The Mandalorian live-action Disney Plus series continues to wed new creators, characters, and storylines together to enhance the offerings and extend the Lucasfilm family tree.
Season 3 dug deep into the myths of Mandalore, the leadership and spiritual growth of Bo-Katan Kryze, and the evolution of the father/son relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu. Outside elements like the Imperial remnants, pirates, and spies within the New Republic continue to put the galaxy at risk, but there are those who keep fighting for what is right as numerous heros’s journeys play out.
And during this process, Lucasfilm and Disney Plus appear to bless these marriages of creativity, merging production techniques and people from the Original Trilogy to those of today. The matrimony theme, playfully inserted for this review, celebrates The Mandalorian as it delivers elements of a Lancashire Old English rhyme from the 19th century while sharing a behind-the-scenes look at Season 3. Here is just a sampling of what this show offered upon launching on June 28, 2023.
Something old
Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau kept the production of The Mandalorian: Season 3 old school with models, stop-motion, and the inclusion of a major contributor to the Original Trilogy.
“Part of what our memory is of Star Wars from growing up is a lot of it is Phil’s aesthetic…Phil Tippett was one of the original collaborators with George Lucas, and we thought Phil would be great to collaborate with on what Mandalore would look like.”
There are also call-backs to the Prequel Trilogy, especially an explanation by Lee Isaac Chung, director of “Chapter 19: The Convert.” His approach to the opera house on Coruscant, originally viewed in Revenge of the Sith, shows some of the exact same locations but from a different camera angle.
Something new:
More voices and leadership joined the directorial ranks for Season 3. Chung, Peter Ramsay (“Chapter 21: The Pirate”), and Rachel Morrison (“Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore”) brought fresh blood and different background experience to the storytelling but kept the Star Wars DNA. Morrison made it simple when discussing how she approached her opportunity to direct an episode.
“I think with my heart, I shoot with my heart,” explained Morrison, director of photography for Black Panther in 2018. “Our currency is empathy and emotion. And that translates whether it’s physically and technically through the lens or working with an actor and making them feel something.”
For Morrison’s episode, it was interesting to learn the design approach and primarily blank-slate production of the devastated Mandalore and how that impacted costume choices for the local survivors.
Something borrowed
Returning to Coruscant. Doug Chang, vice president, and executive creative director of Lucasfilm, explains how he and Lucas previously conceived almost all of the massive city-planet in 1995. But an aspect Chang, the episode director, gets incredibly excited about is “this very unique form language for these speeders. Air taxis.” Here Chang describes it less as borrowing and more as design continuity.
This visionary talks over concept art stills, the blue screen capture of the air taxi, and the actual footage from the season, showing Dr. Pershing arriving at the Amnesty Housing platform while Chang explains, “It’s almost exactly the same, same color palette. And we just made it into our own bespoke version for our show.”
Favreau and Filoni suggested Chung adopt a genre to place his episode in stylistically. So he borrowed from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, to help push the narrative of Pershing and Elia Kane and the “recovering” Imperials.
Something blue
During this season we get more Death Watch/Night Owls and their blue-based Mandalorian armor. It is special because we see this group, led by Bo-Katan, slowly integrating into the hodge-podge of Mandalorian survivors wearing different colors. They are stronger together and it does take the expertise and numbers of all the Mandalorians to overcome Moff Gideon and his hidden lab within their former capital.
This “Making of” special picks up where others have left off, providing new details, fun outtakes, and the artistry, creativity, and pressure of responsibility that each individual carries as they share their vision of this special galaxy while working with an ever-growing family.
- Barnes, Rodney (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 144 Pages - 11/21/2023 (Publication Date) - Licensed Publishing (Publisher)
