The Mandalorian Chapter 1

WARNING: CONVERSATION WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

DAN: Disney+ has finally arrived. Tuesday marked the launch of the entertainment giant’s own streaming service, including everything from old-time classics to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pixar, National Geographic, Marvel, and Star Wars have all been bundled into this online package that has had the masses salivating in anticipation. Mark and I have decided that Disney’s new flagship series is so significant that we had to go through our first impression review together. So let’s get right into the biggest original series premiering on launch day… High School Musical The Series!

But seriously – Let’s talk about the newest Star Wars spinoff, The Mandalorian.

MARK: I feel like this show was a make or break for Disney+. I know it’s only the day after release, but Disney had one chance to prove that they are a true contender in creating original television content. 10 million dollars an episode. John Favreau as writer and show runner. The Chilean beauty Pedro Pascal as our lead. I applaud Disney for absolutely committing and surrounding this show with so much talent, both on-screen and off.

DAN: Something I’ve always loved is the Star Wars universe itself, not necessarily the individual movies. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the movies as a kid but what captivated me was the vast reaches of the structural lore behind them all. Hundreds of hours of my childhood were invested in acting out my own side stories with the overabundance of Star Wars action figures I had accumulated. So I guess what really excites me about The Mandalorian are the tools Favreau has in front of him. He has the opportunity to paint a grittier, darker depiction of this universe and what it has to offer.

MARK: Exactly. The moment I was anticipating was how Favreau would choose to introduce the character. We all can recall the marvelous job he did with the original Iron Man, so I had major expectations for The Mandalorian. Did you think the opening scene did the character justice?

DAN: I actually really like the opening scene. The scuffle in the small cantina was a great intro to the Mandalorian character. They put their toughest foot forward, immediately setting the tone that this is going to be an action-packed ride and this Mandalorian guy isn’t very fond of bullshit. He’s not here to help anyone. Don’t confuse his aggression with heroism as his goal to secure a bounty is easily mistaken for the protection of a stranger.

I thought Pascal nailed his first lines. They were delivered with such purpose and a lack of urgency that expressed how the altercation, well murders really, didn’t even strain his breath or heart rate. Cold-blooded. Great intro.

MARK: I especially liked the very first moments of the show. The Mandalorian standing out in the elements with wind and snow swirling as he checks his tracker. His calm, stoic walk towards the cantina which he knows contains his prey. We know this dude’s a bad-ass just from his gait.

DAN: For me, the story is oozing potential. Jango and Boba Fett have served as obvious fan favorites and for good reason. The concept of a galactic bounty hunter is fucking awesome. Simply put. Look at Cowboy Bebop, which is getting its own live-action revival by Disney’s top competitor, Netflix. People are enthralled with the idea of someone planet-hopping to wrangle up the galaxy’s shit stains.

The armor design is gorgeous in a “this guy will fuck you up” kind of way. Oh, and the emblem? Lights out. The premise gives Favreau the freedom to take us anywhere, he just has to keep it feeling like Star Wars.

MARK: Yes, and this truly does feel like Star Wars to its very core. The cuts, the atmosphere, the music, the cinematography were all immediately recognizable as being in the Star Wars universe. Though perhaps too slow at times, it seemed they wanted us to stop and reflect on how cool it is that we are watching a multimillion-dollar Star Wars television show. But Star Wars yes, Star Wars to its core.

DAN: Exactly! This first chapter took every chance it could get to remind you that this is Star Wars. You don’t need a lightsaber slicing about for it to carry the Lucas feel. Travel, in particular, was handled so well in this episode. The Mandalorian’s ship, the smaller hover vehicles, and even mountable creatures all showed up within forty minutes. I will say that I didn’t love how quickly the Mandalorian mastered the blurrg well enough to mount it. This ugly thing kept stamping my mind with the image of Spongebob riding an Alaskan Bull Worm. At least the quick blurrg ride led us to the main action sequence. What did you think about how they handled the arrival of the death-dealing bounty droid?

MARK: Felt too much like a Star Wars Western, though I did enjoy the banter back and forth between the Mandalorian and the bounty droid. I was especially dazzled by the cinematography during the fight. It is also nice to know that missing shots is not only reserved for stormtroopers.

DAN: One of my biggest qualms about Star Wars, in general, is the action. I often find it to be lacking just a little. Blasters seem like Nerf guns, and the lack of any real bloodshed is an all-too-common Disney filter. I liked the action in this episode a lot but it simply does not feel heavy enough when compared to onslaughts in films like The Lord of the Rings or even Game of Thrones.

MARK: By far the biggest “surprise” of the episode is introduced in the final moments. A moment that, specifically for Star Wars lore, looms large. Another baby Yoda?

DAN: Ah, our little green one. This has some weight to it. Yoda has been an untouchable throughout three trilogies, multiple spinoff films and shows, countless novels, and endless comic arcs. Has George Lucas found his chosen one?

MARK: Wait and see, we must.

DAN: At the very least we have one more member of Yoda’s race to pry some intel from. Give us something here! I think there was one other little green person in The Clone Wars or one of those shows, so this would technically be the third. This race, and Yoda’s origin story, have remained shrouded in a cloak of mystery for decades. If The Mandalorian can pull this off and give us a meaningful insight into where Yoda came from, how the race is tied to the force, or how this fifty-year-old baby is traced back to canonical story… I will be impressed. Just don’t fuck it up. Please.

MARK: I hope the writing for the remainder of the show is rock solid. It would be a shame to introduce something as large as this to the Star Wars universe just to ruin it with terrible writing. I don’t think they would do it without having a plan.I have in faith John Favreau. We’ll have to take it an episode at a time. So Dan, one to ten, what would you give the first episode of Disney’s new flagship series?

DAN: My Take? 8.1. The episode worked. I had high hopes coming in and they remain where they stood. If we were rating purely based on potential, the sky’s the limit. I would give it’s potential a 10.

MARK: I think we have a very similar opinion on how the first episode went. I would give it an 8.4. I’m wondering how often we will see the mandalorian without his helmet? Surely they didn’t cast Pedro Pascal to hide his face throughout the whole season, did they? Who knows, but the surprise at the end has me curious about where they go with the story.

DAN: Needless to say but I am pumped for Friday. I will be looking for a few answers and clues in Chapter 2 to discover where this show is heading, and maybe, more importantly, I will be impatiently waiting for Pascal to remove the helmet.

The existence of a second bounty on the little green one foreshadows a two-sided coin. This can go down a few different paths, but someone wants the green one alive, and someone wants him dead. Sith vs Jedi? Remnants of the Empire vs the Rebel alliance? What a time to be alive.

MARK: So concludes our conversation about The Mandalorian. This was a ton of fun to work on with Dan so I think we may be doing these for the remainder of the season. Check back on Saturday for our next conversation about episode 2!



