The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian
This is the way.
Genre: Action Adventure Space opera Space Western Running Time: 31-46 minutes Country: United States Release Date: November 12, 2019 – present Network(s): Disney+ Created by: Jon Favreau Distributed by: Disney Media Distribution Starring: Pedro Pascal Seasons: 3 Episodes: 24

The Mandalorian (or Star Wars: The Mandalorian) is a 2019 sci-fi space opera television series that was broadcast by Disney+, set in Star Wars universe. It is the first Star Wars television series in live action.

Summary

In the year 9 ABY, five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. "The Mandalorian" is set after the Empire's fall and before the First Order's emergence. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.

Why It Was the Way

1. Great acting, especially for Pedro Pascal
2. Pedro Pascal did an amazing job portraying The Mandalorian, (Pascal later portrayed Joel Miller in The Last of Us.)
3. The characters (namely Mando and Grogu) are well written and audiences readily invest in them.
4. Unlike in the prequels, The show does not have signs of pandering to real-world politics.
5. It shows better to immerse the audiences into the damp underworld of the Star Wars universe, which was never explored much in the films.
6. Introduces in the franchise elements not seen on-screen, such as the intimidating Karyt dragon.
7. Memorable scenes that later on spawn memes, such as Grogu eating soup or the Forge single-handedly besting the stormtroopers.
8. Decent worldbuilding and exploration.
9. Handles the Star Wars franchise well and stays consistent within the lore.
10. Nice visual effects.
11. Boba Fett makes his long return following his apparent death in Return of the Jedi, and he's great here.
12. Threatening villains like Moff Gideon and the remnant troopers of the Galactic Empire along with the Darktroopers from the non-canonical Legends.
    • Giancarlo Esposito's threatening performance as Moff Gideon was inspired by another villain Gustavo Fringe from the Breaking Bad universe, which Esposito also played.
13. The 3D effects for the ships and places are very well breathtaking and gorgeously done.
14. The idea of having a wild-west sci-fi show in the Star Wars world is pretty good, while Solo: A Star Wars Story managed to screw it up.
15. It would later spawn a spin off, The Book of Boba Fett.
16. The soundtracks are amazing.
17. "I have spoken."
18. It brought back many well-known characters such as Boba Fett in the second season for the first time since Return of the Jedi, along with Bo-Katan Kryze and Ahsoka Tano since Rebels and most especially Luke Skywalker after Return of the Jedi.
19. The introduction music and credits music is amazing.

Bad Qualities

1. The scene when Din and Grogu chase the Sandcrawler in "Chapter 2: The Child" where the Hovering palm following Din looks off from the VFX.
2. The pacing can be a bit sluggish.
3. The CGI for Luke Skywalker in the season two finale is uncanny. But, this issue of Luke's CGI Face was fixed in The Book of Boba Fett.
4. Ahsoka's live-action appearance excited fans, but her costume design isn't considered well due to such restrictions.
5. Gina Carano's firing means that Cara Dune will no longer appear in the show, which may complicate Moff Gideon's storyline as he was going to be taken into custody by Cara Dune.
6. After The Book of Boba Fett's ending cliffhanger with Din and Grogu would lead some viewers that didn't watch or skipped The Book of Boba Fett to straightly watch The Mandalorian season 3 be confused on why Grogu wasn't with Luke Skywalker.
   • Also, fans would call this show "The Mandalorian Season 2.5 because it shifted its focus to Mando rather than Boba Fett in the later episodes.
7. Season 3 of The Mandalorian is considered to be a step down from the first two seasons.
   • "Chapter 19: The Convert" is an overly long filler episode set in Coruscant where Din is not really in the spotlight (he only appears at the beginning and the end of the episode). This could have been meant to be an episode of the canceled series Rangers of the New Republic, itself intended to be a series connected to The Mandalorian.
   • "Chapter 22: Guns for Hire" is the weakest episode of the entire series due to the poor writing and acting by Lizzo (which hasn't aged well because of the controversy that came into the light in August 2023, 3 months after the episode was aired) and Jack Black.

Trivia

• This was one of the earliest original programs created for Disney+. The show premiered the same day Disney+ was launched in the United States.
• This show was the first production to be filmed using real-time rendering for realistic, parallax environments. Favreau believed that the StageCraft technology developed for the series would significantly impact the production of films and television series moving forward. He attributed the breakthroughs made with the technology to the support of Kathleen Kennedy, who was in charge of both Lucasfilm and ILM, his drive for innovation, and previous work done by George Lucas on new technology for the Star Wars films.

Reception

The show was well-received by critics and fans of the series. On Rotten Tomatoes:

• Season 1 has a critics score of 93% and an audience score of 92%.
• Season 2 has a critics score of 93% and an audience score of 91%.
• Season 3 was not as well-received with a critics score of 85% and an audience score of 51%.

Its IMDB score is 8.6/10 (ranking it #124 on the Top 250), though it fell a little from a previously stable peak of 8.8 due to the mixed reception of some season 3 episodes.

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