Potential spoilers follow for The Mandalorian season 3. Full spoilers for season 2 also follow.
The Mandalorian season 3‘s official trailer has been released online – and the wildly popular Disney Plus series has never looked better.
Premiering on Disney’s streaming platform on March 1, Din Djarin and Grogu’s next adventure seems like it’ll be as action-packed, suspenseful, and thrilling as its predecessors. Clearly, this is one Star Wars TV show you won’t want to miss, so don’t delay: wrap your eyes around the sci-fi series’ latest teaser:
Expectedly, there’s plenty to unpack from The Mandalorian season 3’s final trailer. Luckily for you, we’re here to help answer – or, at the very least, speculate on – some of the most fascinating things displayed in the teaser. Below, we’ve picked out nine things you might have missed upon initial viewing and what they could mean for Mando and Grogu in one of the best Disney Plus shows.
1. A Mandalorian reunion
The trailer opens with an apparent showdown between two groups of Mandalorians. We see Din Djarin/Mando emerge from the shadows to stand alongside some like-minded Mandalorians, and the way the footage is edited seems to imply they’re at odds with the other gang we see.
However, we think Din is trying to recruit this other group. The voiceover from Din, which includes lines like “our people are scattered” and “what do we stand for?” suggests he’s trying to persuade the others to join his cause. That’s if the voiceover isn’t a clever bit of editing on Lucasfilm’s part, which might be directed at someone else in a completely different scene.
But we digress. It seems Din is successful is recruiting the other Mandalorians – or some of them, at least. There are two group shots, right at the start of the trailer, which show Din walking with six Mandalorians, not just the three he stands alongside in the next piece of footage.
The Mandalorian season 3 is all about Din and his people, what it means to be a Mandalorian, and rebuilding Mandalore, their home world, after the Great Purge. Other scenes in the trailer show Din telling the Armorer he’s going to Mandalore to “be forgiven for my transgressions” – i.e. him removing his helmet in previous seasons, which is forbidden in Mandalorian culture.
We also see a breath-taking shot of the Sundari ruins, aka the destroyed, domed capital city of Mandalore which is where we expect Bo-Katan (more on her later) to have taken up residence. We see her ‘greeting’ Din and Grogu in a throne room in the first season 3 teaser, so expect these locations to be linked.
2. Nevarro, the safe haven for all
Moments later, we see Din and Grogu returning to Nevarro to reunite with Greef Karga, who appears to be the new leader of this world’s main city.
Interestingly, it seems Nevarro has become a safe haven for all manner of people and creatures. At the 0:30 mark, we see a Kowakian monkey-lizard, a semi-sentient reptilian race that is often sold on the black market as pets to members of the criminal underworld. Seeing as this Kowakian is hanging out in a tree all by itself, it’s not owned by anyone, meaning it’s free to, well, do what Kowakians do. If you’re trying to remember where you’ve seen a Kowakian before, Jabba the Hutt owned one in the original Star Wars trilogy.
If Nevarro has become a sanctuary for all races, it’ll be a far cry from the city’s earlier days as a Bounty Hunter guild/outpost. The times they are a’changin’.
3. These are the droids you’re looking for
The official trailer is packed with Star Wars Easter eggs – and that includes the droids that appear in it.
First, you can catch a glimpse of an R5-D4 droid in Mando’s remodeled Naboo Starfighter (which he acquired in The Book of Boba Fett). Din and Grogu are seen departing Peli Motto’s starship workshop, so it seems she’s the one who mends this R5-D4 droid and programs it to co-pilot Din’s ship. We can’t but wonder if it’s the very same droid that the Tatooine-based Jawas owned, too, given that Peli’s workshop is located on – yep, you guessed it – Tatooine.
At the 1:15 mark, we’re treated to a who’s who of famous Star Wars droid types – and in their own Mos Eisley Cantina-style bar, no less. There are some B1 battle droids from the prequel trilogy, an R2-D2-like astromech droid, an RA-7 Death Star Droid, and a bunch of others. We know Mando wasn’t keen on droids for a long time, so seeing him have a conversation with its bartender and other droids is sure to make for some amusing content.
4. Return of the Clone Wars?
Another Star Wars production and another return to Coruscant, the galactic capital.
