The Mandalorian: Why IG-88’s Head Is In The Mos Eisley Cantina

IG-88, the assassin droid, is one of Star Wars’ most popular bounty hunters – but why is his head featured in The Mandalorian’s Mos Eisley Cantina? First appearing in The Empire Strikes Back, IG-88 was among the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to track down the Millenium Falcon and capture Han Solo, but ultimately lost out to Boba Fett. Tall, lean, and mean – it makes sense that the droid would make a good bounty hunter, able to withstand greater damage and fatigue than an organic lifeform, providing he’s re-charged every so often.

While IG-88 featured heavily in the old Expanded Universe – later renamed Star Wars Legends and deemed non-canon – his origin story remains largely the same in Disney’s continuity. IG-88 was one of many IG-series droids in the Star Wars universe, though is often cited as the original – created in secret by Holowan Laboratories as an assassin droid. Upon activation, he turned on his creators – killing everyone in the facility and re-programming the other IG-series droids to aid in his escape (as detailed in “Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88”, a short story written by Kevin J. Anderson for Tales of the Bounty Hunters).

While IG-88’s first official appearance was in Empire Strikes Back, his head (or rather, a few similar IG-series heads) appear earlier in the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence from A New Hope. In-universe, this adds a darker side to the Cantina’s “no droids” policy – suggesting that some IG-series droids were defeated, dismantled, and re-purposed as drinks dispensers. While R2-D2 and C-3PO were kicked out of the Cantina in A New Hope, they appear to have gotten off lightly in comparison to other droids. By the time of The Mandalorian, however, the Cantina’s policy appears to have changed – now, run by droids rather than discriminating against them.

In the real-world, IG-88’s head (actually the combustion chamber from a Rolls Royce engine) was a recycled prop – taken from the Cantina’s distillery set-up in A New Hope and re-purposed, along with other scraps, to create the infamous assassin droid. Constructed by Bill Hargreaves and Steve Short, IG-88’s design changed radically from Ralph McQuarrie’s earlier concept art – originally featuring a slicker, shinier design reminiscent of Atomic Age robots and more in line with The Empire Strikes Back’s script which called for a “chrome war droid”. Thankfully, the production team envisioned something scrappier – lending IG-88 the rusty, thrown-together quality that helps the Star Wars universe feel lived-in.

Additionally, numerous Star Wars props and costumes were recycled throughout the original trilogy (or borrowed from other productions). Bossk (a bounty hunter, also hired by Vader) wore a spacesuit recycled from a Doctor Who serial, for example, and various droid costumes (most notably CZ-3) were recycled to populate Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi.

While IG-88 has yet to feature in any of Disney’s live-action Star Wars projects, another IG droid, IG-11, appeared in The Mandalorian – quickly becoming a fan-favorite character. The team working on The Mandalorian would have needed to replicate the old, recycled head/drinks dispenser to create IG-11 – ironic, given the designs’ corner-cutting inception during the production of the original Star Wars trilogy.

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