TV Review: The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian is Breezy Fun with Big Potential
The Mandalorian, director Jon Favreau’s new series on Disney Plus, probably isn’t what you’d expect from a live-action Star Wars television show. A handily capable tentpole for the biggest streaming service launch since Netflix, The Mandalorian forgoes its advertised dark action drama and instead opts for a lighter tone. Four episodes watched for review. Minor spoilers ahead…
The Mandalorian, arguably the biggest draw for the new Disney Plus streaming platform, has a hell of a pedigree behind it. Created by Jon Favreau and produced by veteran Star Wars scribe Dave Filoni, the series stars Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos) as the titular bounty hunter and also features the diverse talents of Werner Herzog, Giancarlo Esposito, Gina Carano, and Taika Waititi. Taking into account this star-studded lineup and coupled with the series’ hyped-up promotional material, you’d be forgiven if you were expecting a dark and gritty action drama set in the Star Wars universe.
“Bounty hunting is a complicated profession, don’t you agree?” says Werner Herzog’s enigmatic and unnamed “Client,” early into the first episode of The Mandalorian - it’s a quote that gets prominent placement in the series’ trailer, alongside the strewn husks of dead Stormtroopers and grim slabs of Carbonite. And while everything leading up to the series launch seemed to signify a daring foray into the complex underbelly of bounty hunters and the lawless side of Star Wars, what we receive in the end is something markedly…different. And that isn’t exactly a bad thing. Under the supervision of Dave Filoni, The Mandalorian is more-or-less a live-action version of his animated projects such as Clone Wars and Rebels: a traditional adventure serial that toggles back and forth between disposable whimsy and mythology-defining stunners.
“…a traditional adventure serial that toggles back and forth between disposable whimsy and mythology-defining stunners.”
Centered around a nameless and faceless bounty hunter, The Mandalorian captures a brisk Western style - keeping in line with its animated brethren, each episode is a refreshing and lightly serialized 30-40 minutes that sees our hero tackling various jobs and shooting his way out of sticky situations. And make no mistake, our anonymous bounty hunter is a hero; despite a few fake-outs, The Mandalorian makes clear that it has no interest delving into the heartlessness and moral ambiguities of the bounty hunting profession, at least not in its first four episodes. Opting for the tried and true killer-with-a-heart-of-gold routine, the series paints our guy mostly as a defender of the innocent and downtrodden, and sands down any potential rough edges; in a universe teeming with “hives of scum and villainy,” our titular Mandalorian is practically a saint. Coupled with the fact that he never takes his helmet off, and that the typically charismatic Pedro Pascal flexes almost none of his signature panache, you have a protagonist who is unfortunately the weak link of the series. Other critics have likened him to little more than a thinly-veiled video game character, which may be going a bit too far, but there is some merit in calling out his opaque characterization.
However, where The Mandalorian lacks in character development, it excels in meticulous and awe-inspiring world-building. A more-than-welcome throwback to the vintage practical effects of the original trilogy before they were compromised by CG-aided remasters, the series paints a realistic and lived-in world that is categorically Star Wars. From the droids to the aliens - and one particularly impressive display of practical puppetry - The Mandalorian bursts at the seams as a labor of love. And while its narrative and character work have gotten off to a patchy start, with Jon Favreau at the helm and Dave Filoni as executive producer, there’s plenty of potential locked away and ready to be unleashed. With both Clone Wars and Rebels under Filoni’s belt, his pedigree is the one that is most promising for The Mandalorian; as the chief architect of the Star Wars universe outside of the films, Filoni’s vision of a new Expanded Universe has given us some of the most nuanced and canonized versions of our favorite characters, and an almost universally loved extrapolation of the Star Wars mythos. There are certainly tricks up The Mandalorian’s sleeve, and I can’t wait to see them.
