The Mandalorian: Baby Yoda's Birth Year May Be a Clue to Something Really Huge

The surprise reveal of "Baby Yoda," aka the Child who's the same species as the iconic Jedi Master, is one of the biggest plot points on The Mandalorian. As information trickles out about this new character, the question lingers as to whether the Child was alive during the original Star Wars movies. Going off the information given so far, it seems like we've got a pretty clear answer.

During the main segment of the Star Wars original trilogy, the Child would have been alive, since it was born 50 years ago, and The Mandalorian is set only a few years after the original trilogy ended. However, as we've seen so far, the Child is still an infant and thus unlikely to be able to play any real role in things. It does add a new layer to Yoda's famous dying words, though. He tells Luke, "There is another," which is meant as a revelation that there is another Jedi and another Skywalker: Leia, his previously unknown twin sister. In hindsight, though, "another" Jedi isn't the only "other" out there — there's another of Yoda's kind in the galaxy at that point, too.

There's one crucial detail among what little we know of the Child's biography right now: the fact that it's 50 years old. That doesn't seem important until we do the math: The Mandalorian is set five years after Return of the Jedi, which is nine years after the Battle of Yavin (the "year zero" in common Star Wars calendar dating). For the Child to be 50 years old at this point, it would have had to be born 41 years before the Battle of Yavin — which is the same year that Anakin Skywalker was born. It could be a coincidence, of course, but it's also possible that there's something mystical about them both being born in the same year and both having some significance to the galaxy at large. Will this turn out to be important, or is it just a fun detail for sharp-eyed fans? We'll have to wait and see as the series continues dropping weekly episodes on Disney+.