Biblical Themes in “The Mandalorian”
By: Rev. Gordon Tubbs
Tags: Theology, Pop Culture, Star Wars, Bible, The Mandalorian

LET’S GET YOU UP TO HYPERSPEED…

Star Wars fans were first introduced to the Mandalorian people through a bounty hunter named Boba Fett, in The Empire Strikes Back. His first appearance was alongside other bounty hunters, or ‘scum’ according to one Imperial officer, that Darth Vader had assembled to track down the Millennium Falcon. As Darth Vader paces across the line-up to deliver his instructions, he pauses in front of Boba Fett and turns, pointing his finger at his face saying “no disintegrations.” Uh okay! This Boba Fett guy must have a reputation in order for Darth Vader to single him out like that. As far as we know at this point in the film, Boba Fett could have been the same bounty hunter that Han Solo claimed he ran into on a planet called Ord Mantell. Regardless, we get the picture: with armor that looks like it has seen a few battles, Boba Fett seems to be the one bounty hunter you do not want coming after you.

The rest of The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi never really explain who Boba Fett is. We are left thinking he is one of the bad guys, because he was working with the bad guys to stop the good guys. However, that did not stop Star Wars fans from thinking one thing about Boba Fett: he is cool! His screen exit occurs after he falls into some sand monster’s mouth, and not until Attack of the Clones do we see Boba Fett again. In that movie, we learn that Boba Fett is the son of and clone of a bounty hunter named Jango Fett. We also discover that Jango Fett has been used as the template for a brand new army of clonetroopers to be used by the Republic. These clones even brandish armor that looks like the armor Jango Fett has.

During the climax of Attack of the Clones, Jango Fett squares off against the Jedi Master Mace Windu and does not come out ahead. As it turns out, you can bring a knife to a gunfight, especially if your knife is a lightsaber and the other guy’s gun shoots lasers that you can deflect. The death of Jango Fett shocks two onlookers, Count Dooku and young Boba Fett. After the battle ends, we see Boba Fett pick up his father’s helmet, and that is it. That is all the audience is told on film about Boba and the Mandalorians in general.

It is not until the animated television program The Clone Wars do we finally learn something about the Mandalorian people. We discover that their homeworld, Mandalore, has been caught up in the conflict between the Republic and the Confederacy. There are those who wish to side with the Republic, those who wish to join the Confederacy, and those who wish to assert Mandalore’s neutrality and long-standing independence as a free world.

The Mandalorian people also harbor a general distrust of the Republic, or rather the Jedi who serve it, because thousands of years ago the Jedi Order and the Mandalorians went to war. The war eventually resulted in the ravaging of Mandalore itself, turning it into a wasteland, such that the planet’s inhabitants live in domed cities.

By the end of The Clone Wars, the planet finds itself besieged by forces inside and out. Although the Republic winds up winning (by defeating the ‘bad Mandalorians’ who had imposed their rule), we know that the Republic is about to become the Empire, and it is the Empire that later subjugates Mandalore. For the next two decades or so between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, we learn in The Mandalorian that the Empire outright broke the Mandalorian people during an event called “the Great Purge.” For all intents and purposes, this was a catastrophic event for the Mandalorian people. Their society was shattered, and their tribes were scattered. Their precious resource — beskar —used for their armaments, was plundered by the Empire.

As I asked at the opening of this article, does this sound like any people group on Earth we know? Pretty much any people group impacted by colonial powers during the Age of Exploration (or should we say Age of Exploitation?), any people group impacted by a total war, and any people group impacted by genocide. As a Christian pastor and avid Bible-reader, I tend to naturally theologize everything because that is simply how my brain works. As a history nerd and fervent fan of Star Wars, I immediately saw the narrative similarities between Jews and Mandalorians.

In this article, I hope to explore some biblical themes I have picked up on in watching The Mandalorian. It should be pointed out that Jon Favreau (the creator of the show) is of Jewish descent and heritage, and so the biblical similarities between the Mandalorians and the Jews may be intentional. The best art imitates reality, after all.