The Mandalorian S3: Doug Chiang Confirms Grogu Escaped Order 66 On Padme's Ship
The details of Grogu's backstory have been a mystery haunting "The Mandalorian" fans since Season 1. Who is this baby? Why is he so important? Will he ever learn how to speak? Luckily for viewers, part of his secretive background was revealed in Season 3, Episode 4. While Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is on another one of his adventures, Grogu stays behind with the Armorer (Emily Swallow) to wallow in terrifying memories of Order 66. While he is a Mandalorian foundling now, he was once at the heart of the galaxy training to be a Jedi until Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) made his dastardly plan.
Grogu had the luck of being saved by Jedi Kelleran Beq (Ahmed Best) and taking off in a cruiser to safety. For the uninitiated, the origin of this ship was Naboo, which many recognized from the prequels. However, it was only at Star Wars Celebration that film designer Doug Chiang confirmed that not only did the ship hail from Naboo but from our favorite rebellious senator, Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman).
"This brought me back full circle," Chiang reflected on redesigning the ship for the Grogu escape. "I felt like I was back in 2001. It was so strangely familiar and yet new. And we even built Padmé's ship interior from one of my sketches back in 1999." But as exciting as it was to see Coruscant again, the answer to the ship just brought on more questions.
Didn't Padmé have a lot going on that day?
Now that Doug Chiang has confirmed that set designs from the prequels were used to replicate Padmés ship for the chase scene, it starts a domino effect of questions. First and foremost, how did Kelleran Beq organize leaving on that Naboo vessel? Between sitting in on Senate gatherings and her husband becoming a child murderer, it doesn't seem like Padmé would have a lot of time to be loaning out her personal ship. Nevertheless, Kelleran Beq seems to have some understanding with her guards, who are ready when he arrives at the landing platform. Her ship is waiting to whisk Grogu away, despite Padmé having no knowledge that this was going on. At the time of Order 66, Padmé was unaware of the Republic's downfall.
Did the Jedi take it upon themselves to commandeer a random senator's ship to shuttle a Padawan to safety? With little time for communication, perhaps Padmé's people needed to put a green light on a Jedi taking the ship for a joyride. But lest we forget, that ship is an integral part of Anakin's (Hayden Christensen) downfall at the end of "Revenge of the Sith." Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) stows away on it to put a stop to Anakin in the exciting conclusion. Fortunately for Padmé, it appears Kelleran Beq was kind enough to drop her ship back off just in time for her to chase her husband to Mustafar.