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Star Wars is a franchise that loves circular turns in its lore, which turns each new project into an opportunity for an Easter egg hunt. The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first Star Wars film to hit theaters in over half a decade, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that director (and unabashed Star Wars fan) Jon Favreau made sure to leave behind some Easter egg treats that Eagle-eyed fans will appreciate.
One particular Easter egg from The Mandalorian and Grogu is already going viral, as it touches on an iconic and beloved moment from the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. Some longtime fans are rightfully patting themselves on the back for spotting it in the theater – were you one of them?
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The Mandalorian and Grogu Pays Homage to Star Wars’ Greatest Game
MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW: The plot of The Mandalorian and Grogu sees the titular pair on assignment for the New Republic. The job quickly gets messy: the New Republic sends Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) to meet with the Hutt Twins and broker a deal: help recover their missing nephew, Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White), in exchange for a location on a prominent Imperial warlord who is still at large. Din and Grogu track Rotta down on the planet Shakari, where they find Jabba’s son is a champion in the gladiator ring.
Star Wars fans quickly noticed that the ring Rotta the Hutt fights in wasn’t made in some random design – it was a fun Easter egg reference to the very first game Star Wars introduced as part of its universe: Dejarik.
Dejarik, also known as “holochess” was one of the best touches that George Lucas added to his original Star Wars film, A New Hope. In a scene aboard the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca and C-3PO are engaged in a game of holographic chess on a circular board, which uses fearsome alien beasts in place of figures from a Medieval royal court. Like so many things in that Star Wars original trilogy, the iconography of the imaginative sci-fi game far outlasted the brief scene it was featured in. At this point, Dejarik is so deeply woven into Star Wars that it has appeared all over the franchise in animated series, comics, books, and games, with all kinds of real-life merchandise inspired by the game, including actual Dejarik game sets.
The scene in The Mandalorian and Grogu gets even more meta with its reference, as Din Djarin’s gladiator bout with Rotta the Hutt is eventually turned into a WWE-style brawl. Actual living, breathing monsters from Dejarik are set loose in the ring by the evil gamemaster Janu Coin (Jonny Coyne), who tries to punish them both for refusing to fight to the death. It’s kind of a Jumanji moment as the game people love to play suddenly comes to life, and one of the most thrilling Star Wars action sequences
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