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As many might know, it's not uncommon to see references between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg works in each other's films, whether it be Star Wars' R2-D2 & C-3PO hieroglyphs in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark or E.T.'s species turning up for a cameo in the Senate in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

With that in mind I was recently rewatching the first season of The Mandalorian. At the beginning of episode 1.03, the Sin, Din Djarin returns to Nevarro with his bounty, the Child. There is one scene where they are walking through the streets and is mostly filmed from the Child's perspective, as he gazes somewhat worried at all of it's unsavory inhabitants.

(E.T., 2:13 Mark)

The way the scene was shot (and given it features a character of Yoda's species) reminded me greatly of a scene in E.T.. On Halloween, Elliot & Micheal disguise E.T. as a ghost, and when they wonder down the streets of their neighborhood for Trick or Treating, E.T. peers out of the holes of his costume and sees a human child dressed as Yoda and he goes running to him saying, "Home! Home! Home!".

Although it's somewhat diametrically opposing, I was wondering if the scene I described in 1.03 of The Mandalorian, is an allusion to this scene in E.T.?

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  • Perhaps... but wasn't that point of view also used in other movies?
    – Luciano
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 16:00
  • Probably, but there's specificity in the context ('Yoda' and 'children' on the street being confused by surroundings) and relationship between Star Wars and E.T. that might prove it be intentional. I know that this isn't Lucas' work of course, but Lucas did visit the set, "Yoda" is pretty iconic to his work (hence the choice in ET) and knowing the relationship between Lucas and Spielberg is pretty common knowledge.
    – Darth Locke
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 17:23

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Possibly, yes.

In a recant interview with Executive Producer Jon Favreau per Deadline, Favreau explains how the introductory scene with the Child was in part influenced by Steven Spielberg's E.T.

Long an influential figure in the world of Star Wars, Filoni played a major role in the creation of an instantly iconic, new character—The Child, otherwise known as Baby Yoda. “Dave had done a sketch of kind of a Michelangelo/E.T. moment, and that was a source of inspiration,” Favreau shared about the Child’s first scene, drawing parallels to Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” and Steven Spielberg’s famous alien. “Then, Doug Chiang and the whole art department started generating drawings of it, and the Legacy [Effects] people built it.”

So while this mostly talks about 'Baby Yoda's' first scenes, it does stand to reason that some of the other ongoing scenes and ideas with The Child were also inspired by Spielberg's E.T.

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