It’s fair to say that, with his work on The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau saved Star Wars from certain doom. After Solo bombed at the box office and the sequel trilogy offered diminishing returns, Favreau’s streaming series proved there was hope for a galaxy far, far away after all. The story of Din Djarin’s quest to reunite Grogu with his people has captivated audiences across the globe and become the same kind of cultural phenomenon that George Lucas’ original movie was back in 1977.

One of the main issues with the sequel trilogy is that it undid a lot of Return of the Jedi’s emotional closure. It ignored Darth Vader’s redemption, resurrected Emperor Palpatine, and effectively made the Rebellion’s efforts in the original trilogy a waste of time. Favreau worked as an usher while Return of the Jedi was playing in theaters and saw it “dozens of times,” so it has a special place in his heart. In The Mandalorian and its upcoming spin-offs, Favreau is slowly expanding on the post-Return of the Jedi period that The Force Awakens skipped over, and unlike J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, he’s committed to honoring Episode VI’s legacy.

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At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke was all set to rebuild the Jedi Order, Leia was ready to turn the Rebellion into the New Republic, and Darth Vader had been redeemed and returned to the light side of the Force. Then, in The Force Awakens, Luke was a self-exiled grump whose Jedi apprentices were all dead, the New Republic had fallen and Leia was once again leading a struggling rebellion against a mighty empire, and Vader was reframed as a villain as Kylo Ren worshipped him and promised to finish what he started for years without a peep from Anakin’s Force ghost.

The Rebels head to Endor in Return of the Jedi

Rather than taking an assignment from Lucasfilm, Favreau developed The Mandalorian from scratch. Setting the story five years after Return of the Jedi was a deliberate choice to explore the immediate aftermath of the Rebels’ defeat of the Empire. Since the sequel trilogy skipped right over the post-Return of the Jedi peacetime to yet another galactic civil war, it’s been interesting to see The Mandalorian slowly fill in the gaps in the worldbuilding alongside its own standalone narrative.

While there are plenty of Easter eggs to point to throughout The Mandalorian’s first two seasons, its most obvious nod to Return of the Jedi was Luke Skywalker’s appearance in the season 2 finale “Chapter 16: The Rescue.” Fan service at its finest, the scene saw Luke pull into Moff Gideon’s command ship in an X-wing fighter and slaughter a bunch of Dark Troopers with effortless Jedi precision. From the black cloak to the gloved robotic hand to the glowing green lightsaber, everything about Luke’s wildly satisfying cameo was designed to evoke memories of Return of the Jedi.

Luke on Endor in Return of the Jedi

All the story setups that The Force Awakens ignored in favor of loosely remaking the original movie are poised to be rounded out in Disney Plus’ Mandalorian-verse. Now that Luke has taken on Grogu as one of his first apprentices, Favreau’s Star Wars streaming franchise can explore the Luke Skywalker-led Jedi academy that got burned to the ground before the events of Episode VII. Rangers of the New Republic can explore how Leia turned the Rebellion into the New Republic before turning it back into a rebellion that uses all the same logos and uniforms, but now goes by the name “Resistance.” (The Rangers series technically isn’t in active development at Lucasfilm, but that’s likely just to retool it to not include Cara Dune.) Ahsoka Tano’s search for Grand Admiral Thrawn in her own spin-off series could blow the Imperial Remnants storyline wide open.

Favreau has even used The Mandalorian to fix one of Return of the Jedi’s biggest problems. After Boba Fett quickly became one of the most popular Star Wars characters following his introduction in The Empire Strikes Back (a fact that George Lucas was unaware of), a lot of fans were disappointed by his lackluster death scene in Return of the Jedi. In The Mandalorian’s second season, Favreau rectified this by retconning Boba’s death and bringing him back for his own spin-off, The Book of Boba Fett. Boba’s return to action, directed by Robert Rodriguez in The Mandalorian episode “Chapter 14: The Tragedy,” was well worth the four-decade wait.

The final shot of Return of the Jedi

Return of the Jedi is widely considered to be the worst entry in the original Star Wars trilogy, but that’s largely because the first two movies are untouchable masterpieces and it’s hard to stick the landing with the final installment of a popular trilogy. The Ewoks get a little annoying after a while and there’s a long action-free stretch in the middle act. But in its handling of Luke and Vader’s arcs, it’s a perfect conclusion to the original trilogy, and it’s been a joy to see Favreau explore its most exciting setups.

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