[Editor’s note: The following containsspoilersthrough the Season 2 finale ofThe Mandalorian, “The Rescue."]
UPDATED: You can usually count onThe Mandalorianto wrap up an episode with an important, if perhaps obscure, twist, and Chapter 12, “The Siege,” was no exception. After he survived his ship’s crash at the end of Season 1, we’ve known that the nefarious Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito, whois a lovely person in real life, despite his habitual casting as baddies) would be coming after Baby Yoda and his erstwhile Space Daddy. But now we know that when Gideon does confront Mando and his ward, he’ll have some back-up likely drawn from a corner of theStar Warsuniverse quite familiar to fans.
The episode ends with Moff Gideon in yet another Imperial base (man, they sure had a lot of them left over after the Battle of Endor) overseeing an entire bank of unidentified robots. And like so many elements seen on screen, there is of course a potential backstory tied to tons of previously established lore.
“Dark troopers,” essentially a far more terrifying upgrade on Stormtroopers, were first introduced in the video gameStar Wars: Dark Forces. The manufacture of the Phase 1 versions were a major part of that game, set around the events ofStar Wars: A New Hope, and made subsequent appearances in games includingStar Wars: BattlefrontandStar Wars Galaxies.
It’s also important to note that dark troopers have not, until now, technically been consideredStar Warscanon since much of the expanded universe was reclassified as “Legends” for simplicity’s sake — but then again,The Mandalorianhas already found inspiration inRalph McQuarrie’s unused concept art— it’s hardly a shock to see executive producersJon FavreauandDave Filoniincorporate another part ofStar Warslore into the action.
AsThe Mandaloriantakes place after the destruction of the second Death Star and the fall of the original Empire, what Moff Gideon is developing likely represents a later evolution of the dark trooper concept (multiple iterations have appeared in the games). The one look we got at this new fighting force doesn’t indicate whether these will be completely robotic fighting units or armored skeletons for stormtroopers — both of which are options — but they’ll clearly be formidable adversaries.
UPDATE: The Dark Troopers, after kidnapping Baby Yoda at the end of “Chapter 14: The Tragedy,” were finally seen fully in action during the Season 2 finale, “Chapter 16: The Rescue.” There, it was confirmed that Moff Gideon’s squadron consisted of the totally robotic third-generation models of the troopers, able to withstand being spaced out an airlock but ultimately vulnerable to Beskar steel spears and the lightsaber of a master Jedi. “The human inside was the final weakness to be solved,” as Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) explains.
Read about how Chapter 12attempts to redeem the concept of midi-chlorians here, as well asour mid-season review.
