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Only one episode of The Mandalorian season 2 may have been released, yet we're already swimming in various Easter eggs. There was that bald man seen at the very end, the fact Timothy Olyphant's actually playing a legacy character from the Star Wars books, and a reminder that the prequels exist.
Then there's the big-bad of the episode, the Krayt Dragon, which has a long history in Star Wars lore. We first saw one in 1977! Well, not exactly a whole Krayt Dragon, but the skeleton of one. In Star Wars: A New Hope the remains of one of the beasts appear before C3PO.
That's not the only time we've seen a Krayt Dragon. In the 1996 game the Star Wars: Customizable Card Game, there's a Krayt Dragon card and also a card titled "Krayt Dragon Howl". The card revealed that Obi-Wan's call in A New Hope – the shout he does to scare off the Tusken Raiders – was actually a way of mimicking the Krayt Dragon. That card is not canon and, seeing as the actual Dragon makes a completely different sound, that makes sense.
It was later established that there were two types of Krayt existed: the common canyon Krayt, and the much larger greater Krayt. It was also later established – thanks in part to the Knights of the Old Republic – that there were pearls in their bellies. This transitioned into the new Disney canon (older non-movie and TV show materials are no longer canon) in the Star Wars novel Aftermath, which also introduced the character Cobb Vanth – the person Olyphant plays in the Mandalorian season 2 premiere.
So, there you have it: this may have been the first time we saw a fully fleshed out Krayt Dragon in the new Star Wars canon, but the beast has been known for a very, very long time. If you're after more Mandalorian, be sure to check out our The Mandalorian season 2 release schedule for when the series returns.
