In just a few weeks, a seven-year drought will have officially ended and there will be a brand-spanking-new Star Wars movie in theaters, in the form of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and Grogu.
While the latest batch of the film’s marketing has been insistent that audiences need not worry about having any real level of familiarity with the larger Star Wars galaxy in order to be able to enjoy this latest cinematic adventure, that’s pretty obviously at least a little bit untrue. After all, not only is this a filmic follow-up to The Mandalorian’s three-season run on Disney+, but it is also spearheaded by Favreau and frequent collaborator and now head of Lucasfilm, Dave Filoni, who are each big on interconnectivity throughout the Star Wars franchise.
One of the most obvious examples of this that has been readily apparent for anyone willing to cast even a moment’s worth of discerning gaze upon The Mandalorian and Grogu’s marketing is the presence of several formerly exclusively animated characters, who are making the jump to live-action for the first time. Chief among these is Embo, a bounty hunter who fans will recognize from Filoni’s animated series, The Clone Wars.
Who is Embo in the Star Wars universe?
Embo is a male Kyuzo who already has a vast and varied history throughout Star Wars lore. The character was initially introduced during the second season of Clone Wars, in an episode aptly titled “Bounty Hunters.”
Here, he was a minor addition, mostly for the purposes of fleshing out a line-up of various bounty hunting characters. However, his impactful design, which paired his traditional alien-esque appearance with a wide-brimmed hat that managed to evoke both samurai and western media, made him a standout amongst fans, and he was soon elevated to a recurring character.
I’m sure it also didn’t hurt matters that the character was voiced by Dave Filoni himself from the very start, making him a pretty easy get in terms of the vocal talent.
During his tenure on The Clone Wars, Embo’s allegiances bounced around from working for big-name syndicates like the Hutts (who are also featured in The Mandalorian and Grogu) to forging alliances with more independent, rogue players like Cad Bane.
That series ultimately ended without offering much in the way of closure for the character, which led to him appearing in various forms of tie-in media, like video games and comic books. In these other appearances, Embo’s story was fleshed out well into the original trilogy era, and even beyond. In fact, according to Chuck Wendig’s 2016 novel, Aftermath: Empire’s End, was actually present for the Battle of Jakku, fought for the good guys, and received a whole pardon from the New Republic.
The Battle of Jakku famously happened in 5 ABY (five years after the Battle of Yavin, also known as the conclusion to A New Hope) and The Mandalorian and Grogu is set several years later, so it’s unclear how or even if the film will actually broach any of this extended media material for the character.
Filoni has shown in the past that he is certainly not beyond rewriting other media’s use of his characters, and given that the trailers thus far seem to show Embo hunting Din Djarin and Grogu for the Hutts, that seems to be what’s happening here.
The Mandalorian and Grogu releases in theaters on May 22.
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