Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Reveals Connection to The Mandalorian

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but many fans are wondering how the new movie connects to the Disney+ series Star Wars: The Mandalorian. While we don’t get an appearance from Baby Yoda himself, there is a major tie to the character’s appearance on the show, especially in light of this week’s episode “Chapter 7: The Reckoning.” But of course, if you haven’t caught up with the latest episode of The Mandalorian or you still haven’t seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, you might want to steer clear of the rest of this post.

Warning: Spoilers for both Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker below.

In the new film, we get to see the continued adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron as they journey to the desert planet of Pasaana in order to retrieve a Sith artifact that could put them on the path to saving the galaxy. But they end up trapped in a series of tunnels where a gigantic sand serpent lurks, though it has since been wounded and is much more hostile in response.

Rey sees the wound and pacifies the creature by carefully approaching it, using the Force to heal the wound completely and sending it away without attacking her friends.

This might sound familiar to those who have seen the latest episode of The Mandalorian, where Mando’s frenemy Greef Karga gets wounded in an attack from a flock of winged creatures on the planet Nevarro. The claws of the winged creature damage Greef’s arm and leave its poisonous venom coursing through his veins, and the Force-sensitive child affectionately referred to as Baby Yoda springs into action.

The Child uses the Force much like Rey does, hovering her hand over the wound and healing Greef’s arm.

Force healing has not been this explicitly shown on screen before, so the fact that it’s happening in two major Star Wars releases within the span of mere days should be seen as a big deal. The Force, and what we as fans know about it, is constantly changing and expanding to include new abilities for both Sith and Jedi alike. But what it means for the future of the Star Wars franchise remains to be seen.

The season finale of Star Wars: The Mandalorian premieres next Friday, December 27th, on Disney+.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now playing in theaters.