Disney’s new hope for Star Wars a dark take

Never heard of a Mandalorian? You’re not alone. Actor Pedro Pascal hadn’t either when he started talking to Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni about an ambitious new Star Wars series that would become a marquee offering for the Walt Disney Company’s new streaming service, Disney+, which launches in New Zealand on Tuesday.

But Pascal, known for playing Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones, knew that this Mandalorian character looked a lot like Boba Fett and that was enough for him.

The stoic bounty hunter behind the helmet who made his debut in The Empire Strikes Back became a cultish fan favourite and happened to be Pascal’s preferred action figure as a kid.

When he got out of the meeting and wanted to share the news, he could barely get the words out.

‘‘I was like, ‘They want me to be – it’s not Boba Fett, but it’s like, you remember’,’’ says Pascal, channelling his energy from that day.

‘‘They want me to be the coolest-looking thing in Star Wars, you know? It was a big, geeky moment.’’

Pascal and anyone else scratching their heads about how they might have missed this Mandalorian concept can rest easy: It’s not even a word that’s uttered in the original trilogy. But the idea comes straight from George Lucas himself.

He had envisioned a race of warrior peoples called the Mandalore that ended up getting streamlined into one character

‘‘I had to cut my finger and sign in blood that I would say nothing about it, not even say I was doing it.’’

Carl Weathers

in the films – Boba Fett.

Star Wars literature and series like The Clone Wars

helped keep the Mandalorians alive over the years and it reemerged again when Disney and Lucasfilm started thinking about non-Skywalker ideas for the new streaming service where it’s primed to get its biggest audience yet.

The Lion King and Jungle Book director Favreau was enlisted to executive produce and write for The Mandalorian,

which is set in the franchise’s Outer Rim five years after Return of the Jedi and 25 years before the events of The Force Awakens.

The eight-episode series, which will roll out on a nearweekly basis, follows the title character in his bounty hunting adventures.

The world around him is full of seedy and mysterious characters, like Greef Carga, played by Carl Weathers, who leads a bounty hunter guild, and former soldier Cara Dune, played by Gina Carano.

As with all recent Star Wars properties, details are being kept as secret as possible.

‘‘I had to cut my finger and sign in blood that I would say nothing about it, not even say I was doing it, that I was part of it.

‘‘They’re very protective of Star Wars, the stories, the Mandalorian, the brand, and it makes sense,’’ Weathers says. ‘‘We all want to protect it also.’’

But from early footage and the nature of the bounty hunting profession, The Mandalorian does seem a little darker than your average Star Wars story. It’s been described as a western, leaving it open as to whether the lead characters are good, bad or somewhere in between.

‘‘We can be pulled to any side, any one of us,’’ says Carano. ‘‘Even when you begin the journey with the Mandalorian, you aren’t sure what side you’re on.’’

Pascal agrees that it’s meant to be ambiguous.

‘‘They separate good and evil so perfectly in the world of Star