The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Mandalorian**.**
The Mandalorian was the first live action television series to take place in the Star Wars universe. While the show focused on all new characters and stories, it's still all happening within the same galaxy, far, far away, and thus the various events, characters, and locations that we know from the Star Wars movies were almost certainly going to be connected to the new series in some way. This was largely done in The Mandalorian Season 1 through easter eggs and dialogue references.
The Mandalorian was packed full of easter eggs. To be very clear there were dozens of easter egg type references over the course of the eight episode first season. There were so many that any attempt to list them would go on forever. However, here are 10 of the most interesting, funny, or potentially telling, easter eggs that we noticed during The Mandalorian Season 1.
Life Day
While anything that wasn't one of the six existing movies or the Clone Wars animated series was officially removed from Star Wars canon following the Disney acquisition, a lot of little pieces of the "Legends" material has found its way back into the Star Wars universe one way or another, this includes aspects of one of the most derided pieces of Star Wars history, The Star Wars Holiday Special. That TV special introduced the concept of Life Day, a Christmas-like holiday apparently celebrated on Kashyyyk, the home planet of the Wookiees
It seems that Life Day is still a real holiday in the Star Wars universe, and what's more, it's celebrated beyond the planet Kashyyyk. The Mandalorian's first bounty, from the beginning of the first episode, mentions a desire to have remained free to celebrate Life Day with his family. As a bonus easter egg, Mando's pulse rifle, which disintegrates basically anything it hits, was first introduced as a weapon used by Boba Fett during the animated portion of the same special.
Kamino
Season 1 of The Mandalorian is all about the cute little creature we all call Baby Yoda. Mando rescues the little guy from what appears to be a remnant of the old Empire, but it's never made clear exactly what they wanted to do with him. However, one apparent easter egg might give us a clue, as it seems that the character of Dr. Pershing might be employed by the cloning facilities on the planet Kamino.
Kamino is introduced in Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones and it's the location where the clone army is being created. The logo we see inside that facility is the same one on the sleeve of Dr. Pershing when we see him in The Mandalorian, so perhaps cloning is part of what Moff Gideon wanted to see done to the little guy.
The Camtono
One of the more purely entertaining elements of the Star Wars franchise as it has grown is the way the films and ancillary content have taken random characters or items and given them explanations or backstories. The greatest example yet might be this one. In the episode "The Sin" when Mando receives his payment for bringing in The Child, he is given a collection of beskar steel contained in an item that is called a camtono. If the item looked oddly familiar, possibly like an old fashioned ice cream maker, there's a reason for that.
In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, there's an infamous moment where an extra evacuating cloud city runs across the screen, clearly carrying an ice cream maker. If you don't know what it is, thenit could be some sort of space age case, and now, thanks to The Mandalorian, it is. And they even gave it a name. Now we're left to wonder what was in the camtono on Cloud City, because now that's a thing.
Pit Droids
Droids are often good for a laugh in Star Wars. They're often where we find the comic relief in the franchise. Of course, the Mandalorian doesn't love droids, so they have little opportunity to do that here. However, we did get a chance to see some very entertaining droids in the episode "The Gunslinger" when we saw pit droids again for the first time since the prequels.
In Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, pit droids worked on pod racers to get them ready for events. On The Mandalorian, the same droid design is being used to repair starships that land in Mos Eisley. Of course, they don't get to work on Mando's ship, he won't allow it, so they play poker instead.
The Mos Eisley Cantina
The Mos Eisley Cantina itself may not necessarily be an easter egg, it's not a hidden or obscure reference in any stretch, the episode tells you flat out where it's going, but it's still a remarkable location for The Mandalorian to visit as it shows us just how much Tatooine has changed since the first time we saw it in the franchise.
In Star Wars: A New Hope, we're told that droids aren't allowed inside the cantina, and yet the location appears to have more droids than actual living aliens inside it when we see it here. The human bartender who told Luke his droids weren't welcome has himself been replaced by a droid. Beyond that, the business conducted between the Mandalorian and the wannabe bounty hunter looks to be taking place in the exact same booth where Han Solo shot Greedo. Who knows what other conversations that booth has heard.
Anakin's Clone Wars Voice
The New Republic Soldier that we meet in the episode "The Prisoner" might not have looked familiar, even to the most diehard Star Wars fan. However, there's a distinct possibility that he might have sounded familiar, because his voice has been heard by anybody who's watched an episode of The Clone Wars animated series.
The soldier, who is never given a name in the episode, is played by actor Matt Lanter. He's an accomplished actor and voice performer with a massive list of credits, but one of them just happens to be the voice of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Considering that show is returning for a new season on Disney+ later this year, this won't be Lanter's last appearance on the streaming service, even if his Mandalorian character is very dead.
The X-Wing Pilots
It's pretty well known that in addition to directing the final episode of the first season of The Mandalorian, Taika Waititi also voiced the bounty droid character IG-11. However, he wasn't the only Mandalorian director to make an appearance on the show. Deborah Chow, Rick Famuyiwa, and Clone Wars and Rebels producer Dave Filoni combined to direct six of the eight episode of the The Mandalorian and the three of them also appear at the end of "The Prisoner" as X-Wing pilots responding to a distress beacon.
It seems only fair that everybody involved behind the camera get a chance to be in front of it. For some reason Bryce Dallas Howard, the most prolific actress in the bunch of directors, was the only one to not appear on camera in some capacity.
Imperial Troop Transporter
While the camtono might be the most random easter egg in the first season of The Mandalorian, that's not to say that it didn't have some competition in that department. At the end of "The Reckoning," the penultimate episode of Season 1, the Mandalorian and his team get pinned down by Stormtroopers. Initially, we see a team of black clad Troopers, the Death Troopers first seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but then a massive number of traditional white troopers arrive in a transport vehicle that we've never seen in live-action before, but you might have owned one as a kid.
The Imperial Troop Transport was the first Star Wars toy ever released that wasn't based on something we saw in the films. It was introduced back in 1979. It's appeared in the modern canon before, in the Star Wars: Rebels animated series, but this is the first time we've seen it with real people inside it. Usually the toys are inspired by the show, but sometimes it seems to go the other way around.
Cara Dune Of Alderaan
The character of Cara Dune is something of a mystery throughout The Mandalorian. We know that she was a former Rebel Drop Shock Trooper, and that she helped mop up the Empire after the battle of Endor. But, in the final Episode of Season 1, we learn why she was apparently so eager to help out Mando. When he tells her he's going after former Imperials, she's ready to go on this mission, no questions asked. It turns out, she has a score she's still trying to settle.
Moff Gideon tells us that Cara Dune is from Alderaan, the planet the original Death Star destroys in Star Wars: A New Hope. Obviously, Cara Dune was already off-world when the planet was destroyed. She may have already been part of the rebellion, but one can guess that when she learned what had happened to her friends and family, she wanted to take on the entire Empire herself.
The Darksaber
When we discovered that Moff Gideon had survived his crash landing at the end of the last episode, we also learned that he was in possession of a major piece of Star Wars history, the Darksaber. Anybody who had not watched The Clone Wars or Rebels likely didn't even realize they were looking at an object of any particular importance, but those that did probably began to lose their minds.
Because this final shot was put on screen without any specific acknowledgement, this moment was something of an easter egg, though it will almost certainly be a major part of The Mandalorian's upcoming Season 2.
These were far from the only easter eggs in The Mandalorian Season 1. What was your favorite, one of these or something else? Let us know in the comments.
