The Mandalorian director and star Taika Waititi knows Baby Yoda’s real name but won’t reveal it. Season one of the Disney+ show following the exploits of the titular Mandalorian bounty hunter recently wrapped up, and there’s no question the break out star was the tiny green alien dubbed “Baby Yoda” by the internet.
Of course, on the show Baby Yoda was always referred to as The Child or The Asset, leaving the character’s real name a mystery. In fact, just about everything about Baby Yoda is mysterious, including what the future holds for the creature following the epic Mandalorian season 1 finale. The only sure thing is that Baby Yoda is very important to some very evil characters, including Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon, who figures to be the Big Bad when season 2 rolls around in the fall of 2020 (Esposito of course has plenty of experience as the main bad guy on a show, after his work as drug kingpin Gus Fring on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul).
Indeed there are many questions lingering as The Mandalorian heads into hiatus before season 2, and one of the biggest concerns the real name of The Child. Recently, Mandalorian finale episode director Waititi (who also voiced the droid IG-11 on the series) admitted that he knows Baby Yoda’s secret name but naturally refused to reveal the information. When asked by New York Times writer Kyle Buchanan about the name on the Golden Globes red carpet, Waititi said “I’ll wait for [Jon] Favreau to give that away.”
Showrunner Jon Favreau indeed was the one responsible for keeping the entire existence of Baby Yoda a secret in the first place, a ploy that he said was actually suggested by Donald Glover. The move obviously paid off handsomely as Baby Yoda’s first appearance hit the internet like a bomb, resulting in massive buzz for the series. The downside of not giving away Baby Yoda’s presence of course was that Disney didn’t have any merchandise ready for Christmas, resulting in a loss of revenue for the company. But the internet chatter that resulted from the surprise Baby Yoda twist no doubt made up for whatever toy money was sacrificed by not having a merchandise line up and running as soon as the show debuted.
The fact that fans are so eager to own Baby Yoda merch and share Baby Yoda memes, videos and other content on the internet shows how huge the character’s impact has been, and the fact that folks like Waititi are being interrogated about the character’s name on the red carpet only further reinforces how much Baby Yoda owns the world right now. In a year when the Star Wars movie universe hit something of a wall with the release of the very divisive Rise of Skywalker, it seems Baby Yoda and The Mandalorian are the ones truly carrying the torch for the franchise at least for the time being. It remains to be seen if Star Wars has a future on the big screen, but there’s no question the small screen has become and will continue to be central to Disney’s Star Wars plans.
More: The Mandalorian: The Child’s 10 Greatest Moments (So Far), Ranked
Source: Kyle Buchanan/Twitter
