This Han Solo Location Was Initially Planned For ‘The Mandalorian’
There are certain numbers that every Star Wars fan will have an instant association with: 1138 is probably the most obvious one, but there are others as well:
23 ("Level five. Detention Block AA-23. I'm afraid she's scheduled to be terminated.") – the location on the Death Star where the Empire holds princess Leia captive, but also this one:
94 ("We'll leave as soon as you're ready. Docking Bay ninety-four.") – one of the 362 docking bays that comprise Mos Eisley’s spaceport on Tatooine, where the Millennium Falcon is parked when Han, Chewie , Luke, Ben Kenobi, and the two droids leave for Alderaan.
Speaking of Tatooine, for a place that is farthest from the bright center to the universe, it plays quite a prominent role in Star Wars lore: it has been a location in six of the nine saga films, as well as in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and most recently in both seasons of The Mandalorian.
As the latter series takes place only five years after Return of the Jedi, there are a ton of references and Easter eggs for things we saw in the original trilogy: Jawas and the sandcrawler, the camtono “ice cream maker” where Djarin’s beskar payment is stored, the E-Web heavy blaster cannon, speeder bikes, and - more specific to Tatooine - the Tusken Raiders, Dewbacks, the iconic cantina, and the unforgettable Krayt dragon.
When Din Djarin first lands on Tatooine in episode 5 of season one, he parks the Razor Crest in hangar (or docking bay) 35, and he does this again in the first episode of season two. But as concept artist, Anton Grandert recently revealed that the original plans had Mando landing his ship in a more famous place: docking bay 94.
Here is what he had to say about this on his Instagram account, showing some impressive concept designs for what would have been a digital recreation of the famous set from Episode IV:
Apart from designing the docking bay itself based on what was created forA New Hope,Grandert even thought of how he would integrate it into the bigger structures of the city of Mos Eisley.
The line between paying homage and just providing fanservice is often a thin one, and maybe both Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau came to the conclusion that actually using docking bay 94 would be a step too far and decided to create the smaller but still quite familiar looking hangar 35.
But there is still at least one piece of set dressing that made the time jump from 1977 to 2019:
When Han Solo vindicates the Falcon saying it can make point five past lightspeed, after Luke’s comment that the ship is just “a piece of junk,” you see a strange looking yellow object in the background. The in-universe purpose of these things was never explained, but in “real-life," it is a compressor, that was used quite regularly by road-workers in the United Kingdom in the '70s.
When Din Djarin lands his ship in “The Gunslinger” episode, you see the same thing in Peli Motto’s workshop:
Production designer Andrew L. Jones remembered seeing the strange yellow object in A New Hope and wanted to use it again in The Mandalorian, but of course, these compressors weren’t produced anymore. So eventually, Safari Sosebee, lead of the visual art department, managed to track down some reference photographs, which were used to reproduce the object quite accurately.
Still, the fact that docking bay 94 hasn’t been part of The Mandalorian (yet) doesn’t mean that we won’t get to see the Falcon’s familiar parking lot in a future season of the show, or maybe even in The Book of Boba Fett.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see Slave I parked there? But then again, the line between homage and fan service…
Source(s): The Direct, Insider