(NEW YORK) — The season two finale of Disney+ hit The Mandalorian is now available for streaming, and fans have been champing at the bit to see if Grogu — AKA Baby Yoda — escapes the clutches of Giancarlo Esposito’s evil Moff Gideon.
Esposito was Emmy nominated for his performance as the villain, and he’s back in a big way in the finale, wielding the ancient — and pivotal — weapon known as the Darksaber. Esposito explains how excited he was to wield the weapon, which was also a major Easter egg for fans, in the finale of the first season: We see him crash his TIE fighter, ‘Oh, he could fly, too!'” he says with a laugh.
“And he comes out with the most phenomenal, unbelievable element that is such a throwback to the earlier movies, the Darksaber. And so now you’re really kind of drawn into who this guy is and what is the story.”
The Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul veteran adds, “It’s exciting to be a part of the story that so many people around the world can relate to and and be entertained by, but also be moved by the power of the theology that exists within our storyline.”
Oscar, Emmy, and Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda was such a Star Wars fan that he played an uncredited Rebel pilot in The Rise of Skywalker. The Force is strong in his family, he explains to ABC Audio.
“My son just turned six, and so we said when you turn six, you can watch the ‘real’ Star Wars movies as opposed to the LEGO Star Wars that he had already watched so many times, you couldn’t watch them anymore,” Miranda laughs. “So we just finished Last Jedi…We just did
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Brian Volk-Weiss is a super-fan, as well as the producer of Netflix’s hit shows The Movies That Made Us and The Toys That Made Us. He explained how The Mandalorian brings to life toys hardcore fans had as a child, and that they clamor to collect as adults. The sight of one obscure toy onscreen, the Imperial Troop Transport, got him emotional.
“Honestly, man, this is insane — and I’m aware of it — I teared up when I saw that,” he confesses. “I teared up when I saw Ahsoka Tano … But when they showed Bo Katan for the first time…literally my first thought when I saw her was and again, this is insane, but I was like, like, ‘Wow, she’s real. They did it.'”
Volk-Weiss adds, “We are living in the greatest time in history to be a geek.”
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By Stephen Iervolino
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