Here’s why!
1: Distills the essential ingredients from the original trilogy, yet does not clone its recipes. Eg: ‘This is the way’ = the new ‘May the force be with you’.
2: There is a serial, western adventure style and structure. Samurai in space culture. Creatures, pirates, perils of all sorts. Hinting at some larger story arcs, whilst remaining fairly self contained. As in, this is the kind of fan fiction we all envisaged in the era after RETURN OF THE JEDI. You do not need to repeat the Empire (looking at you, First Order!) to provide satisfying threats, villains, quests etc.
3: Family friendly and cute. Yes. As in Ewok/ Critter adorable. BABY YODA is THE toy asset that was missing for so long from this franchise.
4: Pedro Pascal has a kind of Harrison Ford quality. Competent action adventure hero actor but also an everyman quality.
5: Great visuals on the budget given, whilst accommodating and even enjoying those limitations. Occasional Easter egg nods to the movies’ aesthetic eras help punctuate the small scale stuff with nods to the bigger picture.
6: Gives the people what they WANT! Luke Skywalker in action. Dark sabres. Bounty Hunter action. Republic being rebuilt but remaining imperfect, without getting bogged down in space politics. Great score, sound effects, big bangs for that Disney Plus buck etc.
7: Much of the great progress above is down to JON FAVREAU. What would one expect? The guy gave us IRON MAN. He helped launch Marvel on film. Now he is saving STAR WARS.
THIS IS THE WAY!
SEASON 3. THE MANDALORIAN. STREAMING, WEEKLY, ON DISNEY PLUS.
