Jon Favreau touched on the universal image of a parent cradling their newborn child when he posted a picture of Star Wars' creator George Lucas holding a puppet of Baby Yoda from the Disney+ show The Mandalorian (a show Favreau spearheaded) to Twitter Thursday. The image has gone on to receive over 800,000 likes and 144,000 retweets as of this writing, but one of the most interesting comparisons it spawned was to Hideo Kojima's 2019 auteur title Death Stranding.
The first game developed by Kojima Productions, Death Stranding follows Norman Reedus' Sam Bridges as he explores a post-apocalyptic United States to deliver packages and establish a communications network that may help humanity survive a siege of invisible demonic creatures known as BTs. It gets much stranger the more one dives in.
Reedus' character travels with a small child in an amber-colored pod called BB who can sense the invisible threat, and this is where the connection to Favreau's picture becomes relevant. One of the mechanics in Death Stranding, which was recently announced as a Game of the Year nominee for the DICE Awards, has the player cradle BB to calm him down. That recurring moment picks up on the aforementioned universal human condition in a similar way to Lucas and Baby Yoda.
Arguably the most interesting thing about the comparison between Lucas and Sam is that it isn't a purely fan-driven venture. The official PlayStation UK Twitter account jumped in as well.
Baby Yoda is no stranger to being mixed up with memes. In particular memes related to Netflix's The Witcher show, which was released in close proximity to the standalone Star Wars story. He was even directly reimagined as BB back in November through fan art created by BossLogic.
However this is also weirdly not the first time a real-world celebrity has been compared to Reedus' paternal character. A few weeks ago, a picture posted by pregnant musician Grimes circulated gaming circles for taking an aesthetic reminiscent of Death Stranding art.
With all this said, Favreau's image is rife with potential meme-ability beyond its comparison to Death Stranding. The Internet certainly hasn't slowed down on that front over the last few days:
Clearly Lucas is still fondly seen as the father of Star Wars to many, even if his current relationship with the Disney-era movie trilogy is rocky at best. If games like Death Stranding and the reaction to Favreau's image say anything, it's that those paternal bonds are an indispensable necessity in the face of great hardships.
Death Stranding is out now for PS4 with a PC released planned for later this year.