I genuinely do like Star Wars. I’m sure that I’ve gotten some eyebrows raised over that point after ranting about how much the sequels suck or the changes I would make to the prequels or whatnot. A joke in the fandom is, “You’re not a real Star Wars fan unless you hate everything but the original trilogy – and out of them, only the Empire Strikes Back”.
I only rant so much because I love Star Wars so much. If I didn’t care, why would I bother? I’m sure a lot of the fanbase feels the same.
The Mandalorian came just when Star Wars had in my opinion hit rock bottom – the point where the drinking starts, or you run out of mobile casino bonuses. The Sequel trilogy was in full swing, The Clone Wars cartoon had been cancelled, and the last half-decent Star Wars thing that had been produced was Rogue One. And by virtue of, well, not being terrible, it became a huge success among the fans and was one of the main reasons people picked up Disney+.
I recently got roped into watching the series again, and I wanted to put down my thoughts again to see how they differ. Was I swept away by the hype before, or is The Mandalorian genuinely good?
We’re Going on a Trip, on a Magic Rocket Ship…
The cold open to the pilot introduces us to “Mando”. Mando is surprise surprise, a Mandalorian bounty hunter who scours the galaxy for odd jumps in order to collect Beskar- the unique Mandalorian metal that’s used in their iconic armor. You know, the stuff that can stop the weapons that can cut through anything.
The plot begins when Mando gets hired by the Empire to bring in a specific target. From the get-go, it’s pretty clear that the Empire ain’t what it used to be. This group is hiding out in a backwater town in the middle of nowhere, with Stormtroopers whose armor hasn’t been polished to a shine in who knows how long. But whatever, they’re paying, right?
Well, Mando easily tracks down the target to a fortified bandit camp, and with the help of a bounty hunter droid, he manages to get in. To his surprise, he finds that the target isn’t some dissident or bandit or Rebel target. Instead, he finds a strange, alien baby- a baby that looks very familiar to every Star Wars fan and was probably scientifically engineered to death to make it the cutest thing ever put to screen.
That’s when Mando makes a decision that changes his life forever… he shows mercy and compassion.
This is Where the Fun Begins
So it’s at this point where the plot begins… and sort of stalls too. The show becomes nearly comically formulaic as Mando goes from episode to episode and gets roped into helping out in the adventure of the week. Which would be fine if it was Mando doing odd jobs as part of bounty hunting, but a lot of it just feels like Side Quests to pad out the plot.
If you’re not familiar with the video game lingo, a lot of video games often had Characters give the players Quests- but since it would take a gazillion years to make intricate and intriguing quests for every character, a lot of them would be simple tasks like “Collect Five Boar Tusks”.
These quests that didn’t advance the plot of the game in the slightest are collectively called “Side Quests” and are usually dotted around for low-effort padding to make the game feel longer and larger. Games like World of Warcraft love these sorts of quests, as they force the players to extend their playtime in order to grind the various, often arbitrary, things that the random quest-giver wanted.
And since World of Warcraft used to be a subscription service, longer playtimes meant more money. And then, because World of Warcraft was so popular, other RPGs copied the formula (although Side Quests have been around for longer than World of Warcraft, but it’s probably the best example).
This is what a lot of the episodes of The Mandalorian feel like. Side Quests added into the show in order to pad out each season to a modest length of ten episodes. For instance, immediately after collecting “The Child”, Mando returns to his ship to find that Jawas had disassembled his ship and stole whatever they could before they left.
In order to get it all back, Mando makes a deal with them to collect… an egg. It’s literally a collection quest! Then when it’s done, he rebuilds his ship and is on his way.
I mean, come on, I know making shows are expensive, but if you’re only going to be making ten half-hour episodes, then they should at least all be pretty relevant to the overall plot. And the majority of the episodes are like this too. Admittedly, this does get better by the second season, but I think it’s still significant enough to be worth mentioning.
Characters
Overall, there’s really on a handful of characters even worth mentioning, as a number of them don’t appear more than once.
