5 Reasons Why I Can Barely Contain My Excitement For The Mandalorian

The cast is absolutely amazing. We've long known that Pedro Pascal, most commonly recognized as Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones, would helm the series. But in the past few days I learned that it was only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently the rest of the cast has been known to the wider nerd-sphere for a while, but it was news to me. I've been accused of living under a rock recently, so Celebration was my first time seeing sunlight in a while.

Gina Carano (Deadpool and Fast & Furious 6) stars as Cara Dune, an ex-Rebel shocktrooper. She brings real world credentials to the role courtesy of her MMA resume. If you grew up with Star Wars, you also grew up with Carl Weathers. As Apollo Creed from Rocky, Dillon from Predator, and 'Action' Jackson from the movie of the same name, Weathers is a fixture in our non-Star Wars pop culture coming of age. Adding Star Wars to his resume is almost poetic. If you're not a child of the 70's/80's, he's Happy Gilmore's golf coach. Finally, GUS FRING! So far IMBD only credits Giancarlo Espiosito as appearing in the premiere episode, but still, GUS FRING! If that doesn't excite you, you probably hate donuts.


I trust Favreau with any nerd property implicitly. I've long said that prior to 2005's Batman Begins and 2008's Iron Man, there was no such thing a good movie that was based on a comic book. There were good comic book movies, but if they weren't based on a property you already loved, you'd likely never give them a second thought. Favreau directed 2008's Iron Man and it transcends the genre. If that movie were an original story, it would stand on its own. He's one of us, and more importantly, he absolutely gets it. To that point...


There's a common notion in the music industry. It goes that if you want to sound like Led Zeppelin, you don't get there by listening to Led Zeppelin. If all you do is listen to Zep, the best you'll achieve is sounding like a high quality cover band, but lacking the soul of the original. (Say, does that sound like a good description of Disney Star Wars so far?) It's an impersonation. If you want to sound like Led Zeppelin, you need to listen to their influences and hope to draw a similar conclusions. It might sound different, but it will have soul and be evocative of the inspiration while also being its own thing. As everyone knows, the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa and the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone were huge influences on the Original Trilogy. When Favreau explicitly told his actors to study those sources, it was a watershed moment. That guy gets it. Have I said that yet? Pedro Pascal even took things one step further...


Pascal explicitly mentioned that he drew a lot of inspiration from Clint Eastwood western characters for his performance as the Mandalorian. Eastwood's bounty hunter character in Sergrio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was the direct inspiration for Boba Fett in the OT. In fact, elements of the Boba Fett prototype design border on plagiarism. It's another case of The Mandalorian striking Star Wars bedrock. If you've seen the teaser footage, aspects of Pascal's mannerisms jump off the screen as Eastwood-esque. THIS. IS. BRILLIANT.


Finally there's this. Did you catch who was tending bar in the cantina? If it's not actually her, it's a pretty close facsimile.

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