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"The Mandalorian": Bleeding Cool's (Ongoing) Glossary of Terms/Phrases You Should Know [PART 9]

With the end of the first season of The Mandalorian, Disney+ has completed an extremely successful launch of an instantly successful streaming service. New episodes of the series will be coming in fall of 2020 thanks to the streamer knowing they had a hit on their hands even before the series or the service launched; showrunner Jon Favreau was working on scripts months before the first season debut and started shooting a month before the November launch of the series.

The series has distinguished itself in several ways. The memes featuring The Child are legion; for a series of crazy cycles, news outlets seemed to believe that there was actual news value in reporting the reason that Disney would not have toys in the stores for Christmas featuring the little one. Phrases like "This is the way" and "I have spoken" seemed to flood social media and become familiar catchphrases almost the moment they were on the screen. It's predictable that these phrases feel weighty and notable in the series. The series is a paean to visual filmmaking. There are long stretches where no dialogue is used to convey events or the emotion of a scene.

That said, there are some words and phrases that deserve some discussion. The Star Wars galaxy's 42 years' worth of history means that there is a lot of source material to draw from, and producer Dave Filoni loves to include deep cuts (the eight previous entries in our glossary series are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

● E-Web Heavy Repeating Blaster: A tripod-mounted blaster turret used by the Empire, this laser cannon first appeared in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back on Hoth as the gun being assembled and then used against the Millennium Falcon during its escape from the icy Rebel base. At the time, however, the Kenner toy line referred to the gun simply as a "Tri-pod Laser Cannon." This name changed, as did many details in the Star Wars galaxy, with the West End Games role playing game Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, where it appeared in one of the sourcebooks. This game is beloved by many within Lucasfilm including Dave Filoni who has brought many of the details of the game forward from the non-canonical gaming books back into canon.

● "The Night of a Thousand Tears": An attack by the Empire on Mandalorians that was a part of the Siege of Mandalore which took place after the fall of the Empire. Moff Gideon speaks about it being an event that included Imperial troops using heavy repeating blasters on Mandalorians in the field of battle. The name of the event connotes a tragic event, borrowing words from such real-world historical tragedies as the Night of Long Knives, Trail of Tears, and Kristallnacht.

● Rising Phoenix: A back-mounted jetpack used by Mandalorians to fly. One of the joys of this series is finding out the Mandalorians have prosaic names for their unique armaments. Thus to Whistling Birds we add Rising Phoenix as the term for the iconic Mandalorian backpack.

This element goes all the way back to the Star Wars Holiday Special and the introduction of the first Mandalorian, Boba Fett. The Armorer warns The Mandalorian that he'll need to drill before the jetpack will obey his commands; there are good examples of the jetpack being difficult to control. The first comes in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi when Boba Fett's pack is struck, causing him to fly out of control and into the waiting mouth of the Sarlacc to die. A second is found in Star Wars: Rebels where the Mandalorians lend one to Ezra Bridger to use and, even with his force-enhanced agility, the jetpack proves very difficult to control.

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