By George & Josh Bate
If you’re like us, you’ve probably watched the new trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu a million times since its debut yesterday. And, if you’re also like us, you’ve probably picked up on a number of hidden details and easter eggs embedded within the next footage. One of these details has us particularly intrigued, both for its connection to previous canon and its reference to real-life historical events.
In the trailer, Sigourney Weaver’s Colonel Ward recruits Din Djarin to hunt down remaining Imperial warlords. Ward hands Djarin a sabacc card, after which the Mandalorian states, “I’ll take out every bad guy in your deck of cards.”
This concept of a deck of sabacc cards that reveal wanted Imperial fugitives was first introduced in the Aftermath novels by Chuck Wendig and later expanded on in The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Republic by Chris Kempshall. Both of these books establish that the New Republic created and circulated an adapted sabacc deck with each of the 76 cards featuring the last known image of a wanted Imperial fugitive. Some of the fugitives on these cards included Rae Sloane, Brendol Hux, and Enric Pryde.
With the inclusion of this sabaac deck in The Mandalorian and Grogu, we are treated to a cool, fairly deep cut aspect of canon lore find its way onto the big screen.
The idea of a deck of cards featuring known fugitives actually comes from real life. During the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency created a set of playing cards to help troops identify the most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s government. These cards were officially named the “personality identification playing cards,” but were also referred to as “most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.”
The incorporation of most wanted cards in The Mandalorian and Grogu does not mark the first time a galaxy far, far away has drawn inspiration from real world history. Of course, the rebels in the original Star Wars were inspired by the Viet Cong, with George Lucas likening the Empire to the United States. J.J. Abrams leaned on the idea of Nazis fleeing to South America after World War II in conceptualizing how the First Order came to be. And, most recently, Andor‘s depiction of fascism, the calculated spread of misinformation, and resistance movements paralleled numerous historical events and proved disturbingly to contemporary American politics.
The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters on May 22
