Spoilers The Mandalorian | Disney+ | Streaming Nov. 12

[11Alive]

There's one thing that's been confusing to me and I don't want to sift through 62 pages of posts to see if it's been discussed already.

Did Moff Gideon want Baby Yoda alive or not? First Mando is supposed to get him alive. IG-11 is ordered to terminate the asset. Other bounty hunters also try to kill him. The stormtroopers in the finale are ordered to bring him in directly to Gideon when they could have simply killed him. The trooper with the flamethrower wasn't ordered to spare him. I'm so confused.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I'm thinking it still doesn't matter, even to Gideon. Based on what the Doctor was doing (who was working with the Client), I'm thinking all they're only primarily interested in is the Child's DNA. Alive or dead is irrelevant. DNA lasts a while after death.

They know the Child is force-sensitive. They're probably intent on building a new clone army with force-active characteristics, which would be a complete nightmare for the NR with no active Jedi running around to offset them.

 

[11Alive]

If it doesn't matter, then they should have killed the Child when they had the chance. But they seemed at times to want him alive. Heck, the Client didn't seem to want to disturb the supposedly sleeping Child, speaking quietly to Gideon. Why not just put a blaster shot through the bassinet?

 

[David cgc]

I assumed IG-11 was hired by another interested party. Whether that was another of Gideon's deputies, the way Hertzog was, or a rival who wished to deny Baby Yoda to anyone who'd use him, for good or ill. For all Gideon and Hertzog might've wanted to science up an army of Force users, someone else might've thought that was a fool's errand (if it hadn't been done in 3,000+ years of galactic history, why think it was going to happen now?) and was more interested in making sure the child didn't end up with Luke Skywalker, or, for that matter, as a new Inquisitor.

The Force is created by all living things. Killing the child would reduce, if not eliminate, its scientific value (backed up by the scientist's reaction when Hertzog was open to it being returned dead). As for Hertzog not wanting to disturb the baby, it could've been anything from simple human sympathy in the moment, to humoring Din's obvious connection to it, to not wanting to honk off something that could kill him with a thought if scared or threatened.

 

[11Alive]

It wasn't just IG-11, though. There were also the two who ambushed him at the beginning of Ep 2, as well as the sniper at the shrimping village at the end of Ep 4. And the way Greef Karga talked in the transmission at the beginning of Ep 7, the Client was behind all of the attacks on Mando, and everything would be okay once the Client was eliminated. He never even implied that there was another party interested in the asset.

 

[David cgc]

It wasn't just IG-11, though. There were also the two who ambushed him at the beginning of Ep 2, as well as the sniper at the shrimping village at the end of Ep 4. And the way Greef Karga talked in the transmission at the beginning of Ep 7, the Client was behind all of the attacks on Mando, and everything would be okay once the Client was eliminated. He never even implied that there was another party interested in the asset.

Yeah, but it makes no sense for the Client to tell Din "alive if at all possible, dead for a lower reward," and then hire IG-11 specifically for to bring the Child back dead, only. It makes more sense for there to be at least two clients with different goals. All the others can be explained away as hunters going for the sure kill rather than risking a live capture despite the lower reward, but IG-11 explicitly says his commission was to kill the Child.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, but it makes no sense for the Client to tell Din "alive if at all possible, dead for a lower reward," and then hire IG-11 specifically for to bring the Child back dead, only. It makes more sense for there to be at least two clients with different goals. All the others can be explained away as hunters going for the sure kill rather than risking a live capture despite the lower reward, but IG-11 explicitly says his commission was to kill the Child.

Plus of course Din's hiring was off the books and under the table, while IG-11's seems to have been above board. A third party seems to be the only logical solution...or a fourth party if we count whoever had him to begin with. I mean one assumes that band of Nikto were in someone's employ.

I wouldn't be surprised if all of these were ex-Imperial factions squabbling over the leftovers. My suspicion is that little Frogwai had been the the possession of the Inquisitorius courtesy of Project Harvester and was acquired by someone in the chaos of the Empire's disintegration...maybe that someone was Gideon, and maybe he was stolen from him by someone else; maybe the Nikto or maybe whoever hired them. Or maybe Gideon hired the Nikto but they reneged or found a higher bidder or two, hence the conflicting bounty contracts.

 

[Jedi Marso]

If this happens all post-ROTJ, wouldn't it be an interesting twist if somehow Baby Yoda ever found his way to... Jedi Master Luke Skywalker?

