A Report on the Sarlacc(s)
The sarlacc pit is a well-known feature of Tatooine’s Dune Sea and a fixture of a few key moments in the stories of beloved characters like Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and now, The Mandalorian. But when it comes to this beloved pit of death and digestion, there’s relatively little known of its origins, place in the world, or presence as a big scary sand hole. So let’s dive in (or hopefully over) and discuss some little known facts about this vicious sand sphincter.
To begin, the sarlacc pit in the Dune Sea is not the only one that exists. It is named “The Great Pit of Carkoon” and is owned by Jabba the Hutt until his death in 4 ABY. After that, it was presumably a free agent. There are references to sarlaccs being evolutionarily related to creatures like rathtars and other eldrich horror’s of the Star Wars galaxy. Additionally, at least one pit is known to exist on each of the planets Felucia and Vodran.
Overall, it appears that sarlacc pits possess a unique rarity within Star Wars. Normally, once an idea, concept, character, setting, or species is created in a Star Wars story, it is immediately iterated into the sun (i.e. Death Stars, bounty hunters, Baby Yoda). Perhaps the original pit is regarded with a measure of boredom. After all, it has no dialogue and is only notable within the fandom for having a CGI beak and several tentacles added by George Lucas during the creation of the “Special Edition” of Return of the Jedi. Maybe the Pit of Carkoon is simply too iconic to do again? We may never know the answer.
Ultimately, it seems the sarlacc has been relegated to the status of Cheap Reference Bait. You’ll find in hundreds of apocryphal Star Wars stories once-off references to the pit, usually in a sassy one liner about dying horribly or waiting a long time. Perhaps the sarlacc was always just going to be a short lived and oft referenced plot device. Or so we thought.
So now we come to the question. Was the sarlacc pit which was eaten by the Krayt Dragon that appeared in S2 E1 of The Mandalorian the very same Pit of Carkoon that ate Boba Fett and presumably collected unemployment from the Tatooinian government?
Yeah, probably.
Put simply, there’s no way to verify just yet. Had Jon Favreau cleverly planted pieces of Jabba’s exploded sand barge or a shot of his nearby palace within the episode, we’d know for sure. But frankly, the Pit of Carkoon is one of only four total confirmed canonical sarlaccs in existence and the only one ever sighted on Tatooine. And given how much Favreau has shown a propensity for revisiting Tatooine and its previously explored locations, cultures, and characters, it seems highly likely. It would also be very strange if the Mandalorian traveled to a region close to the Pit of Carkoon, found a local with Boba Fett’s armor, killed a creature that had recently eaten a sarlacc, and drove past Boba Fett all in one day, but the digested sarlacc was a different one entirely. Just saying.
So there you have it, one massive -probably-.
Also we’ll probably hear Boba retell his escape from the pit and get a throwaway line confirming all this in like two weeks tops. Bye now!
