The Mandalorian Originally Planned to Visit This Famous Star Wars Location

The timeline of The Mandalorian has allowed it to connect the dots across the entire Skywalker Saga, drawing direct references to beloved facets of the franchise, with concept designer Anton Grandert recently showing off images from the series while confirming it nearly revisited the famous Docking Bay 94 from Star Wars: A New Hope. Fans know that this was the docking bay on Tatooine where Luke Skywalker first boarded the Millennium Falcon before making a quick getaway from the Empire, with Grandert confirming that this idea was abandoned, but he still used that original location as inspiration for the docking bay the Mandalorian and the Razor Crest eventually visited.

“Here’s a location I helped design for ‘Chapter 5’ of the Mandalorian,” Grandert captioned the post. “The original idea was to make this location Docking Bay 94, so I looked a lot at A New Hope for reference. Later this was changed, and we shrunk this area. I also tried recreating the entrance to the Docking Bay from epIV, and also worked on a layout for the streets above.”

Fans will also remember that, when the Special Edition of A New Hope was released in 1997, Docking Bay 94 was the site of Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett’s confrontation with Han Solo, with the locale also being visited in various stories in Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View.

Throughout both Seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian, audiences witnessed a number of callbacks to the original trilogy, whether they be obscure characters or environments, though as the second season started to wind down, some of those references began to be much more obvious. With the series being set after the events of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, we mostly witnessed the collateral damage of the Galactic Civil War, but the season finale brought something no one had really expected: Luke Skywalker himself.

Audiences weren’t the only ones who loved the character’s return, with Mark Hamill sharing his appreciation at the opportunity to revisit the younger version of the character.

“Dear [director Peyton Reed], I am so grateful to have been given the unexpected opportunity to revisit my character when he was still a symbol of hope & optimism,” Hamill shared on Twitter following the appearance. “Your assured direction & kindness was a crucial element in the experience & means more to me than I can say.”

Season 3 of The Mandalorian is expected to hit Disney+ later this year.

Do you wish we visited Docking Bay 94 in The Mandalorian? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!