Can Disney do right by Star Wars? That’s a legitimate question for me. While I have largely enjoyed what Disney has produced so far since they outright acquired George Lucas’s best-known property, I do have a concern that Disney will over-saturate the market and make Star Wars less special than it was. Part of the beauty of Star Wars when I was a kid was the original trilogy was more or less all you got aside from the occasional comic book or cartoon series. Eventually there was the Expanded Universe novels, but these too seemed to be a bit special when they first showed up. If we’re going to get more Star Wars than we have in the past, it stands to reason that we might want to be wary Disney will dilute the brand.
That said, yes, I did watch the first episode of The Mandalorian. And the show was both familiar and different enough to hold my interest for now.
On the familiar front is the general look of, oh, everything. Many of the alien species and languages that appear on the show are ones I have seen or heard before. The technology the characters use is familiar. The architecture on the unnamed desert planet looks familiar. And even if we don’t see a character we know from any of the movies, we see characters that could easily exist in that world.
On the different end of things is the overall tone of the episode. It feels darker, something I am somewhat hoping to see more of in the Star Wars universe. It’s not that I want a R-rated Star Wars. Far from it. Star Wars was always meant to be family friendly. But something that is a little less good guys vs bad guys would be nice. Rogue One feinted in that direction at first before going to straight good vs. evil for the final battle. But The Mandalorian looks like it could show the less reputable side of the Star Wars universe without sacrificing too much to keep it from being OK for kids. While the as-yet unnamed title character played by Pedro Pascal may be modeled after Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, he doesn’t come across as evil so much as a man with a job to do and he’s going to do it no matter what.
That said, this first episode clocks in at just under 40 minutes. Much of the plot seems to be about showcasing how badass this Mandalorian is. We see him collect one bounty and then go off to collect another. The first one demonstrates his overall competence at his job while displaying his general methods. The second sets up the plot and gives us maybe the briefest glimpse into what kind of a man he is. That will depend entirely on what he ends up doing with his latest bounty.
Beyond that, we have a decent set-up even if there still isn’t much indication on what this character wants. He keeps his helmet on, speaks as little as possible, and does his job. That means taking a big potential payday from an unnamed Client (Werner Herzog), taking riding lessons from an alien moisture farmer (Nick Nolte), and then teaming up with a very blunt (though humorously so) droid bounty hunter (Taika Waititi).
By the by, hearing Nolte’s voice just reminded me of comedian Patton Oswalt’s routine about how Nolte was almost cast as Han Solo. And if you are the type of person who thinks original recipe Star Wars was all about the black-and-white, Han Solo’s whole arc over the original trilogy would probably beg to differ.
Anyway, not a bad first episode, even if there wasn’t much to it. I’ll probably have more to say when the season ends.
Grade: B
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