Finally getting access to Disney Plus, I naturally went and started watching The Mandalorian, the Star Wars TV show that you probably heard a lot of people raving about several months ago.
Having now watched the first three episodes, I can see why they were:
A lot of people refer to Star Wars as a Space Western, but I've always found that that's not quite accurate. Sure, it starts with a farm boy out in the desert, but about halfway through the first movie, it stops being that. Arguably, the sequences back on Tatooine in Return of the Jedi pick up a bit of that vibe once again, but I really think that the series is far more in the fantasy genre - Jabba is just as easily a sleazy warlord as he is a western gang boss. And the other elements - the epic war, the mystical awakening - fits much more with the fantasy genre (obviously owing a lot to Dune, though with a far simpler take on morality and less about the political implications of messianic saviors).
This show, however, is a Space Western.
Set five years after Return of the Jedi (or at least 5 years after the Empire's fall - which I think officially means after the Battle of Jakku,) the Mandalorian is about a bounty hunter from the eponymous culture. Established early on as an unscrupulous professional, he takes a job from some imperial remnant led by a guy played by Werner Herzog (awesomely) only to have a moral crisis when he realizes that the "50-year-old" mark is actually just a kid (he seems to be the same species as Yoda, hence all the Baby Yoda memes).
The gorgeous desert landscapes, the rough, small towns, and an amazing score that is all 60s/70s spaghetti western throwback, and even the fact that you have a bunch of unrepentant Imperials still up to their bad behavior like a bunch of Confederates in the 1880s all fits in really well with the Western vibe the show oozes.
The show is really a cinematic experience, and it sets up some very interesting challenges that it manages to meet and surpass. For example: we never see the title character's face (except for flashbacks to him as a child). Pedro Pascal, who made an amazing impression as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones, manages to convey a coherent and compelling character with just body movement and voice.
The scripts are also written cinematically - I got about halfway through the second episode before I realized that no one had actually spoken yet (aside from some Jawas speaking their alien language). I'm always delighted when a movie can make use of all its unique capabilities to tell a story without dialogue, and this show does just that.
While it's not divorced from the mystical side of Star Wars, we haven't actually heard the word Jedi so far, and instead, there's been a greater focus on fleshing out the Mandalorian culture.
Because here's the thing: Boba Fett was popular entirely because of his armor. He's not actually an interesting character in the original trilogy (and Lucas' instinct to tie his backstory deeply into the grander plot was, I think, like a lot of prequel choices, not a great one) but clearly, the mysterious and iconic armor ignited fans' imagination.
Here, we get a look at Mandalorian culture: they're a people in hiding, after some sort of purge from decades earlier (one assumes it was the Empire, though I suppose we'll see). One element of their culture is that they never take their helmets off (though I wonder how that works for, like, hygiene and how Mando doesn't have a giant beard growing out of his helmet). There's a group of them who live under the town where Mando (the nickname for the main character, given that we don't actually get a name for him) gets his bounty contracts. The person who seems to be their leader is a sort of blacksmith - she melts down the fancy alloy that is apparently a key part of their culture - Beskar Steel - and makes armor that seems to actually work against blasters in a way that Stormtrooper armor never did. I could be wrong, but it might even be implied that Mandalorians are all orphans adopted by the tribe, which our title character certainly seems to be.
What's exciting about the show is that it delves into the grittier world that Star Wars always implied. It's obviously not the first Star Wars-related product to do so, but seeing it with peak TV production values and Disney money behind it makes it feel rather fresh.
While I don't think anyone was terribly surprised, I think most of us were a bit disappointed in Rise of Skywalker - it seemed unable to please both those of us who liked Last Jedi's subversive nature and those who preferred Force Awakens' sticking to the formula. So far, The Mandalorian has the advantage of being a much smaller-scale story.
Of course, what I find a little funny is how this show is invoking a sort of pop culture nostalgia for movies that were coming out not much earlier than the original Star Wars. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which has got to be the quintessential spaghetti western, came out just ten years before the original Star Wars. I also really find the presence of Werner Herzog to be a kind of brilliant and hilarious inclusion, given the degree to which I associate him with "brilliant, 'real' cinema" that people often hold up as the direct opposite of Star Wars (though I think a true cinephile has room to love both).
Tonally fantastic, I'm curious to see how complex the narrative here gets, and while I like a convoluted plot as well as the next man, I wonder how well this show can thread the needle of maintaining its simplicity while remaining engaging.
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