Star Wars is one of the most popular and most watched franchises of all time, reaching far beyond the film screen into toys, books and merchandise. There are also many sci-fi tv shows and films, like Star Wars and The Mandalorian that inspire video games too. Console games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Battlefront are really popular, and the science fiction genre has also inspired online slot games too. ThePOGG, who provide reviews on casinos and online operator recommendations, has a guide to slot games that have been inspired by popular TV shows.
While the franchise has received some criticism over the years on creative choices, there are still fans all around the world that care deeply about it. In 2019, fans got to see Star Wars hit the small screen with The Mandalorian on Disney+, following the storyline of a lone bounty hunter roaming the galaxy. As season one and two of The Mandalorian has taken the world by storm, more spin-off series are set to be released in the future. Set within the same timeline, there is news of a new Boba Fett series set to be released in December 2021 on Disney+.
The Mandalorian brings a new hope to Star Wars fans that might have grown a little skeptical over the years. Of course, because it’s Star Wars, there’s also an avalanche of throwbacks to previous installments of the franchise. While some are very, very apparent, others have been a little more subtle.
Mando’s ship
One of the most surprising things about the show is the Mandolorian’s ship design. It’s genuinely surprising that the showrunners didn’t go all out making a sleek and cool ship design for the show’s main character. Instead, the ship is nondescript and boxy, looking like a genuinely old rust bucket. Turns out, it practically is! In an offhand comment, someone asks Mando about his ship, describing it as “Pre-Empire”, which refers to the more modern ship designs of the Empire that are featured in the earlier Star Wars installments.
The prejudiced bartender from A New Hope
In the original trilogy, when Obi Wan and Luke go to Mos Eisley to find a pilot, they enter a seedy bar to try their luck. As they walk in, the bartender tells them to leave their droids outside. “We don’t serve their kind here” he says. The droids stay outside and that’s that. Flash forward to The Mandolorian, where our main character visits the same bar only to see it’s an all droid staff behind the bar. Maybe the original guy knew that droids would be gunning for his job one day? Either way, it’s a nice little nod to how intolerance will not be tolerated, even in Mos Eisley.
Stormtroopers still have terrible aim
There’s a great little scene in the first season’s finale that features two Scout troopers sitting around, bored, and waiting for their new orders. One of them begins to casually shoot at some debris on the ground just a few feet away and misses every single shot. His partner ridicules him and tries to hit the target himself but he also misses every single shot. This is a great little scene on its own but in the context of the Star Wars franchise, it’s poking fun at the fact Storm Troopers have the worst aim in the galaxy, according to Star Wars fans. In the entire movie series, only a handful of laser blasts have actually hit their target even though the screen tends to be filled with laser blasts flying all over while dozens of Storm Troopers pursue the good guys.
The hallway scene with Luke
As the Dark Trooper platoon crashes against the bridge doors and all seems lost for Mando, Gideon’s cruise receives a guest; a lone X-wing. At this exact moment, a Jedi wearing a black cloak appears and cuts through the platoon like butter. The Jedi is later revealed to be the one and only Luke Skywalker. The best moment in this episode is when the elevator Luke takes to get to the bridge where he is to face the Dark Troopers slowly ascends before he gets off and he destroys each of them with minimal effort.
As well as being a huge surprise moment for such an iconic main character in Star Wars, it’s also a throwback to a scene from the end of Rogue One. This scene is popularly known as the Vader hallway scene. In Rogue One Vader is portrayed as an unstoppable force, and in this one the force is revealed to be from another well known Jedi, his son Luke Skywalker.