Mando himself is pretty interesting, as he’s significantly different from the other Mandalorians that have been introduced in the franchise up to this point. Unlike Boba or Jango Fett, Mando seems to have an almost spiritual connection to his duty. He never removes his helmet in front of others, and he lives an almost monastic life- that is when he isn’t murderin’ people for cash.
His moral code (not to mention his actual fighting capabilities) seems to change from episode to episode. There’s one episode that comes to mind where he’s basically Batman. Then there are others where he gets his butt handed to him. It’s probably because the show has multiple writers, who each get handed a side quest to write out, and they each have a slightly different take on the character they’re trying to go for. So it’s not very noticeable unless you’re an annoying, nit-picking nerd, like yours truly.
There aren’t really many other characters that come to mind worth talking about. Carl Weathers plays a character named Greef Karga, who’s sort of a low-budget Lando Calrissian more than anything else.
Cara Dune’s character is more interesting to talk about outside of the context of the show because of the “controversy” that surrounded Cara Dune herself. Giancarlo Esposito (who played Gus on Breaking Bad) is as awesome as ever, although it is a bit weird hearing him speak without a Hispanic accent- also, he plays a bit of a generic villain who shows up only in a handful of episodes.
More interesting are the characters that are coming over from The Clone Wars cartoon for their live-action debut. I won’t spoil which characters they are, but it’s pretty obvious once they appear. Obviously, this is fan service, and my only major problem with it is that there can be a bit of confusion as to the importance of these characters.
A lot of adults (myself included, actually) haven’t actually watched the cartoon all the way through (or at all), so all the built-up lore and history of these characters is lost on the audience. It’s not super important to the plot, but to someone completely unfamiliar with these characters, it can feel like they’ve missed something.
Oh yeah, Bill Burr’s character is kind of fun. He only appears in two episodes, but they’re both pretty good episodes. So there’s that.
Final Thoughts
I ended up realizing that the Mandalorian had two very important things going for it: First, it’s one of the first pieces of Star Wars content that a majority of the fanbase can agree is any good. Second, it was released during a Star Wars slump, after Kathleen Kennedy (current president of Lucasfilms), and by extension, Disney took control of the franchise.
The point is, there wasn’t a very high bar. It just had to be better than The Last Jedi and make more logical sense than The Rise of Skywalker, which was released a month after The Mandalorian. Neither of these things are very high bars, so long as you have some respect for the franchise.
The Mandalorian definitely accomplishes these things, but again, that’s low-hanging fruit. On its own, it’s a fairly decent adventure about a space cowboy learning the true meaning of Christmas- I mean, fatherhood. While I could gripe about the fanservice bits, it’s kind of impossible to avoid with a franchise as massive and interconnected as Star Wars.
Now, how does it scale compared to other amazing TV shows? In terms of just comparing The Mandalorian to other Star Wars stuff, the bar is pretty low. However, comparing The Mandalorian to other amazing television, like Deep Space Nine, Breaking Bad, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, it doesn’t even come close.
Is that a fair comparison? Not in the slightest. With all the shenanigans going on with Disney, plus all the complications caused by Covid, on top of the fact that The Mandalorian has only had two seasons so far, I’m really doing the show a disservice by comparing it to TV series produced more than a decade ago.
The Mandalorian could very well make it into an all-time favorite with a season or two that really delves into its characters. At the moment, the only characters who get much screen time for their character development is Mando and The Child. This is a bit of a shame, but I think it could be pulled off into something greater.
Person of Interest, for example, followed a pretty formulaic framework but eventually sprawled into a massive conspiracy and added some much-needed depth to its protagonist John- who was basically hired muscle, just like Mando is.
Is the Mandalorian by any means bad? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t have just bought a LEGO Mandalorian set for a certain little relative if I thought that. It’s a very fun show that reminds me of classic shows like The A-Team or Knightrider, where the characters are always getting roped into various adventures every week.
Was the Mandalorian over-hyped? Probably. Should you watch it? If you’re a Star Wars fan, absolutely. It’s fun, wholesome, and is made by people who clearly care.
Thoughts and opinions of Danor Aliz