It would be an understatement of epic proportions to say that across the two seasons and sixteen episodes so far, The Mandalorian has delivered plenty of fan service. The combination of Jon Favreau’s lifelong love of Star Wars and Dave Filoni’s encyclopedic knowledge of the mythology has created a perfect storm of action-driven storytelling that packs references to canon into almost every frame.
A huge section of the fanbase felt as though they’d been burned by The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, two equally polarizing yet wildly different movies, but so far nobody has had a single bad word to say about The Mandalorian. You want a live-action Ahsoka Tano? Done. You want Bo-Katan on the hunt for the Darksaber? Of course. You want to see Luke Skywalker slice down an army of Dark Troopers? No problem.
Somehow, the dream team of Favreau and Filoni have managed to balance the familiar iconography with a narrative that doesn’t dwell too heavily on the past or pander to the audience, and they certainly dodged a bullet with the season 2 premiere after wisely making the decision to remove a line of dialogue that’s well known among Star Wars aficionados.
After Mando had taken out Gor Koresh’s minions in the first episode of the new run and strung him on a streetlight, he was going to say ‘Maclunkey,’ which was infamously uttered by Greedo in the re-edited version of A New Hope. Favreau admitted that he removed the dialogue because it felt ridiculous, but audiences did get to hear it in a more fitting location when Jabba the Hutt’s former cohort Bib Fortuna says the line before being gunned down by Boba Fett in the post-credits scene of The Mandalorian‘s season 2 finale.
