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In the first episode of The Mandalorian, the bounty hunter finds "baby Yoda", who is apparently 50 years old. There are also Stormtroopers in the episode. He also says Empire credits are no good.

How is this possible when Stormtroopers and the Empire did not exist until the fifth Star Wars movie (2nd prequel - Attack of the Clones) and Yoda was very old (maybe 1000 years old)?

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    As others have pointed out, you think that the young green alien in the Mandalorian is Yoda as a baby. But the young alien is not named Baby Yoda, but nicknamed "baby Yoda" by viewers since it is a young member of the unnamed species that Yoda is a member of. Since people don't know the name of the species they informally call other members of the species "Yodas". That is sort of like Star Trek fans nicknaming a young Vulcan "child Spock" or a young Klingon "little Worf". You have been confused by the inaccurate terminology of some Star Wars fans.
    – M. A. Golding
    Jan 23 '20 at 18:22
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I've not watched all of the Mandalorian yet, but I think you are misunderstanding two things:

  1. The Mandalorian is set shortly after the events of the original trilogy of movies, after the fall of The Empire, as shown in Return of the Jedi. Wikipedia states 5 years after the fall of the Empire. You see some Stormtroopers in battered armor, and statements like Empire credits being worthless now.

  2. The Child (commonly referred to "Baby Yoda" outside of the show) or Grogu is the same species as Yoda. There is no indication that this is somehow Yoda, who dies at the start of Return of the Jedi. This child is 50 years old and Yoda died 5 years previously - so they overlap and are clearly separate individuals.

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    to add, part of the confusion is that yoda's species has no in-cannon name. yoda is the only one we've seen before the mandalorian, so The Child was quickly dubbed baby yoda cause that's the only point of reference we have. also, The Child is kind of a dumb name.
    – DForck42
    Jan 22 '20 at 21:37
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    Too many questions. All of which have answers on this exchange. This is not a discussion forum.
    – Jason P Sallinger
    Jan 22 '20 at 22:16
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    @Chloe currently there is not much information about those species. It's deliberately so. Even the species are called "Yoda Species". Only known members are Yoda, Yaddle and the "Baby Yoda". Apparently, all known members are force sensitive. You can find more information on wookiepedia. About the Mandalorian, you should finish the series to have answers :)
    – Ege Bayrak
    Jan 23 '20 at 7:43
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    @DForck42 Don't forget Yaddle!
    – Matthew Weilding
    Jan 23 '20 at 9:05
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    @MatthewWeilding I can't wait to watch the spinoff series with the Swiss cousin Yodel
    – Luciano
    Jan 23 '20 at 14:18
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Just to add on to iandotkelly's answer,

While it appears that The Child is a separate character to Yoda, as The Mandalorian season 1 takes place 5 years after Return of the Jedi and Master Yoda's death, Star Wars: Rebels introduced time travel with The World Between Worlds, in which Ezra Bridger was able to enter through a portal on Lothal and where he finds another portal to the moment in time: just before Darth Vader kills Ahsoka Tano.

WBW

He was able to reach through space & time, pulling her into the World Between Worlds, where she can also now reside in present, although she does not leave with Ezra, but does show up at the end of *Star Wars Rebels in a scene that jumps ahead to a time shortly after Return of the Jedi. So it IS possible that The Child *could be Yoda (who would then theoretically have to eventually time travel hundreds of years into the past), but there is no indication that this is the case yet.

In addition to answering your questions pertaining to the Empire, yes, the Empire has fallen and the outer rim is left with "remnants" of the Empire vying for power and becoming crime lords. The reason that is significant is because The Rise of Skywalker purposes that somehow

Darth Sidious survived or was resurrected with the aid of Sith Loyalists, The Sith Eternal, and Exegol's dark-side Force properties.

The Mandalorian also purposes that some members of the former Empire (The Client, Moff Gideon) want The Child for it's genetic materials, which may play a key role in "such and such" character's ability to exist in The Rise of Skywalker. In other words there have to be people that were helping that character and The Mandalorian may be telling part of the missing backstory.

jedi text

As an aside: The World Between Worlds is also relevant to The Rise of Skywalker, as Luke's/Rey's ancient Jedi text include or explain it's theorem in some of it's passages (Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary) and because Rey experiences the World Between Worlds when she looks up at all of the stars and the "voices" of mostly dead light-sided/Jedi characters can be heard talking to her, including Ahsoka Tano, who may or may not be dead also.

Star Wars: Rebels also shows us that "such and such character" was trying to gain access to the WBW, as they also mention that they wanted a way to cheat death. So things feel like they all go together...

"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." - Yoda

There is massive multi-platform project titled, Project Luminous that is to be fully announced sometime this year.

It is highly speculated that it will relate to the Force and the next film or film Saga staring in 2022. It's believed Disney is building a MCU within Star Wars with deeper mythology where everything is going to be more interconnected, including perhaps where the Child is going to fit into this "bigger picture" beyond The Mandalorian.

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  • Spoiler alert!!
    – user
    May 8 '20 at 9:52
  • My answer is NOT "definite" but rather just *possible based on information that already exists in canon. We have to wait and see how things pan out, but it's still possible the character *could be a know character, should The World Between Worlds come into play. I just wanted to point out that the character could still in theory be Yoda due to KNOWN Star Wars mythology, even though the character has already died. I never said that he was Yoda, only that the story isn't finished and there is still some small possibility. Nothing spoiler-ish here, just an aside to consider the possibility.
    – Darth Locke
    May 8 '20 at 17:36

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