Anna Daniels
America has Baby Yoda fever! Don’t even try talking about boring old regular Yoda – we don’t want to hear it. All we care about is our tiny puppet child and his big ears. Jon Favreau, the father of Baby Yoda, has finally opened up about his bouncing baby boy, talking about the character’s future on The Mandalorian, why there was no Baby Yoda merch at the ready, and more.
Speaking with THR, Jon Favreau, creator of The Mandalorian, had some things to say about America’s favorite green child. “We’ll learn more about him over the course of the season,” Favreau promised:
“I think what’s great about what George [Lucas] created is that Yoda proper, the character that we grew up watching, was always shrouded in mystery, and that was what made him so archetypal and so mythic. We know who he is based on his behavior and what he stands for, but we don’t know a lot of details about where he comes from or his species. I think that’s why people are so curious about this little one of the same species.”
I mean, yeah, sure. But I think the real reason people love Baby Yoda so much is because he’s so darn cute, and because he’s basically a walking meme factory. And that’s what the kids these days crave. They also crave toys, but oddly enough, there were no Baby Yoda toys ready to coincide with The Mandalorian launch. That was all part of the plan.
“It’s very difficult to keep secrets about projects you’re working on,” Favreau said:
“By holding back on that one product, we knew that we may have had the disadvantage of not having toys available day and date, but what we got in exchange was an excitement surrounding the character, because everybody felt like they discovered him together. That emulated more what my experience growing up was like. [Disney] understood the value of it. I felt that if we really wanted to connect with the Star Wars fans, we had to let them discover the story as it was unfolding. The marketing team and the leadership were all supportive of what my instincts were, and I think it paid off really well because now people are excited to tune in every week to see what happens.”
As for what the future holds for The Mandalorian, Favreau added:
“There’s definitely the opportunity to explore these characters beyond what we’ve presented on the show. There’s a very fluid line between what’s in the movie theaters and what’s on the screen at home. It’s very exciting for me because I get to tell stories over the course of several hours and not just within the footprint of one theater-going experience. I think it’s only a matter of time before we cross paths the other way.”
“I’m putting a lot of effort working with [The Mandalorian producer] Dave Filoni to figure out what the overarching story is and the storyline for all these characters and what the world is like,” Favreau continued. “We want to make sure that we have a road map, because we’re also a puzzle piece that fits into a larger Star Wars universe that has a lot of other movies and a lot of other projects, and we want to make sure we’re consistent with them.”
A new episode of The Mandalorian is set to drop tonight, which means that by the time we wake up tomorrow there will be approximately 40 new Baby Yoda memes. So it goes.
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