One Mandalorian Season 3 Character Has Big 'Sam Neill In The Hunt For Red October' Energy

This post contains spoilers for "The Mandalorian" season 3, episode 3, "The Convert."

The "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" is usually a bit more concerned with how the people on the fringes of the galaxy survive, but the latest episode gave us a peek at how former Imperial officers are enduring in the era of the New Republic. Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) and Elia Kane (Katy M. O'Brian) both formerly worked together under the terrifying Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), but now they're a part of the New Republic Amnesty program. They've been through reconditioning and live in basic, brutalist Amnesty Housing, but as Pershing points out: the Empire would have handled its former enemies very differently. Their situation might seem kind of harsh, but when you realize that they were both working in major roles for the enemy and could have been imprisoned or executed instead, it's not so bad. 

In fact, Pershing and Kane even get a chance to take in some of the sights on Coruscant, enjoying some sweet treats that look like glowing popsicles and checking out the tip of the tallest mountain on the whole planet. Though Kane seems to have adjusted to it all pretty quickly, Pershing is shocked by their freedom and the wonders of life under the New Republic (flawed though they might be). In his bewilderment and wonder, he's a lot like a character inspired heavily by our own history: Sam Neill's Captain Vasili Borodin from the 1990 adventure thriller "The Hunt for Red October."

"The Hunt for Red October," based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, follows Soviet submarine commander Captain Ramius (Sean Connery), who defects to the United States at the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. He takes his crew with him, of course, a whole ship full of men from Russia and Eastern Europe, and they have no idea what will await them in the U.S. When Borodin discusses his future with Ramius, he's incredulous at the amount of freedom he might have:

"I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a 'recreational vehicle.' And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?"

The idea of being able to drive across state lines without permits and papers is completely foreign to him, just like the idea of basic freedoms is alien to Dr. Pershing. As he and Kane walk around the elevated streets of Coruscant, he is hesitant to do much of anything. Kane convinces him to try to touch the mountain peak, for example, reminding him "this isn't the Empire." He ends up getting chided by a droid for his attempt at touching the big rock, but it ends up being a charming, silly moment that would have been much different under Imperial rule.

Factions change. Nations change. People, however, must continue living when everything around them is in upheaval. Dr. Pershing seems to be a moral man who wants to use his skills as a scientist to help save lives, but the powers that be have other interests. While he recognizes that the New Republic isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is still an improvement over the totalitarian fascism of the Empire. Pershing and the other officers who received amnesty are somewhat like the German and Austrian scientists recruited from post-World War II Germany by the United States through Project Paperclip. The U.S. utilized the knowledge of these scientists to develop weapons and other technology, however, whereas the New Republic has put Dr. Pershing on very basic sorting duty in an attempt to "rehabilitate" him.

Unfortunately for Pershing, at least one of the other officers who received Amnesty hasn't completely abandoned their preconceptions of the galaxy and the Empire's place in it, which means that adjusting to this new normal is going to be a bit more difficult.

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" debut Wednesdays on Disney+.