It’s here. After months of waiting, rumours, and more speculation than you can shake a jetpack at, the trailer for The Mandalorian’s second season has arrived. And with it, a whole new look at what’s in store for our clan of two — and some very intriguing hints on what’s to come. Here are a few details you may have missed.
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The trailer opens on a shot of two planets — the world in the background looks similar to, but may not be, Sorgan, the swampy world Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) met Cara Dune (Gina Carano) on in his earliest attempts to protect the Child — as the Razor Crest comes into view. While we’ve missed seeing it in action, it’s looking a little worse for wear here. The ship’s cargo hold is open (in space, so…not great!), the engines are sputtering sparks, and it’s clearly adrift rather than coming in for a controlled landing. Whatever’s happening, it isn’t ideal.
[referenced id=”1443048″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/this-mandalorian-video-illustrates-just-how-wild-the-production-was/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/15/ue8t7ayylcr6jwrpopr0-300×168.png” title=”This Mandalorian Video Illustrates Just How Wild the Production Was” excerpt=”One of the most impressive things about The Mandalorian is the way that it gives you a rather solid idea of what life is like for people living in the larger Star Wars universe. But as grounded in reality as the show makes things seem, it truly is just a game…”]
As Din and his little ward — still in his adorable hover pram — emerge from the shadows, dialogue from the climax of the first season plays. “Show me the one whose safety deemed such destruction,” asks the Armorer (Emily Swallow), the Mandalorian forge master who helped Din craft his Beskar armour throughout season one.
“You must reunite it with its own kind,” the Armorer continues, as we get another shot of this planet Din and the Child have landed on. We don’t see much of it, but it’s suitably backworlds-y, Outer Rim style architecture — rackety large towers, graffiti-covered walls, and what possibly looks like, on the left, the glowing red eyes of an “Offworld” Jawa. The little tykes appeared in season one, too, and merchandise featuring these versions of the scrap-loving tinkerers described that some Jawas hitched rides on ships coming and going from Tatooine, establishing small pockets of new Jawa societies on other worlds in the Outer Rim.
“Where?” Din asks the Armorer in the continued voice-over flashback; she replies, “This you must determine.” This is framed over a new shot of the Razor Crest — seemingly in much better shape than earlier — flying over an outcropping of rocks and a desert world as a Tusken Raider atop a Bantha watches.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that this is Tatooine: just like the Jawas last season, maybe there are Tuskens who went off-world too. But it’s not like there wouldn’t be precedent; the Mandalorian visited the famous planet farthest from “the bright centre of the universe” in the first season on a contract to bring in assassin Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). Shand was ultimately “killed” by Din’s fellow bounty hunter on the contract, Toro Calican (Jake Cannavale), but the episode ended with a mysterious figure coming across her body. Maybe there are more loose ends for Din to tie up?
We’re left to ponder that as we get yet another shot of the Razor Crest flying over a three-pronged canyon on a frozen world, before landing with the Child in tow. There’s a damaged ship in the background that looks an awful lot like the Razor Crest — the coloured markings and the guns match up with its design, but it’s also very clearly crash-landed here in a bad way. Poor ship is getting some knocks this season.
Once again, between Star Wars’ preponderance for single-biome planets (and revisiting the same locations while making new ones that just look verrrry similar), it’s hard to tell if this ice world is a familiar one or a new setting. What potentially makes it incredibly interesting is the voiceover that plays over it from the Armorer, once again from last season’s finale. “The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi.”
This was a reference to what was known as the Mandalorian Wars in the old Star Wars expanded universe, a conflict whose fallout was depicted in the beloved Obsidian RPG Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Although the game is no longer canon, the war itself was brought into the new Star Wars canon in Star Wars Rebels, and is now inextricably linked to the history of the Darksaber: the black-bladed lightsaber wielded by the first Mandalorian Jedi, Tarre Vizla, and currently in the hands of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito).
But that’s not the really interesting nod here. Tying these shots of a frozen planet with talk of the Jedi seems highly evocative of the planet Ilum, the fabled gem world in the Unknown Regions that was home to the Kyber crystals Jedi would ceremoniously gather and forge into the power cores of their lightsabers. It’d make sense that, if Din is indeed now on a quest to find the Jedi, he’d try and find such an important religious site, but he’d be doing so at a fascinating time for the planet.
Over the course of the Empire’s rule — as briefly seen in the video game Jedi: Fallen Order — the Imperial’s strip-mined Ilum, gathering Kyber for what would eventually become the Death Star’s superlaser project, and when the First Order rose from its ashes, it carved the planet out entirely to become the housing for Starkiller Base. Given that The Mandalorian is set in 9ABY — roughly five years after Return of the Jedi — if this is Ilum, the remnant of the Empire that would become the military branch of the First Order would be in its earliest days of converting the planet.
But enough galaxy-braining for a moment. We can get weirder! We cut away from this icy world to what appears to be another — much wetter — one, as Din surveys a fishing outpost. Note all the beings working at this outpost though: they’re predominantly Quarren and Mon Calamari, suggesting that this is potentially Mon Cala, their shared homeworld. Once again, if it is, Djarin would be visiting at an interesting time: Mon Cala was heavily occupied by the Imperials thanks to the planet’s revolt and support of the Rebel Alliance in the wake of the First Death Star’s destruction, ultimately joining the New Republic after being liberated (and once again occupied by the First Order, decades later).
Anyway, on to the weirdness! As the flashback/voice over continues — Din retorting to the Armorer, “Do you expect me to search the galaxy and deliver this creature to a race of enemy sorcerers?” — we focus on one mysterious hooded figure at the outpost, seemingly watching over Din. This orange-skinned woman has been confirmed by the WWE as new guest star, wrestler Sasha Banks.
