Mandalorian explores dangerous territory
The nameless, faceless lone warrior inspired by bounty hunter Boba Fett finally gets his own show, writes Tracy Brown. ‘With the previous Star Wars experiences, I think that the worlds of good and evil are so defined. This is a new territory . . . These l
Could Mandalorian armour be any cooler? Pedro Pascal doesn’t think so. ‘‘He’s such an incredible silhouette,’’ says The Mandalorian actor. ‘‘It’s such an iconic image.’’
The first-ever Star Wars liveaction TV series stars Pascal as the titular gun-slinging bounty hunter, clad in the style of armour made famous by Boba Fett in 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.
(It made one earlier appearance, an animated debut in a segment of the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.) The Mandalorian is a nameless, faceless lone warrior just trying to get by in the outskirts of a galaxy far, far away.
The series is set a few years after the fall of the Galactic Empire and before the rise of the First Order – that is, between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. The first episodes will be available when Disney+ launches in New Zealand on Tuesday.
‘‘What I like about this time period is that it’s very largely unexplored outside of the Expanded Universe,’’ says director Dave Filoni, who is also one of the executive producers and writers of the series. The question of ‘‘what happens in the years immediately after [the original trilogy] was something very compelling’’.
Despite Fett’s popularity, the word ‘‘Mandalorian’’ was never mentioned in the original films, though the planet of Mandalore and its people had a rich history in the comics and novels of the Expanded Universe. Filoni previously worked with George Lucas to develop the canonical history of Mandalore for the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
It was in The Clone Wars that The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau voiced a Mandalorian villain, named Pre Vizsla, looking to restore Mandalore’s warrior legacy.
‘‘There’s an entire culture to the Mandalorians that they know everything about,’’ says Pascal of Favreau and Filoni. ‘‘The history to this particular individual is teased out with very, very specific intention and, so far, a pretty specific plan.’’
Favreau explained that the series would take Star Wars
Cara Dune, as well as Carl Weathers as Greef Carga, the leader of the bounty hunter guild that puts Pascal’s Mando in contact with a mysterious highpaying client (played by Werner Herzog).
Carano, whose first day on set involved hopping on a blurrg, explained that director Bryce Dallas Howard had a lot of input on Cara’s costume.
‘‘You don’t [often] get people that pay that close attention to how I’m going to feel in [costume],’’ says Carano of Howard’s attention to detail. ‘‘How I feel affects my character, you know, so when I put [the armour] on, I feel like I still have my feminine figure and I still could run a person over like a Mack truck.’’
Howard is one of the few women to direct a live-action Star Wars project (the first was Victoria Mahoney, the second unit director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker).
In addition to Howard and Filoni, Rick Famuyiwa, Deborah Chow and Taika Waititi were directors on the eight-episode first season.
For Pascal, what sets The Mandalorian apart from the rest of Star Wars is its moral ambiguity.
‘‘With the previous Star Wars experiences, I think that the worlds of good and evil are so defined,’’ says Pascal.
‘‘This is a new territory in a world that is so familiar to us. These lines of good and bad are much harder to define. It’s a much more dangerous territory.’’
PEDRO PASCAL
The Mandalorian debuts, along with the rest of the Disney+ streaming service, in New Zealand on Tuesday.