The Attack Of The Clones Weapon That Returns In The Mandalorian Chapter 15

With Temuera Morrison's return to the Star Wars franchise at the beginning of The Mandalorian's sophomore season, Star Wars has ushered in a new era, in which a man who played a young man can play an even younger man as a much older man. As fans go cross-eyed trying to keep track of this, the acclaimed Disney+ series has kept the prequel trilogy callbacks coming. Timothy Olyphant hobnobs around Tatooine on a turbine-powered Phantom Menace reference, cloning has been brought back into vogue after a long hibernation, and midi-chlorians, in a shocking move, have been acknowledged.

"Chapter 15: The Believer" brings even more details of the franchise's prequel trilogy back to the screen, in characteristically excellent fashion. One particularly intriguing reference comes during the episode's third act, when Bill Burr's Migs Mayfeld and Pedro Pascal's eponymous Mandalorian are escaping from the Imperial base. Capping off an afternoon of killing literally every new person they meet, Mayfeld and Mando beat feet across a rooftop and leap into the waiting cargo bay of Slave I. Just when everything looks to be tied up neatly with a dramatically exploding rhydonium bow, a pair of TIE fighters come screaming out of the wreckage. That's when Boba Fett decides to shake what his daddy gave him: Namely, a seismic charge.

This seismic charge, also called a "sonic mine," was first (and most recently) seen in live-action during the events of Episode II: Attack of the Clones, back when Temuera Morrison was Jango Fett and Boba Fett was a kid. They're used during Obi-Wan's pursuit of Slave I through the asteroid field surrounding Geonosis, and while they don't do much to stop the nosy space wizard, they definitely make an impression, blasting space rocks to smithereens and burning themselves into fans' memories with their distinctive sound and light show.

Given the uniqueness of the weapon, it's a little surprising that the Fett family's preferred explosives haven't made more appearances in the franchise. Even before Disney retconned most of the extended universe, seismic charges were a rare sight in canon, mostly popping up in Star Wars video games: Earth-shattering kaboom enthusiasts can deploy them in Star Wars: Empire at War, as well as in the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, a spinoff that takes place an even longer time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Whether we'll witness the beskar buds dropping more charges on their problem in the future remains to be seen, but whatever happens, it was nice to find out that the Fetts still have a couple of surprises for us.