After last week’s new episode of The Mandalorian, entitled “Chapter 17 – The Mines of Mandalore,” ended with a shocking reveal of one of the Star Wars mythology’s most elusive creatures, viewers may have been left wondering about the history and significance of this fabled beast.
Some may recall that in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978, Boba Fett (making his first appearance in any Star Wars media) rode a dinosaur-like beast, and though it was later identified as a Paar's ichthyodont, some fans have theorized that this creature served as an early version of– or inspiration for– the Mythosaur.
Most Star Wars fans will recognize the skull-shaped insignia on the shoulder pad of Boba Fett’s armor going all the way back to 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. This symbol was eventually retconned into being a Mythosaur skull in later years.
The first appearance of a full Mythosaur skeleton came in issue #69 of Marvel Comics’ first ongoing Star Wars title, in which a replica of the great beast’s remains– though in the comic it was only identified as “the gargantuan petrified skeleton of some unknown alien animal”– was used as the eye-catching centerpiece for an ill-conceived amusement park on Mandalore. The word “Mythosaur” itself was not used until a 2005 guide to the history of the Mandalorians in an issue of Star Wars Insider magazine.
Then outside of repeated appearances on Boba Fett’s armor, references to the Mythosaur in Star Wars content were rare. That is, until The Mandalorian debuted in late 2019 and gave new significance to this previously fairly obscure part of the ever-expanding Star Wars mythos. A metallic Mythosaur skull (presumably crafted from Beskar) can be seen prominently hanging in the Mandalorian covert on Nevarro, the Ugnaught Kuiil mentions that Din Djarin’s ancestors “rode the great Mythosaur,” and the character known only as the Armorer (played by Emily Swallow) expanded upon the history of the creature in an episode of The Book of Boba Fett, saying “The songs of eons past foretold of the Mythosaur rising up to herald a new age of Mandalore.”
Then, in “The Mines of Mandalore,” Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) expresses doubt that the Mythosaur was ever more than a story meant to inspire faith in Mandalorian culture. Of course that’s before she comes eye-to-eye with the great Mythosaur itself in the Living Waters beneath Mandalore’s Beskar mines. How else will this enormous not-so-mythological beast factor into upcoming chapters of The Mandalorian? We’ll have to continue firing up Disney+ over the next six Wednesdays in order to find out.
New episodes of The Mandalorian are released on Wednesdays, exclusively via Disney+.