‘The Mandalorian’: Why Baby Yoda’s Age Makes Absolutely No Sense in Human Years
The creature from The Mandalorian whom Star Wars fans lovingly call “Baby Yoda” is not Yoda as a child. We aren’t even sure how, if at all, he’s related to Yoda besides being within the same species.
This little green creature whom Mando (Pedro Pascal) sometimes refers to as “the Kid” or “the Child” is all over social media, with fans speculating on his place in the Star Wars universe. So let’s take a look at how old our favorite little meme from Disney+ is — and why that number doesn’t add up at all in human years.
‘The Mandalorian’: How old is Baby Yoda?
When the new Star Wars series dropped on Disney+, fans rejoiced over the massive shock at the end of the first episode. The person Mando was searching for was actually an adorable little green creature with huge ears who resembled Yoda.
“Wait, they said 50 years old,” said a shocked Mando in chapter 1 of The Mandalorian. When he looked at how small the Child was, he couldn’t believe the creature was already 50.
“Species age differently,” answered the droid that helped Mando get in to retrieve the asset.
The droid was correct. We know Yoda (the one introduced in the original Star Wars trilogy) lived to be over 900 years old and died of old age in Return of the Jedi. Clearly, this species does not age like humans do.
How old does Baby Yoda act in ‘The Mandalorian’ compared to a human?
From the way the Child acts in The Mandalorian, we can surmise that he is the equivalent of a human toddler — likely around 18 months old.
We know Baby Yoda can walk. And his ears move up and down to show emotion. For instance, they were down very far when he saw Mando get hurt, and they went back up when he saw Mando was OK.
He also was able to eat a considerably sized frog whole. And he makes little noises but is not speaking yet — similar to many human toddlers.
In chapter 4 of The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda kept playing with the controls in Mando’s spaceship. And he didn’t listen when Mando told him to stop — also very similar to a human toddler. Next, Mando told him to stay on the ship, but the Child followed him anyway. Human parents can all relate.
Aside from levitating a Mudhorn monster to help Mando defeat it, everything else seems about right for an 18-month-old to 2-year-old human.
Here’s why the math doesn’t add up for Baby Yoda in human years
Let’s use the benchmark of 900 years old as the life expectancy for the Yoda species to compare it to that of humans. The average life expectancy for a human male in 1980 — when Yoda was introduced — was 70 years old.
With some simple math — 900 divided by 70 — we can surmise that the Yoda species ages almost 13 years for one human year.
Therefore, if Baby Yoda is 50 years old, that means he is roughly 4 years old in human years (13 x 4 = 52). However, developmentally he doesn’t act like a 4-year-old.
Let’s try to flip the problem. If we assume 50-year-old Baby Yoda is developmentally a 2-year-old human, that would give us 25 human years for each year of the species. But dividing the original Yoda’s age of 900 by 25 would make him just 36 in human years when he died.
We’ll just have to chalk this up to species aging differently. For now, we can just enjoy the fact that Baby Yoda is quite far from dying of old age.
You can catch more chapters of the tiny green creature in The Mandalorian, streaming now on Disney+.
