The Mandalorian director Jon Favreau took to Instagram to reveal that one of the original droids from Star Wars will return for the show set to take place after Return of the Jedi.
Favreau posted a photo of R5-D4 confirming the droid would be returning to the show.
R5-D4 originally appeared in the first Star Wars film alongside R2-D2 and C-3PO. Die hard Star Wars fans will recognize him as the droid Luke’s Uncle Owen originally selected to help him on the moisture farm. However, the droid quickly malfunctioned with smoke billowing from it. Luke would explain the problem to his Uncle, “This R2 unit has a bad motivator. Look.” Owen would tell the Jawas who were trying to sell him the droid, “Hey, what are you trying to push on us?” With R5-D4 having a bad motivator, Uncle Owen and Luke would purchase R2-D2 thanks to C-3POs suggestion.
![[ANH] Droids for Sale (HD)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vxEOZOSnlgk/hqdefault.jpg)
While Luke explains that R5-D4 had a bad motivator, R5-D4 actually self-sabotaged himself in order to think he had a bad motivator. R5 actually caused his head plate to pop off after R2-D2 told him that the galaxy was doomed if he was not sold to Uncle Owen and Luke. R5 having previously served the Alliance before falling into the hands of the Jawas heeded R2’s warning and helped to liberate the galaxy from the Empire. This story about R5-D4 was told in the anthology series [easyazon_link identifier=”0345511476″ locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]From a Certain Point of View[/easyazon_link] that was released in 2017 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars.
It’s clear that R5-D4 much like R2-D2 survived the war with the Empire as he will be appearing in The Mandalorian!
R5-D4 won’t be the only classic Star Wars droid showing up in The Mandalorian. Favreau also teased the famed bounty hunter IG-88, who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back.
Are you excited to see R5-D4 and IG-88 return to the Star Wars universe? Do you think these droids might play critical roles or will they merely be cameos?