Continuing from last week, I’ve combed through the new episode of the live-action Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett– entitled “Chapter 6 – From the Desert Comes a Stranger”— to list as many Easter Eggs, Star Wars references, and allusions to other media as I could find.
1 – Moisture Vaporators: These were first spotted on the Lars family homestead in the original Star Wars film. Basically they draw water vapor from the air and convert it into drinkable, usable liquid.
2 – Camtono: This device (crafted out of a real-world ice cream maker) was first seen as a now-legendary background prop in The Empire Strikes Back, and has since popped up in The Mandalorian as a Beskar container and even in a previous episode of The Book of Boba Fett, which I neglected to mention in one of my earlier lists. In this episode, one contains the credits the Pykes are using to trade for spice, and then at the end they also use one as a bomb to blow up the Sanctuary casino.
3 – Cobb Vanth: The marshal of Mos Pelgo first appeared in author Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath novel trilogy and then came to live-action in the second-season premiere of The Mandalorian. When Din Djarin says, “I haven’t seen you since you gave up your armor,” he’s referring to Boba Fett’s Beskar armor, which Din was rewarded at the end of that episode. I do find it interesting that Vanth seemingly hasn’t heard the name “Boba Fett” before, adding more mystery to the reason why Fett never came to Mos Pelgo to retrieve his beloved armor.
4 – Mos Pelgo: This settlement was already renamed as “Freetown” in the Aftermath books, so I’m a little fuzzy about the sequence of events between that point, its appearance in The Mandalorian, and this episode.
5 – R2-D2: Probably the most recognizable droid in the Star Wars universe, having appeared in almost all of the Star Wars films and animated series, plus The Mandalorian. In this episode, Artoo briefly goes into a power-down mode similar to how we see him at the beginning of The Force Awakens.
6 – Luke Skywalker: Luke first appeared in a movie called Star Wars. He’s since gone on to become the chief protagonist across four and a half decades worth of storytelling. His face looks less weird here than it did in The Mandalorian.
7 – Worker droids: The ant-like droids building Luke’s temple reminded me of multi-legged insectoid robots we’ve seen before, both in the real world and in other science fiction stories.
8 – Luke’s Jedi Academy: On an as-yet-unnamed planet, Luke begins to set up his school for younglings with Force abilities. We’ve seen it before (though not necessarily in this exact location) in flashbacks from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, not to mention the comic-book miniseries Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren. Ahsoka Tano says, “There is no place in the galaxy more safe,” which is an unintentionally ominous of tragic events to come later in the timeline.
9 – Grogu’s Training: Many of the tasks Luke runs Grogu through (lifting the frogs / running and jumping with Grogu in the blue backpack) are reminiscent of training activities we saw during Luke’s experience with Yoda on the planet Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke even quotes or paraphrases Yoda’s famous lines “Size matters not” and “Do or do not; there is no try.”
10 – The Force: I haven’t done an entry on this yet for The Book of Boba Fett, but since it gets mentioned in this episode, I thought I’d take the opportunity to explain that the Force is an omnipresent energy field that binds the galaxy together, and it’s what gives the Jedi their powers. “May the Force be with you” is a common version of “farewell” around the galaxy, even for those who are not Force-sensitive.
11 – Siege of the Jedi Temple: Thanks to Luke, we get a quick glimpse into Grogu’s perspective of this event first seen in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. It seems like a few Jedi are trying to protect Grogu, then get shot down by Republic Clone Troopers (who have turned against their masters because of the inhibitor chips implanted in their brains). It’s still not clear how Grogu escapes the situation.
12 – Ahsoka Tano: Ahsoka was a regular character in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, then went on to recur in Star Wars Rebels, and recently popped up in The Mandalorian played by actress Rosario Dawson. “I’m an old friend of the family,” she says here, referencing her time as a Jedi Padawan apprentice under Anakin Skywalker. But how does she know Luke? We don’t have that information yet, but she knows him enough to say he’s “just like his father.” That would scare me, if I were her.
13 – Padawan: This is the term for a student of the Jedi Order, training under a master, who is working toward graduating into a full-fledged Jedi Knight. Luke can’t decide if Grogu is really prepared or even willing to become one.
14 – Water Buffalo: I’m honestly not sure if this species (whatever it’s really called in-universe) has appeared in Star Wars media before, but it’s a fun addition to the planet on which Luke’s Jedi academy is being built.
15 – The Karate Kid: Okay, come on. The scene with Grogu balancing on a log has got to be a direct reference to the crane-kick training sequence in the neo-classic 1984 family film starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.
16 – Luke’s Green Lightsaber: Luke got his lightsaber-wielding hand chopped off by his dad Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, so at some point before the events of Return of the Jedi he built this new weapon with a different-colored blade. He uses it here as part of his training with Grogu.
17 – Training Remote: Another remnant of the original Star Wars film, Obi-Wan used this non-lethal drone to train Luke on the Millennium Falcon (where Finn found it several decades later in The Force Awakens, so I’m not sure the one that zaps at Grogu is the same exact remote).
18 – Destroy Droid: Grogu’s method of dealing with the remote reminds me of this Force power from the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but there it falls on the dark side. In the current canon, Luke has used a similar move to dispatch the Dark Troopers in The Mandalorian, so I don’t think this points to Grogu’s eventual fall from grace.
19 – Krayt Dragon Skull: The Jawas have evidently taken the skull of the giant beast slayed by Din Djarin in The Mandalorian and somehow mounted it atop their Sandcrawler. Its ribcage is also now being used as decor in Mos Pelgo’s cantina!
20 – Deadwood: This was true for their appearance together in The Mandalorian as well, but the pairing of a marshal played by actor Timothy Olyphant with a bartender played by W. Earl Brown harkens back to the excellent HBO Western drama.
21 – Cad Bane: Much like Boba Fett himself, this Duros bounty hunter was inspired by a character in the 1966 Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Bane first popped up as a recurring character in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and has more recently appeared in the Disney+ original series Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
22 – High Noon: The quick-draw showdown between Cobb Vanth and Cad Bane is a staple of Western filmmaking, and has appeared in countless movies and television shows, both in earnest and in parody– or in homage, like it does here.
23 – Medpac: One of the Mos Pelgo townsfolk yells for one of these kits after Vanth is gunned down by Bane. It first appeared in Marvel’s original 1970s Star Wars comic book series, but has since popped up in dozens upon dozens of stories set within the same universe.
24 – Yoda’s Lightsaber: We haven’t seen it (outside of flashbacks) since the little green Jedi master fought Darth Sidious with it in Revenge of the Sith, so how did Luke come by it before offering it to Grogu. As Maz Kanata would say, “that’s a story for another time.”
25 – “A short time for you is a lifetime for someone else.”: As established in The Mandalorian, Grogu ages in the same manner as Yoda– he’s 50 years old, but still effectively an infant. And Yoda lived to be 900, training many, many Jedi during the bulk of that time, so what Luke says here makes sense. Unless he comes to an untimely end, Grogu will outlive characters from most other species for a number of centuries.
I’ll be looking for more Easter Eggs, allusions, and Star Wars references in the final episode of The Book of Boba Fett, coming exclusively to Disney+ next Wednesday, February 9.