In order to stave off the overall low-mood feeling this year currently brings, a good solid live-action series to cap off 2020 is essential to keeping our sanity intact. Enter The Mandalorian. This Disney stand-alone Star Wars spin-off is the stuff pandemic hopes and dreams are made of. It brings inner peace. It incites joy. It ignites passion. Well, that is, if you like epic space opera anthologies.
Forget slow-burn narratives that establish characters first before any plot reveals, this thing takes off faster than the Millennium Falcon on Hyperdrive and is relentless in its pursuit to entertain. Prepare your world to be thrown off the inner rim’s axis regardless if you’re a fan of the series or not. A good viewing experience is certainly guaranteed. It will happen. Whether your Jabba the Hut ass likes it or not.
Executive producer and screenwriter Jon Favreau is your Dungeons and Dragons-playing man-child who refuses to grow up. Teamed up with director, Dave Filoni, (who, obviously, doesn’t like the idea of growing up either) Disney should just hand over all future Star Wars projects to this duo. The Mandalorian is an exemplary feat of storytelling, visual effects, and anti-minimalistic set designs that are necessary over budget.
NOT A STARWARS FAN
If you’re a Star Wars fan, (and simply described) The Mandalorian is that highly collectible original Carrie Fisher’s personal copy of The Empire Strikes Back shooting script in mint condition that just suddenly showed up at your doorstep.
Okay, that wasn’t simply described. But you get the point.
It’s a Bobba Fett rocket-firing action figure that you’ve always wanted for Christmas.
Although I’ve never collected anything growing up, I’ve always loved Star Wars. Being a part of Generation X sort of gave me that right and privilege.
Despite that fact, I could never call myself a fan.
Ever.
Because being one requires an overdose of passion. I’m talking about your typical trivia-totting, toy-collecting, cosplaying middle-aged, white-collar office guy in a Stormtrooper costume-type fanatic. I don’t even have a Wookiepedia app on my phone and when I’m at the mall, I’ve never held out my hand to an automatic door and pretended I yield the force.
Although, hehe, when I’m drunk, I speak fluent Ewok.
THE CORPORATE
That being said, I have watched all the franchise episodes from The Phantom Menace to The Rise of Skywalker. And while Rogue One is a breath of fresh air, I think Solo, another Star Wars Story spin-off, is an unwanted and unnecessary-merchandise-focused, income-generating attempt by the corporates to reproduce the franchise instead of recapturing its loyal audiences.
Because at a time when it felt like Lucas Films had exhausted all topics related to the franchise, The Mandalorian is a concrete example that the Star Wars saga is an ever-expanding universe of never-ending chronicles. Which, for Star Wars fans, is like finding the fountain of youth in the remote deserts of Tatooine.
THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE
Anyway, like I said, this series brings hope. Both to the fallen and the revived. Finally, the franchise expansion once again has just been opened wide enough for the corporate (or, as I like to call them Resistance) to realize that there is a lot more story to be told.
The Mandalorian is a work of pure necessity and relevance. Especially at a time when this world we’re in right now is cloaked in disarray, we could definitely use a show where heroism and integrity are the surprising main key takeaways and elements.
For somewhere out there, in the far trenches of this cinematic universe, in a galaxy far far away, a cosplaying middle-aged, white-collar office guy in a Stormtrooper costume is watching The Mandalorian in all its glory, smiling underneath that helmet, knowing that the future of the force, is in good hands…
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