The Mandalorian, season 1 episode 1: 10 callbacks, Star Wars references and Easter eggs you missed

From A New Hope to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, The Mandalorian’s first episode featured a wealth of references to the old saga

The opening episode of The Mandalorian featured many nods, big and small, to previous entries in the Star Wars universe.

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The eight-part sci-fi series, created for Disney+, follows the adventures of a Mandalorian bounty hunter, played by Pedro Pascal.

Titled “Chapter One: The Mandalorian”, the inaugural episode saw the Mandalorian sent to a remote planet in pursuit of an unknown but highly valuable bounty.

Teaming up with bounty hunting droid IG-11, the masked warrior blasts his way through to the target, which we discover is a 50-year-old child of Yoda’s species.

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Here are 9 of the Star Wars references you might have missed...

1. The phase-pulse blaster

One of the Mandalorian’s key weapons is an Amban phase-pulse blaster. Die-hard Star Wars fans might recognise the tuning fork-shaped gun from the execrable Star Wars Holiday Special, in which it is wielded by fellow Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett.

2. Life Day

That’s not the only nod to Star Wars’ ignominious Christmas TV spin-off. Earlier in the episode, a blue-coloured alien (a Mythrol, a brand-new Star Wars species) known as “The Bounty” mentions the holiday of Life Day – the bizarre Christmas-like festival celebrated by Chewbacca and his Wookie relatives.

3. The Kowakian monkey-lizard

In one scene, we see a Kowakian monkey-lizard being barbecued on a spit. It would be a stretch to describe the creature as delicious-looking; the most famous example of its kind is Salacious Crumb, the cackling rodent sat by Jabba the Hutt’s side in Return of the Jedi.

The Mandalorian rides a Blurrg, a creature that first appeared in the animated Star Wars series (LucasFilm/Disney+)

4. IG-11

The bounty hunting droid IG-11, voiced by Taika Waititi, will look awfully familiar to fans of the original trilogy. That’s because of his very close resemblance to IG-88, the inscrutable robot who can be briefly seen next to Boba Fett during The Empire Strikes Back.

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5. Luke’s Landspeeder

The speeder which the Mandalorian uses near the start of the episode is almost the exact same type of transport used by Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, near the beginning of A New Hope.

6. Carbonite

Who could forget the image of Han Solo, suspended in hard carbonite at the end of The Empire Strikes Back? Not The Mandalorian‘s screenwriters, clearly: the series’ bounty hunting protagonist is seen using the method to transport his targets across long distances.

7. R5 Droid

An R5 droid can be seen in the background of the marketplace scene. Probably the most well-known R5 droid is R5-D4 in A New Hope, the robot Owen Lars almost purchases from the Jawas, before changing his mind and choosing Artoo.

IG-11, voiced by Taika Waititi, is the same type of droid as Episode V’s infamous bounty hunter, IG-88 (Disney+)

8. The Quarren

One of the goons in the opening cantina scene is a Quarren, part of an alien race from Mon Cala, the same planet as Admiral Ackbar. Their appearance in the saga dates back to Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. In the opening scene, they are speaking Huttese, the dialect spoken by classic Star Wars villain Jabba the Hutt.

9. The Blurrgs

The cumbersome creatures that the Mandalorian has to tame in order to get to the episode’s bounty have appeared in the Star Wars franchise before – in the animated TV series Clone Wars and Rebels.

10. The Child

Many other Star Wars species also show their faces in this opening instalment, including the Ugnaughts, the Rodians (of which A New Hope‘s unscrupulous Greedo is one), and the Niktos. But the most exciting prospect has to be the anonymous child revealed in the episode’s closing scene, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the iconic Jedi master Yoda.