IT’S BEEN A full four months since Disney+
and its fl agship show, The Mandalorian,
launched in this country. Four months during
which Baby Yoda grew into an internet
phenomenon, and the Mandalorian mantra
— “This is the way” — became the mic drop at
the end of every third Twitter exchange. If you
haven’t got in on the action yet, then you really
should...although coming off the operatic battles
and galaxy-ending stakes of The Rise Of
Skywalker, Star Wars’ fi rst live-action series
might at fi rst feel underwhelming.
We’re introduced to ‘Mando’ (Pascal) at
a seedy watering hole at the arse-end of space.
After confronting his target (“I can take you in
warm or I can take you in cold”), he picks up his
bounty and goes on his way. It’s the beginning
of a small story, intimately told, and a radical
gear-shift from the propulsive events of the
movies. But the change in tone and scale is
a welcome one. Showrunner Jon Favreau allows
us to wallow in the texture of George Lucas’
galaxy as never before: the grit and grime of his
‘used universe’ placed front and centre in a way
it hasn’t been since Luke and Ben fi rst stepped
into Mos Eisley’s cantina.
It’s to Sergio Leone rather than Lucas
that The Mandalorian owes much of its debt.
With a nameless gunman (Mando’s moniker
is revealed in a later episode but still goes
unused) and dusty, desert frontier towns, the
show deliberately riff s on the Dollars trilogy;
its laconic anti-hero walking into town —
weapons clanking off armour like the jink
of spurs — and leaving a trail of bodies in
his wake. The climax of the fi rst episode in
particular could be lifted from any one of a dozen
Spaghetti Westerns, as gunmen on rooftops
fall to Mando’s quickdraw — plummeting
from perches to a strangled Wilhelm scream.
Ludwig Göransson’s Morricone-inspired score
— with distinctive fl ute motif — only serves to
enhance this eff ect.ON SCREEN
THE MANDALORIAN:
SEASON 1
SHOWRUNNER Jon Favreau
CAST Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers,
Werner Herzog, Nick NoltePLOT Five years after the fall of the Empire,
a Mandalorian gun-for-hire (Pascal) scrapes out
a living tracking down strays for the bounty
hunter’s guild. After accepting an off-the-books
job from a former Imperial (Herzog), he fi nds
himself custodian of a small green child, and
in the middle of a whole lot of trouble.OUT NOW (DISNEY+)
★★★★ EPISODES VIEWED 8 OF 8[TV]