Baby Yoda Original Concept Art Reveals Character Once Had Old Man Face, Still Cute

If you’re watching The Mandalorian on Disney+, like most everyone else, you’re probably enamored with its new most popular character: “the asset.” Or, “the child.” Or, its most popular moniker, “Baby Yoda.” And now Jon Favreau, who scripted six of the series’ eight episodes—including the first two—has revealed its original concept art on his Twitter page.

Now, we still don’t know all there is to know about this figure. If George Lucas has his way, we’ll never know what species it is. He’d prefer to keep that a mystery. But we do know these things are rare, and they age at a bit of a leisurely pace as compared to other species in the universe. When they’re fifty, they behave like human toddlers, minus the tantrums.

This “child” is indeed Force-sensitive, as we’ve learned. Like Yoda, the creature has abilities that make it a commodity, hence Werner Herzog’s “Client” character sending The Mandalorian out to capture it. It is not, however, Yoda himself.

Since the series is set some five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, the film in which Yoda died at the age of 900, this isn’t him, unless time travel is involved in the Star Wars universe, and let’s hope it’s not. At fifty-years-old, this little guy was born sometime before the events of The Phantom Menace, most likely, leading some to speculate that it is the love child of Yoda and Yaddle.

Whatever its identity, fans have been rapt by this series after two episodes. Adding a highly coveted infantile/childlike character with special abilities into the mix for our hero to protect, while a plot device we’ve seen before (Logan, Children of Men, Terminator 2, and even Jesus’ birth narrative, just to name a few), always makes for strong, high stakes drama.

You can check out the image below. He looks a little like Don Rickles with food poisoning.