In 1980, as youngsters around the world watched The Empire Strikes Back, a villain named Boba Fett organically won a place in the hearts of millions as one of the coolest characters in the Star Wars universe. A bounty hunter (probably the first time any of us had ever heard the term “bounty hunter”) out to nab Han Solo and collect his reward from Jabba the Hutt.
What made him so cool? His battered armour and Spartan-style helmet, his carefully calculated moves, his wordless gaze—well, you assumed he was gazing, or glaring behind that helmet—and oh yes, his jet pack. In a sea of blue-faced and tusk-wearing characters, Boba Fett stood out as too good for that crowd. Of course, he would be the one worthy of capturing Han Solo.
When actor-director Jon Favreau announced that he was writing and directing a Star Wars series for Disney+ called The Mandalorian, naturally Star Wars fans went nuts. But none more nuts than the Gen Xers. Why?
Image from Disney+
1. Jon Favreau (54 years old, born 1966) is our hero. He is the Gen X nerd boy made good. (Yeah, okay, JJ Abrams—also born 1966—is also a contender for our favourite Gen X filmmaker since he was involved in Star Wars VII, VIII and IX, but Favreau works the Slacker vibe with greater style. In fact, it leaves one to imagine how Favreau might have treated the trilogy had he had a shot at them.)
2. He’s taking our favourite Star Wars bad boy and creating a series around his kind—not a people, but a creed. This means: girls can be Mandalorian, plus there will be more cool helmets, more cool weapons and oh yes, jet packs.
3. He’s setting the timeline five years after Return Of The Jedi and 25 years before The Force Awakens. This is the sweet spot. We were left after ROTJ feeling like the good guys won, but there were still so many unanswered questions. While Rey Skywalker nee Palpatine is fabulous and all, The Mandalorian feels like a true expansion pack of the Episode VI universe.
4. The Child, aka Baby Yoda. Okay, maybe at the start we didn’t know there was going to be a Baby Yoda but if you love Jon Favreau like we do, you would expect it because cute things tend to appear in his movies, such as Josh Hutcherson in Zathura (2005) and Emjay Anthony in Chef (2014) and Neel Sethi in The Jungle Book (2016).
Bringing Back The Umami Of Star Wars
Image from Disney+
In an interview with ABC News, Favreau explained his fascination for the likes of Boba Fett: “I like the image of the Mandalorian because it really hearkened back to the Westerns and samurai films that had originally influenced [George] Lucas. It’s a deconstructed version of Clint Eastwood in The Man With No Name. That’s a great, mysterious, fun character to see the world through.”
The Mandalorian’s very special charm lies in the fact that it successfully captures all that is right about the original Star Wars films—all the stuff that is instantly recognizable and hits the right spot, but which you might never have actually put into words before. The umami of Star Wars.
It looks right. For starters, the cinematographer Greig Fraser and co-director of photography Barry Idoine were the cinematography team on Rogue One (the most visually faithful of all the Star Wars spinoffs—do not mention Solo. Ever.) Fraser’s preferred weapon is the Alexa camera (LF for The Mandalorian, 65 for Rogue One), lauded for capturing shots that look like they were shot on film. The Mandalorian’s universe is not created on green or blue screen, unlike 99 percent of productions out there, but using real-time composite backgrounds. Okay, I know I’m geeking out, but to appreciate the effort and the final effect of what you see and will see again soon on Disney+ when Season Two begins, you should read about how it’s done. TL;DR version: The Mandalorian is shot in such a way that it looks like George Lucas went on to film it after Return Of The Jedi.
It’s not Dumb CGI. The Mandalorian arrived at the perfect time, a time when Gen Xers were a little weary of CGI-ed Star Wars films, such as the one featuring a digital version of Carrie Fisher floating through space and then inexplicably coming back to life just so to allow for the standard Hollywood happy ending. Though Mando isn’t devoid of CGI, his universe captures the spirit, feel and colour scheme of Episodes VI, V and IV. Baby Yoda is an homage to the muppetry and animatronics of those early Star Wars movies—Yoda himself would be proud. (CGI just ain’t got the goods when it comes to actors responding to an imaginary green screen monster. For one, George Lucas couldn’t hug a CGI Baby Yoda.)
It speaks volumes in the silences. There is an art to George Lucas’ original trilogy that true fans will recognise, even if it’s embedded into their subconscious and never articulated—it is the art of the unsaid. From Obi-wan’s cryptic introduction of himself to Luke (A New Hope), to Yoda’s “There is another…” (Return Of The Jedi), and even Han Solo’s response to Leia’s “I love you!” (The Empire Strikes Back), the original movies were filled with powerful ellipses, a feature that has been missing from almost all the Star Wars productions since. Until The Mandalorian. Mando’s famously few words and his occasional sighs say more and more elegantly than Anakin Skywalker’s unbridled blathering from Episodes I through III.
It gives depth to characters. In The Mandalorian, Favreau shows that stormtroopers are bored soldiers that are afraid to have a thought beyond what they are commanded to do (see the season finale of Season 1). The stormtrooper punching Baby Yoda in that scene caused an Internet meltdown and threats were levied against guest star Jason Sudeikis. Then there’s IG-11 (voiced by Taika Waititi), a new character introduced by Favreau, modelled on IG-88, a bounty hunter that appears briefly in The Empire Strikes Back (aside: who still has an IG-88 action figure? Send us a photo!). He created new folklore around this character in the vein of the Terminator: killer droid reprogrammed to become a nurse for The Child. That in itself is worth an essay.
Image from Disney+
In short, Jon Favreau is a Gen X genius whose blood runs thick with the original Star Wars trilogy, and he has found a way to extend the delicious feels and captivating storytelling of that universe while keeping to the scale (ie low budget, spectacular effects) of A New Hope.
He gives credit for the incredible response to The Mandalorian to Star Wars itself: “You also have…this powerful [Star Wars] imagery that…has been established worldwide. We understand what those things are, and when you put those images together with the right music and the right camera work and the right story, it all of a sudden resonates very deeply.”
As he tells ABC News, “We’ve grown up in this 40 years of the saga, and we all are working on it because we love it,” he said. “And so, the pressure I feel is more to the audience that I want to make sure that I’m throwing a good party for them.”
Get ready to party 30 Oct 2020 when The Mandalorian Season 2 premiers on Disney+