There are a couple of Coruscant shots in this teaser, but the most interesting concerns Doctor Pershing, who is being transported in a speedster in the Coruscant skyline. Viewers will remember Doctor Pershing as the Imperial scientist behind the Empire’s cloning experiments, who tried to use Grogu’s blood to create new Force wielders (i.e. Sith Lords). Seeing Pershing make his return in season 3 – and on Coruscant, no less – means we could learn more about the Empire’s cloning technology/program very soon.
5. New Republic, old problems
After that brief shot of Doctor Pershing, we’re reunited with another Mandalorian character. This time, it’s New Republic captain Carson Teva, who warns an off-camera individual that something sinister is brewing in the galaxy.
The trailer makes out that he’s talking to Din, but he’s not. The reverse shot of Din is from the first season 3 teaser, which sees him speaking to Bo-Katan (don’t worry, we’re getting to her).
So, who is Carson speaking to about this new, undisclosed threat? We’re not sure. It could be a high-ranking New Republic officer or – whisper it quietly – maybe an extremely important member of the New Republic’s leadership team. How cool would it be if Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma – last seen in Andor season 1 – makes a cameo in The Mandalorian season 3, for instance? She helps to form the New Republic and becomes the galaxy’s new Chancellor after Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, so she’s still alive around the events of The Mandalorian. Fingers crossed we’re right on this one.
6. Execute Order 66
Speaking of callbacks, we might get another flashback to Order 66, aka the Empire’s genocidal attack on the Jedi that all-but-wiped them out.
At the 1:08 mark, we see Grogu appearing to have another flashback to his time at the Jedi temple. The very next shot shows four Jedi preparing to defend the temple from an unidentified individual who’s trying to cut through one of the temple’s doors.
Could we see Order 66 from Grogu’s perspective? Based on this snippet of footage, yes. We know Grogu was present in the temple at that time, so it’s a big possibility. How crowd-pleasing would it be if the individual cutting through the temple door is none other than a Dark Side-turned Anakin Skywalker, too? A Mon Mothma cameo would be great, but an Anakin one would be even more crowd-pleasing.
7. Who’s being chased by the TIE Interceptors?
This is another misdirect. Initially, viewers might think it’s Din and Grogu, especially as footage of them is interspersed in this chase sequence.
However, we think it’s Bo-Katan and her Night Owls contingent. For one, the ship being chased isn’t Din’s repurposed Naboo starfighter. It’s a Mandalorian gunship, which looks very similar to Bo-Katan’s Gauntlet space vessel.
Curiously, we don’t see Bo-Katan in the flesh in this teaser. We know she’s in season 3 as she was present in the first teaser, but she’s certainly conspicuous by her absence here. She’s not the only one, though – we don’t see Moff Gideon, the Imperial commander who a) kidnapped Grogu for Doctor Pershing’s experiments and b) Din beat to claim the Darksaber in season 2. We wonder what role they’ll play in The Mandalorian season 3.
8. Babu Frik’s back!
The Mandalorian season 3’s official trailer contains plenty of references to the movie trilogies preceding it. It’s only fair, then, that it includes an Easter egg to events yet to play out in the film trilogy that follows.
What better individual to reference than Babu Frik, the fan-favorite Anzellan droid smith who’s later seen in Episodes VIII and IX? He’s seen celebrating alongside another Anzellan after a Klatoonian soldier is hauled to the ground by a Mandalorian’s grappling hook. If this is Babu Frik, it would be interesting to find out how he travels from Mandalore to Kijimi, which is where we later find him living and working in Episode VIII.
9. Forcing your way out of a tight spot
Even though Grogu is no longer training alongside Luke Skywalker – he left Luke to rejoin Din in The Book of Boba Fett – he’ll still be increasing his Force power levels throughout season 3.
It appears that Din has taken it upon himself to train Grogu, too. The trailer’s final shot shows Grogu taking down an unidentifiable enemy after Grogu emerges from a cave system. However, if you look behind the monster before it drops down in front of Grogu, you’ll see what appears to be Din leaning against a rock formation.
Din isn’t a Force wielder, so he can’t help Grogu master his powers in the same way as a Jedi. But he can help Grogu boost his abilities by placing him in situations where he needs to use his powers. That way, Grogu won’t lose the ability to wield his Force-based abilities when he’s in a tight spot.
For more Star Wars-based content, find out how to watch the Star Wars movies in order. Additionally, read up on everything worth knowing about another Mandalorian spin-off series, aka Ahsoka Tano‘s standalone TV series.
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