SpaceX astronauts bring The Mandalorian Baby Yoda toy into space. With the arrival of The Child as the big surprise reveal at the end of The Mandalorian season 1, episode 1, a new and seemingly unstoppable pop culture phenomenon was born.
The avalanche of memes that followed in the wake of Baby Yoda’s debut was indeed impressive, as was the eventual flood of merchandise. From a pure storytelling standpoint, Baby Yoda’s role on The Mandalorian proved important as well, as the ever vulnerable child helped humanize the show’s enigmatic masked protagonist Din Djarin. Season 2’s big promised story arc about Mando’s attempts to reunite The Child with others of his species seemed to tease more revelations about the character’s origins and powers, but thus far the second season of The Mandalorian has relegated Baby Yoda largely to a comic relief role, while of course putting him in occasional danger the better to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
While Baby Yoda continues to be somewhat of a mystery on The Mandalorian, in the real world he remains a pop culture obsession and a merchandising juggernaut. And now the Baby Yoda phenomenon has even made its way into space thanks to astronauts on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ship, who brought along a plush toy of The Child as they blasted into orbit on Sunday. See SpaceX/NASA video of Baby Yoda’s trip in the space below (via VideoFromSpace):
Indeed the presence of plush toys on space craft is nothing new, as the soft objects are often used in crew cabins as visual indicators of zero gravity. Baby Yoda happens to be a particularly appropriate character to bring into space, not only because he stars in a Star Wars show, but because so many of his most amusing exploits have taken place in the cockpit of Din Djarin’s Razor Crest spaceship. Of course Baby Yoda is also known for getting into mischief, both inside the Razor Crest and outside, but hopefully the presence of a plush version of The Child won’t cause any problems for astronauts as they dock with the ISS Monday night and continue their mission in orbit.
As for the Disney+ version of Baby Yoda, it remains to be seen how much The Mandalorian will actually reveal about the character during the course of season 2, as Mando continues to go on dangerous missions while meeting up with new allies like Bo-Katan. Eventually though, the show will have to deliver something new about Baby Yoda’s origins and give some more details on why the remnants of the Empire want to get their hands on him so badly. Indeed, after the most recent episode it seems The Mandalorian is finally ready to delve deeper into its main plot lines for season 2, with Moff Gideon’s return to the action seemingly imminent.