 

[Booji]

Baby and Pop Pop...

 

[Noname Given]

Baby and Pop Pop...

Funny - that doesn't look like Jon Favreau

 

[JD]

If this happens all post-ROTJ, wouldn't it be an interesting twist if somehow Baby Yoda ever found his way to... Jedi Master Luke Skywalker?

I've had the same thought, but if he was one of Luke's students you'd think he'd have been able to kick Ben Solo's ass when he went dark. As strong as he was in the Force as a baby, I'm assuming he'd be just insanely strong as an adult.

 

[Skywalker]

Baby Yoda probably wouldn't be a major player for another fifty years at the rate he seems to grow. Maybe if they ever do a movie set a century or more after Episode IX...

 

[USS Firefly]

Or maybe there is another Jedi Academy were Kyle Katarn trains younglings

And maybe baby Yoda is still a baby because nobody teached him/her basic stuf like talking, etc

 

[JD]

Funko is going to be release some t-shirts with a Pop! styled Baby Yoda.
I'd probably get one of these if I saw it in a store.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Baby and Pop Pop...
View attachment 13113

So my brain goes to two places
Awwwwwww
"I'm so going to replace you with CG..."

 

[Mach5]

"I'm so going to replace you with CG..."

Pretty sure Baby Yoda IS CG in some shots (like when he eats the frog), but they put real effort into making it look seamless (with movements made intentionally jerky etc.), unlike Lucas who didn't care if CGI Yoda looked or moved anything like the puppet from the OT.

 

[Mage]

Adam Pally, who played one of the bike scouts from the beginning of the season finale has done a short interview with Entertainment Weekly where he talks a little about The Mandalorian.
Apparently the Baby Yoda puppet that he punched was the hero puppet worth $5million, and after he found that out he was so nervous he missed hitting the next three takes.
He's a huge Star Wars and got the job because he's good friends with Jon Favreau.

5 million?? I doubt that somehow.....

 

[JD]

Pretty sure Baby Yoda IS CG in some shots (like when he eats the frog), but they put real effort into making it look seamless (with movements made intentionally jerky etc.), unlike Lucas who didn't care if CGI Yoda looked or moved anything like the puppet from the OT.

I think pretty much anytime we see him walking around he's CGI. It really is pretty amazing how hard it was to tell for sure what was CGI and what was the puppet.

 

[David cgc]

Pretty sure Baby Yoda IS CG in some shots (like when he eats the frog), but they put real effort into making it look seamless (with movements made intentionally jerky etc.), unlike Lucas who didn't care if CGI Yoda looked or moved anything like the puppet from the OT.

Well, I remember when AotC came out, the animators talked a lot about making the new Yoda move like he did in ESB (having the ears wiggle correctly when he turned his head was a major one, IIRC). I think the main difference was Lucas wanted Yoda to be able to do more than he could as a puppet, so they made his face a lot more animated and flexible, for instance, never mind seeing him walking in full-body shots more often and otherwise in places where they couldn't hide a puppeteer. Just in terms of design, the PT CG Yoda looked a lot more like he did in ESB than the ugly, ugly TPM puppet.

In this case, since they're switching back-and-forth constantly, the CG Baby Yoda limits itself to the puppet's capabilities a lot more closely (and the puppet is probably capable of much more subtle and varied movements than the Yoda puppets ever were). Even so, Hertzog's "cowards" remarks notwithstanding, I wouldn't be surprised if there were many shots of the puppet doing puppet-things where it was replaced with the CG version to smooth out motion, hide seams or shadows, or introduce more subtleties. They did it all the time with BB-8, for instance, even in shots using a "real" one.

 

[Mach5]

Well, I remember when AotC came out, the animators talked a lot about making the new Yoda move like he did in ESB (having the ears wiggle correctly when he turned his head was a major one, IIRC). I think the main difference was Lucas wanted Yoda to be able to do more than he could as a puppet, so they made his face a lot more animated and flexible, for instance, never mind seeing him walking in full-body shots more often and otherwise in places where they couldn't hide a puppeteer. Just in terms of design, the PT CG Yoda looked a lot more like he did in ESB than the ugly, ugly TPM puppet.

I remember a behind the scenes video of Lucas telling the VFX people to loosen Yoda up. He didn't want the CGI model to be constrained in ways puppets are constrained. The problem is, the tech just wasn't there at the time and AOTC Yoda ended up looking pretty cartoonish. ROTS Yoda was an improvement, but it wasn't quite there either.