As good as The Mandalorian is, there are a couple of goofs that slip through the cracks each episode. Whether it’s visible crash pads for stunts, creases in foam costumes or a member of the crew – the famous Jeans Guy – making it into the final cut, there’s always something for fans to spot. The last episode, “The Tragedy,” is no different, with eagle-eyed viewers pointing out a distant helicopter that made it into a shot featuring Boba Fett.
As you can see down below, the chopper is very far away and almost indistinct, so most wouldn’t have noticed it, but it’s undeniably there. This is likely because much of “The Tragedy” was filmed on location rather than on a sound stage using The Volume. The show is known for pioneering this new technology, which comprises a wraparound digital wall that allows the VFX team to render real-time CGI sets around the actors and shoot them in-camera.
Fans were quick to throw in some theories to explain it away, saying it could be a suspiciously helicopter-shaped Imperial Fighter craft, some kind of scout ship or perhaps a giant native Thyton insect. Whatever the reason for it being there is, as with Jeans Guy, I suspect that this errant chopper will find itself digitally painted out of a soon-to-be-updated version of the episode.
For my part, I quite like these little goofs. I rarely notice them when first watching, so they don’t bother me and add some fun personality to the show when revisiting it. Plus, Star Wars has a long history of incorporating on-set mistakes into canon, most notably the notorious moment where an extra in a Stormtrooper costume bonks his head on a door in A New Hope. As such, let’s keep a close eye on the remaining two episodes of The Mandalorian for more.