Luke Skywalker’s cameo in The Mandalorian wasn’t always the plan

The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau reveals how that surprising Luke Skywalker cameo in the season finale came about.

In the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) chases down Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) in an attempt to free Grogu. Once Mando and his team — Cara Dune, Boba Fett, and Bo-Katan — board Gideon’s Imperial Cruiser, they must fight off several super-powerful Dark Troopers. Eventually, Moff Gideon has our team trapped with his Dark Troopers closing in. There seems to be no escape…until an X-Wing flies past and out steps Luke Skywalker, who destroys every single Dark Trooper.

In the end, Luke leaves with Grogu, who parts with Mando in an emotional moment. It’s a powerful way to end the season.

Watching the show, it might seem like things were always leading up to this, but they weren’t. In a recent interview with the Writer’s Guild of America, creator Jon Favreau was asked if bringing Luke back was always the plan. “No” was his simple answer.

"The story unfolded as I wrote it. The Mandalorian inherits a great deal from existing Star Wars stories, and when I write, that context is always a consideration. It became clear that, within the established continuity, certain things were likely to transpire.”"

Having Luke appear fits with the timeline of the series, which is set five years after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Favreau explained that he’s always talking with showrunner Dave Filoni about how to tie The Mandalorian in with the wider Star Wars universe. “We have a tremendous amount of freedom afforded to us because of the gap in time between the films,” he said. “Dave Filoni and I are in constant discussion regarding how each story choice is impacted by, and would impact, existing Star Wars material.”

So far, I think they’ve done a great job at including characters from the greater Star Wars canon on The Mandalorian. If anything, season 2 brought in too many, with characters like Ahsoka Tano and Boba Fett getting their own spinoffs. But we can’t really complain about more Star Wars if it’s the same quality as The Mandalorian, right? This is the way.

Of course, we can expect many more familiar faces to appear in the slate of new Star Wars shows currently in development. In the meantime, The Mandalorian is currently streaming on Disney+.

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