Gremlins, the director of the film claims that Baby Yoda is a copy of Gizmo

The history of cinema is full of more or less pucciosi monsters, and more or less threatening, always on the border between creativity and merchandising. THE Gremlins for sure they made school in this: in the 1984 film written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante the absolute protagonists are Gizmo and its likes, first little furry creatures with ball eyes and then – if fed after midnight – wrinkled infernal destroyers, certainly memorable figures entered by arrogance in our imagination. According to some so much absorbed in our mind that other more recent characters may have been, more or less consciously, created by taking direct inspiration from them. For example, Dante himself says it, bringing up another icon of recent pucciosity: Baby Yoda.

The little alien specimen that completely stole the show from the first two seasons of The Mandalorianand which we should more correctly call Grogu, is another example of how a well-made puppet is enough to win the interest of the public (and shoppers in stores). But second Joe Dante in this case it is a actual plagiarism: “[Gizmo] he is essentially a child [a baby, ndr]”Said the director in an interview with the magazine del San Francisco Chronicle: “Which brings me to Baby Yoda’s speech, of course, which to me is totally stolen and they made a nice and good copy of it. With impunity, it seems“.

It’s hard to say if the creators of Grogu were really inspired by Gizmo & co. but what is certain is that they both share a destiny from scene stealer: we remember more of these creatures than of everything around them. THE Gremlinsamong other things they continue to be quite popular even today: after a sequel released in 1990, the animated series will arrive in the coming months Gremlis: Secrets of the Mogwaiwhich will serve as a prequel to the first two films, and a third filmwhich should be written by Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia, Red Dawn) and Columbus to supervise the characters.