THE MANDALORIAN's Jon Favreau, Rick Famuyiwa, and Carl Weathers Address The Big Episode 1 Surprise Reveal
If you watched The Mandalorian, then you know about the big unexpected surprise at the end of the episode. This reveal has fans speculating what it means for the future of the story. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, you might not want to read ahead. Creator Jon Favreau, director Rick Famuyiwa, and actor Carl Weathers all address the ending of that episode.
At the end of The Mandalorian pilot, the bounty hunter finds himself saving a 50-year-old baby that is the same species as Yoda from being killed by IG-11. This is The Mandalorian’s latest bounty and it’s going to be really interesting to see what role this character ends up playing in the story. Why is there a bounty out for this character? Why was it being so heavily guarded at the compound it was in?
During a recent interview with Episode 2 director Rick Famuyiwa, he addresses this little twist and picking up the story for Episode 2:
“I was super pumped. To sort of come in a be able to do the second one, because there’s so much that the end of the first episode… sort of shook up and really change for our main character, and so I love that, you know, I would sort of be the person in the aftermath of that.”
He then laughs and adds:
“Or maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t love that so much, because now I feel a lot of pressure, thank you.”
Carl Weathers also shares some thoughts on the character with Reuters saying that, “He has his own name, and he is very interesting and very knowledgeable and very cute.” So, even though this Yoda character looks like a baby, he’s very knowledgeable. I guess it makes sense if he’s 50 years old!
Then while speaking to Variety, Jon Favreau discussed the character saying:
"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."
Favreau went on to say that he was surprised they managed to keep the big reveal under wraps until the episode actually aired:
"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."
In addition to Filoni and Famuyiwa, other episodes of The Mandalorian were also helmed by Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates, Dads), Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones, Better Call Saul), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, What We Do in the Shadows).
What do you think this Yoda-type character means for the story? What are your thoughts and speculation?