Star Wars: The Mandalorian Director Admits It’s Okay to Say “Baby Yoda”

Baby Yoda may be the Internet’s favorite thing to come out of Star Wars: The Mandalorian thus far. Revealed at the end of the first episode of the Disney+ series, viewers were stunned to discover that the Mandalorian’s bounty was none other than an infant of the same species Yoda belonged to. This quickly led people to start calling the adorable creature “Baby Yoda” online, which in turn created a bit of controversy when some fans started pointing out that the infant isn’t actually Yoda as a baby and, thus, the term isn’t correct. Now, though, The Mandalorian director Dave Filoni is stepping into the discussion and says it’s perfectly fine to call Baby Yoda, well, “Baby Yoda.”

Speaking with ET’s Ash Crossan, Filoni gave his blessing for the fan name for the surprising and endearing character, acknowledging that the real name of the infant creature is all a part of the mystery of the series — and seemed to suggest that the creature’s identity would be cleared up in the end.

“That’s fine, all part of the mystery,” Filoni said before following up with “but it’s very clear, it’s very clear.”

Since the character — who is referred to as The Child in the series — made its debut, people haven’t been able to get enough of him. There have been all sorts of internet memes, discussion, and even a very catchy song about the character. Fans have been calling for toys as well — something that will take some time as series creator Jon Favreau explained that the tiny character was kept under wraps and out of merchandise until the show debuted so as not to leak the surprise.

“I have to thank Disney and Lucasfilm, because the way the cat usually gets out of the bag with that stuff is merchandising and toy catalogs and things like that,” Favreau explained to Collider. “So they really back us up. We really wanted to have it be that you had to watch it yourself, so that every time you watch the show, there are new twists and secrets that come out. That requires a lot of restraint from the people who are footing the bill, saying they’re gonna hold back on certain things so that the public doesn’t know ahead of time. Part of that was holding back on some of the merchandise and holding back on some of the characters.”

And while fans do have to wait for the merchandise, they won’t have to wait too much for more about the character. The so-called Baby Yoda appears to have quite a few surprises left in store in the series.

“He has his own name, and he is very interesting and very knowledgeable and very cute,” Carl Weathers, who plays Greef Carga, recently shared. “I never use that word, but he is a cute little guy… You have to see the shows to figure out who this baby Yoda really is, and what he is all about, or even if he is really a baby Yoda.”

New episodes of The Mandalorian will debut on Fridays exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t checked out Disney+ yet and you want to give it a go, you can do that here.

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