This week on The Mandalorian, Din Djarin and Bo-Katan visit a new planet we've never seen nor heard of before: Plazir-15, a beautiful and verdant planet with a sick-looking domed city at its heart. And the place is run by celebrities.
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Chapter 22 of The Mandalorian, Guns For Hire.
Our heroes have come to Plazir-15 because it's the new home of Bo-Katan's old Mandalorian army. These guys now follow Axe Woves, a character who appeared back in Season 2 when we first met Bo-Katan.
But before they have their little parlay with the Axe Man, they have to deal with the local leaders, a former Imperial middle manager who's married to the local royalty. Plazir's power couple has a problem: Their droids are going crazy and wrecking stuff and even harming organic beings. But since they have a former Imperial in charge, they aren't able to do much about it--they cannot have their own weapons in their city.
This is an issue because with the droid help, Plazir is an automated society where the organic beings live lives of luxury and don't have to go to work. It's a planet that's just nobility--if you don't count those droids, anyway. But we'll come back to that.
There are plenty of Easter eggs this week, both big and small. Which is good, because we can't have them slacking on the Easter eggs when actual Easter is coming up this weekend. Read on for some fun facts!
1. Quarren and Mon Calamari forbidden romance
This episode opens with a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet scene--the Mandalorians who used to work for Bo-Katan are now mercenaries hired to retrieve a Mon Calamari nobleman from a starship full of Quarrens. But it turns out the Mon Cal is in love with the Quarren captain.
In Star Wars lore, the Mon Calamari and the Quarrens are from the same planet, and the two species have an ancient and permanent rivalry with one another. So, yes, they really are pretty much the space fish Montegues and Capulets. Fortunately, nobody ended up dead in this version of the story, though.
2. Tom Holland's brother is the Mon Calamari
The voice of the Mon Calamari noble isn't a random voice actor or anything like that. No, it's Harry Holland, the brother of Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland. Harry doesn't act much--mostly he's appeared as an extra in some of his brother's movies.
3. Battle droids and super battle droids
Since The Mandalorian is mostly connected to the rest of Star Wars through the Clone Wars and Rebels shows rather than the movies, these battle droids and super battle droids (B1s and B2s, if you wanna be a nerd about it) are more of a Clone Wars reference than a prequel trilogy reference. But what's particularly interesting about this scene is the way it lets one of these droids talk without making it a complete idiot--in contrast to the prequel films, where they were always just stupid. The Clone Wars show had some decent scenes where they talked, but this is the first time they managed to not be completely a joke in a live-action thing.
Bonus fun fact: the battle droids have been voiced by sound designer/editor Matthew Wood since the start of the Clone Wars series, and before that he was General Grievous in Attack of the Clones and worked as a sound editor on all three prequel movies. And this week on The Mandalorian, Wood provided the voice for the battle droid that Din Djarin and Bo-Katan meet during their investigation.
4. Jack Black and Lizzo
Someday, Star Wars might cool it with the cameos, but that day is not today. Because today we got Jack Black and Lizzo playing the leaders of the decadent planet Plazir-15. They aren't extremely serious characters--they're rich and out-of-touch goobers who are here to be mildly amusing and to keep the tone light. And, well, it's Jack Black and Lizzo, so they accomplish that.
5. Christopher Lloyd
The head of security on Plazir-15 and the perpetrator behind the droid attacks is a man named Commissioner Helgait (yes, like "hellgate"), who is played by Christopher Lloyd. It's a shame he only had a couple minutes of screentime, because this character still holding loyalty to the Separatists from the Clone Wars is a nice little piece of world-building. These glimpses at people just being people in this universe--which happens so rarely--are always welcome.
6. Nano bots from the Techno Union
Our two Mando detectives eventually manage to track down the cause of the rogue droids: nano bots from the Techno Union that were hidden in a droid beverage. A large conglomerate of tech companies, the Techno Union had a seat on the Separatist Council--its representative, Wat Tambor, has frequently been referenced in memes over the past two decades since his original brief appearance in Attack of the Clones.
7. Droids as people
All the droids in the Star Wars franchise are pretty much intelligent beings. And while this isn't a franchise that likes to ponder meaningful questions of morality, this week's visit to a droid-only cantina is the latest in a long thread of franchise moments that at least pay lip service to the idea that all these droids are actually people with the same free will as organic beings. But in the past, this topic hasn't often been dealt with with any kind of meaningful seriousness. See, for example, L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story, who is treated as the butt of the joke.
This episode of The Mandalorian does it better. The bartender there tells Din Djarin and Bo-Katan they want the malfunctions to stop because they're worried it will turn the people of Plazir-15 racist against droids, and so these ones decide to help the investigation. For once, the droids are just other characters. That said, the droid bartender also has a line that attempts to justify their enslavement and forced servitude--like I said, Star Wars really can't ponder this too hard.
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