Jon Favreau Tried To Get An Infamously Terrible Star Wars Line Into The Mandalorian Season 2
In the immortal words of Greedo: "Maclunkey!" "Star Wars" has given rise to plenty of one-liners and other memorable movie and TV quotes, from classic mantras like "May the Force be with you" and "I've got a bad feeling about this," to more recent expressions like "This is the Way" and "I have spoken" from "The Mandalorian." In the annals of franchise history, though, perhaps no "Star Wars" quote is more controversial than "Maclunkey!" As of 2019, it's the last thing Greedo says before Han Solo shoots him dead in the Disney+ edit of "Star Wars: A New Hope."
If series creator Jon Favreau had his way, Pedro Pascal's protagonist would have also said "Maclunkey!" in "The Mandalorian." Favreau can be heard floating the idea to co-executive producer Dave Filoni in the "Making of Season 2" episode of the docuseries "Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian," streaming on Disney+.
Favreau and Filoni's conversation comes in around the 12:52 mark, as they discuss the "Mandalorian" season 2 premiere, "The Marshal," and Favreau suggests that Mando utter Greedo's now-infamous dying word before shooting the light out and walking away from the lamppost where he's strung up the cyclopean gangster Gor Koresh (voiced by John Leguizamo).
Filoni laughs off the suggestion, but as Favreau makes his case, he observes, "'Maclunkey means a lot of things." The most immediate interpretation he offers is that it means "curtains" for Gor Koresh, as in the curtains are going down and he's about to die in an old-time gangster sort of way. Filoni protests that "Maclunkey!" is "something Greedo says" — however, we've heard at least one other "Star Wars" alien use the word before.
Maclunkey: 'It will be the end of you'
In 2019, Paul Blake, the actor who physically embodied Greedo in "Star Wars: A New Hope," gave various interpretations for what "Maclunkey" could mean, joking (via Empire) that it could be as simple as "Ouch!" or as deep as an ancient Rodian tradition that Greedo's following when he gives his last gasp. Twenty years earlier, however, in "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace," the word "Maclunkey" also slipped by as the bullying podracer, Sebulba (voiced by Lewis MacLeod), threatened his young rival, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), on the streets of Mos Espa.
According to CBR, "Maclunkey" is Huttese for "This will be the end of you," which matches up with the subtitles, where Sebulba tells Anakin, "Next time we race, boy, it will be the end of you."
It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have Mando say "This will be the end of you" in Huttese as he leaves Gor Koresh to be devoured by wild dogs in the darkness in "The Mandalorian." Yet given the bad association many fans have with the word — what with its random insertion into "A New Hope" over 40 years after its theatrical release — it's probably for the best that "The Mandalorian" avoided getting dragged into the whole "Maclunkey" debate.
"A New Hope" has been through so many edits over the years, with George Lucas retconning the film so that Greedo shot first, then retconning his retcon so that Greedo and Han Solo shot at the same time, that it wouldn't be surprising if the comparatively recent addition of "Maclunkey" disappeared from future edits altogether.
Until then, we'll always have the "Maclunkey!" memes and the behind-the-scenes brainstorming sessions of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni in "Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian" on Disney+.