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What Did Baby Yoda See From His Starship Window?
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Something in the new episode of The Mandalorian catches the eye of Baby Yoda: giant space whales trailing large tentacles and flying at light speed. So, what were they? The answer is rooted in lore from the animated Star Wars shows—and it also lays some important groundwork for the upcoming Ahsoka series, starring Rosario Dawson.
When the space whales appeared onscreen at The Mandalorian‘s season three premiere in Los Angeles Tuesday night, a woman in the balcony let out a loud cheer that started a round of applause. The woman was Dawson herself. (Vanity Fair was sitting nearby.) Here’s how it all ties together …
The creatures are called purrgil; they have a front that looks like a sperm whale, and a back end made of tentacles like a giant squid. Although clearly inspired by aquatic life, these entities can fly through the atmosphere of a planet, and also have the extraordinary natural ability to shoot off through the cosmos at the speed of light.
The purrgil first appeared seven years ago in an episode from season two of the animated Rebels series. The central hero of Rebels, a young Force-sensitive revolutionary named Ezra Bridger, spots a pod of them as they swarm his crew’s starship. Pilot Hera Syndulla wants to blast them as they bump across their craft, while the Jedi Kanan Jarrus urges her to hold off and “let them do what they do.” She answers: “What they do is destroy starships like ours.”
Ezra, whose Force abilities may help him establish a connection with the natural world, offers them the solution that saves the day: “Try flying with them instead of against them.” The pod of purrgil move them off course, but the ship flies freely. Ezra establishes a Force-bond with the leader of the pod, who alerts him that Imperial tie-fighters are moving in for an attack.
Hera, who was glimpsed from behind briefly in a teaser for the Ahsoka series at the Star Wars Celebration convention last year, later tells Ezra that the purrgil ability to fly faster than lights peed is what first inspired pilots to devise ships that could do the same.
Dave Filoni, executive producer of The Mandalorian and the creator of Rebels, has a history of introducing lifeforms beyond humans and humanoid aliens who have a connection to the Force. His introduction of the purrgil hyperspeed ability is another example.
Filoni first brought the creatures back into Rebels in the final episode of the series, in which Ezra battles the blue-skinned Imperial military leader known as Grand Admiral Thrawn aboard a Star Destroyer. Ezra uses the Force to summon a pod of purrgil, who latch their tentacles around the vessel and then pull it away into deep space—along with Ezra. The series concludes with Ahsoka Tano and the Mandalorian rebel Sabine Wren embarking on a quest to find out if their friend is still out there somewhere.
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Anthony Breznican
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