But given the context of the voiceover again, Banks’ hooded figure seemingly vanishing out of site with talk of Jedi once again implies a connection to the Force-wielders here. Maybe she is a Jedi. Maybe she just knows of their history — we know there are Force based religions that spun off out of the Jedi’s decline like Lor San Tekka’s Church of the Force. Maybe she’s just really sneaky and this is misdirection? Never assume anything with a Mandalorian trailer.
Meanwhile, Din and the Child are on a boat. This is still that same world, so the large body of water indicates that this is probably not the same as that ice planet. And before you gasp, yes, boats have indeed existed in Star Wars before. Not just typical sailing boats on oceanic worlds like Pamarthe, and, of course, submersibles on planets like Naboo, but the Empire had repulsorlift-based seacraft in its armies called Waveskimmers. The more you know!
We’re back in space this time, as the Razor Crest is flanked by two incoming X-Wings. We might know them as the heroic starfighters of the Rebellion and the New Republic, but to a bounty hunter like Din (even a noble one), this is basically the cops showing up. Especially considering they’re locking their S-Foils into attack position, so the New Republic is not here to help our hero this time.
Definitely not. Are these X-Wings the cause of the damage we see the ship received in the opening shot of the trailer, or perhaps even why it crash lands on that ice-world? Do they know of the Child, or are they catching up on Din for his involvement with attacking the New Republic vessel we saw in season one?
After a quick shot of the Mando on a bike — on what looks like the same world as we saw the Tusken earlier — we cut to some familiar faces he left behind back on Navarro: Cara and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers). We knew we’d be seeing them again thanks to last week’s pictures from Entertainment Weekly, so no surprises that Din’s recruiting some old friends for his quest.
[referenced id=”1420521″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/the-mandalorian-season-2-first-look-teases-a-game-of-thrones-style-escalation/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/08/waxzvlq8gnfgtm3onixp-300×169.jpg” title=”The Mandalorian Season 2 First Look Teases a Game of Thrones-Style Escalation” excerpt=”The first season of Disney’s The Mandalorian was all about putting the pieces in place. You’ve got the story of a Mandalorian (Pablo Pascal), who’s found himself taking care of his own bounty. Entertainment Weekly has the first look at season two, which sees Mando struggling to keep his charge…”]
And some old enemies too — on what appears to be yet another planet. We see Outland TIE Fighters take flight as Stormtroopers and scout bikers rally to combat an unseen threat…unseen for a very brief moment, as we also see Din on the same world jetpacking into action (interspersed with a seemingly unrelated shot of him trying to avoid drowning in a locked-off chamber somewhere). Maybe he has to assault an Imperial Remnant facility for information on Jedi strongholds? Over this we get our first snippet of actually new dialogue: “You know this is no place for a child,” a mysterious figure says.
After another quick shot of the industrial planet we saw early on — the same street, as Din shoots down someone tied up to one of the street lamps — we return very briefly to the ice world from earlier, as Din cradles the Child and takes him into a cave. “Wherever I go, he goes,” Din says, continuing the conversation from earlier. This definitely looks very Ilum-y.
We get an even quicker shot of the Razor Crest making a very violent entry into the atmosphere. Considering we saw it crash-landed there, this is probably Din and the Child on the way to maybe-Ilum, rather than that damage having been caused by the X-Wings we saw chasing them earlie .
Back on what could be the industrial world from the opening — it’s hard to tell — Din and the Child enter a what is very likely legally dubious combat arena. Two Gammorreans are going at it, their vibro-axes resonating with every clash. Nothing to add here other than, obviously, this is cool as hell.
“So I’ve heard,” the mysterious voice from earlier adds again, this time revealing that Din is talking to what appears to be an Abyssin in the crowd of this arena, a cycloptic species from the planet Byss. We previously saw an Abyssin in the background of A New Hope’s Mos Eisley Cantina scenes!
Unfortunately, our one-eyed friend is more of a one-eyed enemy. Three guards working with the Abyssin pull out blasters, presumably hoping they can claim the Remnant’s bounty on the Child…
…which is very clearly not going to happen. Din prepares his Whistling Bird mini-rockets on his vambrace, and the Child, knowing what’s about to happen, immediately nopes out and locks up the hatch on his hoverpram.
The trailer cuts out as we hear the aftermath of the Whistling Birds going off, to return on one final shot: a lot of very dead arena patrons surround Din as he flings a knife into the chest of a Zabrak. Evoking the now-iconic Mandalorian acclimation — this is the way — our hero and his little asset prepare to leave the scene.
There’s a lot going on in this first look at The Mandalorian season two in action, especially reveals of strange new worlds as Din goes about his newfound quest in life. But unsurprisingly it’s cryptic as to what the arc of the season will really be beyond “protect Baby Yoda” once more. None of the rumoured familiar faces that have been discussed in recent months, from Boba Fett to Ahsoka Tano and a litany of other Clone Wars names, are even remotely hinted at in this trailer. Which is unsurprising, given that the trailers for The Mandalorian’s first season managed to prepare us for the tone of the show while deftly, entirely cutting around the presence of the Child. It would not be too out there to suggest that there’s a lot more going on in this season, rumoured or otherwise, than we’re seeing here.
While there’s no doubt we’ll see a few more cryptic snippets of what’s to come in the weeks ahead, we won’t really begin to know the full story until The Mandalorian season two hits Disney+ on October 30. Sign up to Disney+ here.