It now appears that The Mandalorian season 3 will finally show us what Mandalore was like before it was completely decimated by civil war.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars showed us to some of the internal and external problems that have afflicted Mandalore throughout its history, and it now appears that The Mandalorian season 3 will finally show us what Mandalore was like before it was completely decimated by civil war.
In a season 3 sneak peek published on Sunday, we can see a spacecraft travelling into a domed metropolis that looks an awful lot like the Mandalorian city of Sundari from The Clone Wars. The beautiful flora around Sundari, on the other hand, is a significant difference between it and the metropolis seen in the trailer.
Why the terrain was altered?
After years of Mandalorian battles, the terrain of Mandalore has already been altered from the vivid green seen in the teaser to a desert-like desolation by the time we reach Sundari in The Clone Wars. Survivors of House Vizsla stole Tarre Vizsla’s Darksaber from the Jedi Temple after the death of the first Mandalorian Jedi, Tarre Vizsla. Since Tarre had used the Darksaber to unite Mandalore under his reign, his family wished to do the same, even if it meant enraging the Jedi.
The subsequent fight with the Jedi culminated in a cataclysmic disaster that made the planet’s surface uninhabitable outside of the hermetically sealed dome cities. Rival Mandalorian clans did their utmost to coexist after the conflict with the Jedi. Due to their violent and destructive heritage, however, many Mandalorians chose to become pacifists rather than typical warriors. This threw Mandalore into a conflict between the non-violent New Mandalorians, led by Duchess Satine Kryze, and the Death Watch, commanded by conservative Prior Vizsla. This civil war obliterated any livable surface on Mandalore that may have survived the devastation, as clans fought for the right to control the planet and its inhabitants.
Based on the flora around the domed metropolis, it appears that we may finally get a glimpse of Mandalore before the planet was entirely wrecked by conflict. This would be a significant contribution to the onscreen narrative of Star Wars. Although the films don’t go into much detail about Mandalore beyond Jango Fett’s backstory in Attack of the Clones, the planet and its people have long been a big part of the Star Wars lore that exists outside of the films, playing a key role in many of the major events that shape the larger universe of TV shows, books, and comics. Mandalore will surely feel as essential to the galaxy far, far away as Tatooine and Coruscant to those who have followed the expanded universe adventures.
The Clone Wars and Rebels, like The Mandalorian, have brought a lot of Mandalorian material into Star Wars canon, further expanding on the universe that George Lucas built. We know what happened to Mandalore and its inhabitants at the heights of both the Republic and the Empire thanks to these programmes, but we don’t know much about what the planet was like before that or why Tarre Vizsla was the first and only Mandalorian Jedi.
Given Bo-Katan Kryze’s (Katee Sackhoff) connection to the New Mandalorians vs. Death Watch conflict, her quest to reunite Mandalore with the Darksaber, and Grogu’s potential as the next Mandalorian Jedi, it makes sense for the series to finally take us into this era of Mandalore’s history, even if only for a brief flashback.
