Happy Friday! And by happy Friday we really mean happy Mandalorian day. And by happy Mandalorian day we're really wishing everyone a happy Baby Yoda day. Let's be real, even people who have never heard of Mandalorians, or Boba Fett, much less Disney+, have very certainly heard of Baby Yoda. This adorable green puppet baby has taken the internet, and thus the world, by storm.
But viewers were the first to meet this adorable space orphan, and thus he (or she) holds a very special place in their hearts, and their heads. No good Star Wars fan goes through life without at least a few theories about what's to come (on TV or otherwise). Here are just a few of the more popular theories currently living their best life after episode 5.
Baby Yoda is the Last of His Species
It was always clear that whatever unnamed species the original Yoda originated from was not a species that was particularly flourishing. Unlike Humans, Rodians, and Twi'leks, we never saw anyone like Yoda on any of the many planets visited throughout the Star Wars saga.
Only one other Yoda species makes an appearance, and that's in the prequel trilogies. Yaddle sits on the Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace. So yes, his species has always been rare, and it looks like that species has always been powerful (two for two on Jedi). So if our favorite mini alien is the last of his kind, he's pretty important.
Baby Yoda is Yoda's Lovechild
Okay, so now that both Yoda and Yaddle have been mentioned there are two canon characters of the same species who could, in the Star Wars universe, have reproduced together. Thus, two force-sensitive green puppets create a force-sensitive mini puppet. While this fan theory is relatively popular it doesn't work with the current Star Wars timeline.
Yoda and Yaddle would have had to have Baby Yoda before the Phantom Menace even took place (despite his big baby eyes, that little guy is still 50 years old). And besides, as Anakin/Darth Vader finds out, it's very against Jedi rules to procreate. It's also a little too convenient to have the only two puppets we ever see generate the only other one we get to meet.
Baby Yoda is a Clone
Oddly enough, this theory holds a little more weight than the lovechild one. Why? Because there is show evidence backing up this guess, where the lovechild is largely movie dependent. Remember that guy working with Werner Herzog in the first chapter? (Werner Herzog being the guy with the accent that sends Mando after the child in the first place).
Well that fun guy, with the goggles, who is found with Baby Yoda on a weird tech table when Mando comes to rescue his abandoned adopted son, he has some insignia on the shoulder of his outfit. That symbol is very similar to one seen on the planet Kamino, in Attack of the Clones. So there's that.
The Remainder of the Empire Wants to Clone Yoda
It doesn't explain the child's origin, but it could certainly explain the great interest, and expensive bounty the child seems to carry. Having lost to force power once before (thank you for your service Luke) the Empire has finally grown wise. They aren't held to the standard of "One master and one apprentice" as the emperor was.
They know there's power in numbers and they want their numbers to be crazy force-sensitive this time around. The trick being, obviously, that there are so few confirmed force users at this time, and certainly very few of Yoda's species running around.
This is Yoda
Hello time travel. There had to be at least one theory about traveling not just through space, but through time as well. All true fans are aware that the supposedly dead Emperor Palpatine will be present in The Rise of Skywalker when it is released at the end of this month if he can come back, why not Yoda? That's right, Yoda could be back, in the flesh (but with fewer wrinkles).
It seems a little silly, but anyone who watched the cartoon series Star Wars Rebels knows that a certain force-sensitive young man named, Ezra Bridger, discovered another dimension where you could travel to different places in time by using the force. How Yoad would have gotten to this dimension we don't know, but that's why this is just a theory.
Baby Yoda Explains Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker
So, let's look at that cloning theory again. If Yoda can come back through cloning then so could Palpatine. If this baby is a clone of Yoda, or even a time-traveling Yoda, then Palpatine definitely had the power to do the same.
And, if we are looking at the timeline, fifty years would certainly make Emperor Palpatine an adult when he comes face to face with Rey and company in Episode nine, while Yoda is still in diapers.
Baby Yoda Brings Back Emperor Palpatine
Maybe this isn't Yoda, but this little green ball of love is still incredibly force sensitive. If that goggles guy does have some cloning Kamino tech, he could certainly be looking to use some force power or force DNA to resurrect Palpatine, even if it takes almost another thirty or so years to do it.
This little television show could mean a lot to the upcoming movie. Cloning Yoda is a new theory, but it was first explored in the now Legends timeline of Star Wars comics, Star Wars: Dark Empire.
Vandar Tokare, or the Other Yoda
This theory digs even deeper than the Star Wars: Dark Empire comics. In the old Knights of the Old Republic video game, Tokare was also of Yoda's species, and actually took part in the Mandalorian Wars, a time when Jedi and the Galactic Republic actually fought against the planet Mandalore and the Mandalorians who lived there.
How is our beloved Baby Yoda related to Tokare? Unclear, but this ancient bad blood could further complicated the relationship of the world's favorited traveling duo.
The New Chosen One
Let us recall how the Skywalker Saga began, with a little boy named Anakin, his mother Shmi, and no father but the force itself. We all know how that went. Perhaps the force has decided to try again, even if it will only play the absent father once more.
Who's to say this isn't the prophetic creature who will bring balance to the force? Baby Yoda has certainly brought balance to the fandom.
Mando is not The Mandalorian
Beware of the spoilers below if you have yet to watch the newly released episode 5 of The Mandalorian. At the end of this week's episode of incredible callbacks (Tatooine, Mos Eisley Spaceport) we are left with our second greatest cliffhanger of the season, with the first being Baby Yoda's existence, naturally. The supposedly deceased Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) is approached by boots and the sound of armor.
We are shown no face. Who has returned for her? Is it Mando? He knew where the body was? Those boots could be his. Or is there a different reason this episode was set on Tatooine? Perhaps the whole point was so the show could pick up the real Mandalorian, Boba Fett himself, left in the Sarlaac Pit so many movies ago.