“The Empire will triumph”
'Mandalorian' Season 3 theory: One prequels planet could bring back [SPOILERS]
A key planet from the prequels may be the solution to 'The Mandalorian' Season 3's unknown story.
Certain planets scream “Star Wars.”
Whether it’s the swamps of Dagobah, the sands of Tatooine, or the icy tundras of Hoth, there’s nothing better than seeing a landscape and knowing instantly where it fits within the galaxy far, far away.
The Mandalorian, however, has been focused largely on introducing new planets, like the water moon of Trask, where Din Djarin joined forces with Bo-Katan Kryze for a space pirate adventure.
Sure, Tatooine shows up now and then, but there are other planets in desperate need of another live-action appearance in Star Wars — including this planet from the prequels, with major ties to Thrawn.
The prequel trilogy often felt more like a political thriller than a space opera, full of intrigue and secret Sith dealings. Given this, there needed to be a bustling metropolitan planet to house all the Republic’s bureaucratic goings-on. Enter Coruscant, the densely populated planet that served as the capital of the Republic.
Whether it’s a seedy underworld, the Galactic Senate, or the Opera House, Coruscant had all the environments necessary to stage a thrilling trilogy of films. So, why haven’t we seen it in live-action since?
Coruscant has been mentioned in The Mandalorian twice, and with politics increasingly a focus of the spinoff series, the time’s right for this pivotal planet to return.
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Thrawn on the cover of The Last Command, initially published in 1991.
But how would Coruscant come back? The key might lie in a throwaway line from The Mandalorian Season 2. When Ahsoka duels with a magistrate, she demands to know where Grand Admiral Thrawn is hiding.
The connection between Thrawn and Coruscant comes from Legends via the non-canon Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn — most specifically, the third book, The Last Command. In 9 ABY, around the time The Mandalorian takes place, Thrawn mounted a massive coup against the entire New Republic, nearly toppling it in the process.
Part of that coup was the Siege of Coruscant, which saw Thrawn use falsified signals to trick the planet’s defense system into believing a massive asteroid storm was incoming, hence allowing Thrawn to take over the planet.
The Siege of Mandalore, as seen in The Last Command #3, published in 1998.
Though Thrawn’s ambitious attack was all for naught, anything could happen in canon. With Thrawn and Ezra possibly returning soon from their lost-in-space fate and Coruscant making an appearance in Andor (according to one leak, at least), there’s never been a better time for a trip back to the planet.
Now that The Mandalorian is growing beyond its initially narrow focus on Din Djarin, the series is expected to tell stories encompassing the entire galaxy. The environments it explores should reflect that.
The Mandalorian is now streaming on Disney+.
