Even with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker now playing in theaters, there has been no bigger contribution to pop culture this year by the storied franchise than the fan dubbed “Baby Yoda” from The Mandalorian. The tiny, Force-sensitive beast has been the subject of many memes since his debut, and resulted in a high demand for merch. Despite Mandalorian executive producer and all-around Star Wars denizen Dave Filoni saying it’s okay to call “The Child” by the name of “Baby Yoda,” one person in particular insists on NOT calling them by that moniker.
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None other than The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger was asked about the new addition to the galaxy far, far away, where he referred to him simply as “the character,” and never “Baby Yoda.” Could there be a specific reason for that?
“Well, look, the scale of the reaction is probably beyond my expectations by a wide margin,” Iger said to The Hollywood Reporter. “That said, the moment I laid eyes on the character, I had a strong feeling the character was going to connect with audiences. It’s just so cute, so interesting, so compelling, in many respects so familiar and yet so new.”
When asked if Disney had any thoughts in hindsight about not having any official merch for “The character” availabel to coincide with his debut on Disney+, Iger said there were discussions.
“We talked about it, and we wanted the reveal of that character, notice I’m not referring to it as ‘Baby Yoda’ to be really special. And it was worth it.”
Iger’s choice of words, and better yet, his pointing out his choice of words is pretty curious. As many have pointed out, the character isn’t actually Yoda as a baby and, thus, the term isn’t “correct.” But since details about both “The Child” and Yoda’s species is still very much a mystery, the colloquial term coined by fans has stuck. The quote by Iger does bring up an interesting question, will we have a name for the character before the end of The Mandalorian season one? Or will we instead have to continue the battle of “The Child” vs “Baby Yoda” ?
Where do you stand in the name debate? Will you still call the character “Baby Yoda” even if his full name is revealed at some point? Sound off in the comments below!
The Mandalorian‘s season one finale, and the fate of Baby Yoda, will be revealed on Friday, December 27 on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here. Disney has also launched a gift subscription option for the holidays.
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