REVIEW:  The Mandalorian Chapter 1

Sing in me, o Muse, and tell of that Mandalorian! A warrior, a hunter. A light in times of darkness! A herald of a new age!

SOME MINOR SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I don’t want to oversell this, but the Mandalorian exceeds any expectations I had for it; and my expectations, like a lot of people’s, were pretty high.You just knew Favreau was going to get it right, and boy does he. The Mandalorian leans hard into the Western genre, more so even than Solo; but it does it in all the right ways. The laconic, nameless bounty hunter who ambles in to town. The old homesteader who you just know probably had some kind of life of adventure before settling down. The quick-draw gunfights. The Western’s lasting appeal has been its presentation of a lawless time and place where a rugged individual could make their own way on their own terms, and that’s just what we get here as well. It’s not just the Western that The Mandalorian draws from, there is this almost post-apocalyptic feel to it mixed with sword and sandals fantasy.. When our hero ventures back to some sort of Mandalorian compound, we get tantalizing glimpses of others dressed in armor; he visits this priestess, who fashions another piece of armor for him from the beskar he has acquired. It’s like something out of a ‘30’s pulp story, or an ‘80’s fantasy movie.

We start with the Mandolorian picking up a bounty on a barren, icy planet. It’s the classic guy walks into a bar and people immediately want to fight with him scenario. When one of his antagonists gets cut in half by a door, you know this show means business; and all that was just to get to the guy he was after. Every few seconds (literally) is a reference to something from the last 40 years of Star Wars, and yes, most of it is OT stuff. From the long snooted Kubaz who summons a shuttle (driven by Brian Posehn!), to the many aliens we see lining the streets and inside the cantinas; but none of it feels forced, or pandering. It just feels like it should in the Galaxy we’ve all known and inhabited for so long. And it feels fairly grounded too, when we see how the fall of the Empire has destabilized local economies courtesy of our hero’s conversation with Carl Weathers. From there the Mando goes to see Werner Herzog. We learn nothing about him except that he has some scientist working for him and is protected by dirty Stormtroopers. He wears an intriguing but unexplained medal around his neck. Is he a former Imperial whose troops now act as mercenaires for him? He sends the Mando with no name off on a high paying bounty; the scientist wants the target alive, but Werner heavily implies that proof of death will be sufficient, much to the scientist’s chagrin.

The Mando then travels to the last known whereabouts of the target, and at this point, he encounters Nick Nolte’s Kuill, a grizzled old Ugnaught homesteader. This is where I should point out how great the pacing is in this show. The momentum could have slowed too much here, but it doesn’t. When he is having to learn how to ride the blurrg, you think, oh man, this is going to take forever; but it doesn’t. We move quickly to the final battle, where IG-11 shows up as another bounty hunter on the same case. The rivals decide to team up and Taika Waititi is a delight as IG-11, just like you knew he would be. In addition to being a sight to behold in a gunfight, IG-11 provides some great humor. And when the two of them get past all the guards and finally find this target they were looking for...I’m not even going to say; but holy crap, you guys!! ERMAHGERD!! The story ends way too soon and you think, well the fun is over for a while; but even the credits are awesome. They roll over what looks like concept paintings for the show accompanied by a theme that could have been from the end of a 60’s TV western.

Some people think that a new era of Star Wars started 4 years ago. It didn’t. It started on November 12, 2019. It started with The Mandalorian.

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