m most proud of is that we surprised people. You know how hard that is to do that nowadays? And what type of commitment it took from everybody who was on set and from the studio to hide all the clues that people, especially Star Wars fans, normally tap into? Looking into toy catalogues, looking into marketing materials, looking into style guides, photography, and the fact that that secret was kept is incredible. It is exciting. It’s fun, because people are so happy when they’re surprised. They’re not used to being surprised now—not in a good way (laughs)." The second episode of The Mandalorian will drop tomorrow, so it's likely that we'll be seeing more of that adorable baby Yoda.