Tucked into a group of low-slung buildings on an unassuming side street amid the Los Angeles sprawl is a hall of otherworldly wonders. Welcome to Thunder Alley. Named in honor of the local street-racing culture of yesteryear, the expanse contains workshops and storerooms teeming with iconic costumes, battle-worn vehicles, hand-hewn weaponry, and more aliens than Area 51, all spawned from The Mandalorian, the Emmy-winning Star Wars series brought to life by Jon Favreau.
With The Mandalorian‘s dynamic duo of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, blasting off for one last adventure — on the big screen this time! — Lucasfilm let Gold Derby and a few select other media inside this top-secret location for a close-up look at the props that populate that galaxy far, far away.
Our host for the tour is property master Josh Roth, and the first stop is in the lobby, where he points out three display cases lining the walls, neatly arranged with items from The Mandalorian and Grogu, which lands in theaters on May 22. “These are all fully machined,” he explains. “They’re weighted, they’re metal. I had a team of 30 fabricators. We had animatronics, mold-makers, painters, machinists, illustrators … whatever [the filmmakers] wanted, we built.”
When he launched The Mandalorian, Favreau was adamant that the series bring the Star Wars saga back to the handmade, lived-in look of the original trilogy, the “used future” aesthetic that revolutionized science-fiction cinema. “We got to work with puppeteers, stop-motion animation, all the things I loved about Star Wars,” Favreau says. “It’s about combining new technology with the old, handcrafted stuff that’s so much of what makes Star Wars, Star Wars.”
The team’s dedication to making their Star Wars worlds as practical and tactile as possible is borderline pathological. Case in point: a seemingly simple street scene set on the planet Shakari in The Mandalorian and Grogu was anything but. “We had almost 12 different restaurants on that street,” says Roth. “I worked with my food stylist, Melissa McSorley, [and] we developed a whole menu for all the food stands. We also worked with [celebrity chef and Favreau pal] Roy Choi; he made a real sandwich for that scene. Even though Grogu wasn’t going to eat it, we wanted to see the process to help the filmmaking.”
While that Choi-made sandwich is long gone, manifold creatures, costumes, droids, props, weapons, vehicles, and accessories from The Mandalorian series and film — along with the Disney+ spin-offs The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka — remain. With thousands of film artifacts housed within the storeroom (“There’s layers upon layers,” notes Roth), any visit can be overwhelming. But we’re here to help. Below is a CliffsNotes tour in 10 photographs (and a bonus GIF), accompanied by a full gallery of dozens more for the Star Wars superfans. (Click on the still images to see high-res versions.)
Tribute to a fallen hero
Known for the Rocky films and Predator, Carl Weathers brought gravitas to the role of Bounty Hunters Guild master-turned-politician Greef Karga. The actor died in 2024, six months before The Mandalorian and Grogu started filming, but he remains a part of the Star Wars family. This bust of Weathers-as-Greef welcomes visitors in the lobby.
This is the way (in)
To enter the prop house, one must pass under a beskar-forged Mythosaur skull — the symbol of the Mandalorians — and be accompanied by an authorized escort… or else.
Tools of the trade
Situated just outside the main storeroom, this display houses the beskar tools of the Armorer, one of the key characters in The Mandalorian series. In addition to schooling Din Djarin in the ways of the warriors, she also forges his armor and accessories using these tools. Roth hired an actual blacksmith to craft the pieces out of titanium.
Still jamming after all these years
Perched in the rafters above the entrance is fan-favorite elephantine keyboardist Max Rebo. The Ortolan musician debuted in Return of the Jedi as the leader of Jabba’s house band, playing the intergalactic banger “Jedi Rocks.” He later cameoed in an episode of The Book of Boba Fett.
Mando corner
Din Djarin’s armor is displayed next to his N-1 Starfighter, while the signature gear of his Mandalorian mates — Paz Vizsla, Boba Fett, and Bo-Katan Kryze — stands in the background in front of a speeder bike. A collection of trophy heads from the Star Wars bestiary adorns the walls, including the dragonsnake featured in the movie (the large white mouth on top). A tauntaun head is just above the engine of the N-1, while a full-bodied version chills in the upper corner.
So. Many. Droids.
R2- and R5-series astromechs, protocol droids, surgical droids, assassin droids, battle droids, super battle droids, mouse droids… oh my! There were so many droids that we needed two photos to capture them all. The friendlier types are positioned to one side, while a selection of Imperial and Separatist units are arrayed on the other, with a Dark Trooper thrown in for good measure.
Creature corner
You could populate a cantina or two with this bunch. Several notable Star Wars species are represented via masks and prosthetics, including Hutts, Tuskens, Trandoshans, Ithiorians, Abyssins, and, lurking in the back shadows, a Gamorrean.
Imperial odds and ends
Opposite the entrance is a collection of Imperial Remnant trooper gear. Just out of frame to the right, you can spot an AT-R2 walker (there’s a full photo in our expanded gallery). Further back in the center is a collection of Mandalorian helmets, including the Armorer’s distinctive golden headwear. And on the far left, just past the cage, you can see a Grogu model emerging from Klang’s transport (more on that below).
The Easter egg
Disneyland — which is located about 40 miles to the southeast as the Goofy flies — has its hidden Mickeys. The Mando model shop, meanwhile, has a hidden Oswald. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created their “lucky rabbit,” a proto-Mickey character, for a series of Universal shorts in the 1920s. The studio reacquired the rights 20 years ago and recently wrapped an Oswald series on the same nearby soundstages used by The Mandalorian and its spin-offs.
Bonus Favreau fun fact
Speaking of Disney, a decade ago, this reporter spent a day with Favreau as he was supervising post-production on The Jungle Book. The filmmaker sported an early Apple Watch, with, natch, a Mickey Mouse face. His love for Apple tech abides. In the model of the ship piloted by a diminutive Anzellan droidsmith and transporting Grogu, Favreau’s model makers repurposed Apple Watches for the rectangular cockpit monitors.
For dozens more photos from the Star Wars L.A. prop house out our gallery walk-through.
Inside ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ prop house: A photographic walk-through
