The Mandalorian's creator Jon Favreau admits Baby Yoda was inspired by Spielberg's 'E.T.'

The Child aka Baby Yoda became the biggest attraction of The Mandalorian which was created by Iron man director Jon Favreau. Baby Yoda may have become one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars canon with just a few episodes of The Mandalorian, but the making of the character was equally straining for the creators of the show. The puppet used during the filming of sequences with Baby Yoda had reportedly cost $5 million. Now, Jon Favreau has shared that the inspiration behind the character's introduction in the show was actually Steven Spielberg's E.T.

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Baby Yoda inspired by E.T.

The first scene featuring Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian revolves around the central character opening up a futuristic egg which houses Baby Yoda. The two look at each other before reaching out their one finger to touch each other. Jon was speaking in an interview with Deadline where he revealed that the show's executive producer Dave Filoni had done a sketch which was a mashup of Michelangelo's 'The Creation of Adam' painting and E.T.'s introduction in the Spielberg directorial film. After the first idea was in, the art department started generating drawings of the moment and the VFX artists later brought the moment to life onscreen. 

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Image courtesy - Still from The Mandalorian

Jon expressed furthermore that The Mandalorian allowed him to tell an intimate story based in the grand story of Star Wars. The show creator had a responsibility of striking a balance between Star Wars' creator George Lucas, and also steer the franchise into a new direction. Jon revealed that The Mandalorian allowed creating freshness in the decades-spanning franchise while also being respectful to what came before. 

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The Iron Man director believes that the one challenge which every storyteller faces in today's date is the over-saturation of content at disposal of the viewers. As everything is just a click away for people now, many people now have an extended cultural context and everybody is checking their work. Jon concluded the interview stating The Beatles song while expressing the pressure of working on Star Wars. He regarded George Lucas to be The Beatles, and creators working on Star Wars projects to be the DJs who play The Beatles' songs. According to Favreau, the trick is to recombine them both to create something fresh. 

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