How The Mandalorian Plans To Fix Star Wars’ Biggest Mistake

The pair have also brought a significant portion of the Star Wars animated universe into live action, including Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), who have appeared in The Mandalorianand Cad Bane (Corey Burton) in Boba Fett’s book. (Still on our wish list: Assaj Ventress, Ezra Bridger, and Grand Admiral Thrawn.)

“George always understood those connections,” adds Favreau. “So you see the kids who grew up on the Star Wars movie prequels, who are adults now, and they have a tremendous emotional connection to those characters, those storylines, and the music.”

The success of The Mandalorianaka bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is easy to unravel: an authentic blend of nostalgia and new experiences, bringing new characters and stories to familiar places like the planet Tattooine, and nesting within the previously established mixed characters of Star-Wars -Tales like Jedi Master Luke Skywalker or underworld thug Cad Bane.

For Favreau and Filoni, however, each step is still very cautious. Both say they’re never quite sure they’re getting it right, although the consensus among fans is that they’re delivering Star Wars in its A-game. “I’m always comfortable with where we are, and then sometimes you get flowers and sometimes you get a bucket of cold water,” says Favreau.

“Our process is the same: let’s stay true to what came before, let’s all acknowledge Star Wars around us,” adds Favreau. “Let’s find out what George’s vision was, and then we try to tell a story that has mythic integrity, like George intended.” So we stand by it.

“We show our best. That’s part of the fun, honestly, because we don’t know. And people certainly have opinions about where things should go. So I hope we take them on a journey [that] It may surprise them, but it ultimately makes them really happy.”

Favreau and Filoni are optimistic about Australia becoming the host of a Star Wars series. Australia has a rich history in storytelling from Star Wars: The Second and Third of the Movie Prequels, attack of the Clone warriors (2002) and Vengeance of the Sith (2005), created here. And Disney-owned visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) launched a local franchise in 2019.

“Certainly the artistry is there and the great crews, great production and great effects come from this part of the world,” says Favreau. “Right now we’re all building on a lot that’s working out of Manhattan Beach and we’re using technology that’s geared towards that, but there are very compelling reasons to have productions Down Under. Everything is a possibility.”

At the heart of the very greatest pop culture franchises, especially Star Wars, is a fan-as-shareholder relationship that needs to be carefully managed. The billion-dollar company was built on box office, and what ticket stubs are are de facto stock certificates. For generations that have plowed billions of dollars in pocket money into movie tickets, stock market fears are real.

“People have invested in their relationship with Star Wars, as they have with many other intellectual property rights,” says Favreau. “In our case, we inherit something created by George Lucas. And there are people who have put a lot of time and a lot of emotional energy into these stories.

“So we want to make sure we don’t take that lightly and we want to make sure we work as hard as we’re expected to to make sure we’re doing our best,” Favreau added. “Not everyone sees everything the same way, but we don’t want it to be due to a lack of care and effort.”

This transaction is always changing, adds Favreau. “Hopefully we can allow existing fans to feel like they once did and invite a new audience to keep Star Wars moving on. These people could use this as an entry and take a look around. So many people are watching clone wars after [The Mandalorian].

“These are opportunities [for the audience to] feel like they’re glimpsing something so they can explore it more deeply,” says Favreau. “It is our responsibility to leave Star Wars as good, if not better, than we found it. So that it can be passed on to the next storytellers and these iconic characters can live on.”

A BOBA EVERY WAY: HOW GROGU RETURNED TO MANDO

Even for die-hard fans, the return of Grogu – aka The Child, or simply Baby Yoda – to his adoptive parents’ side in the new season of The Mandalorian comes as a bit of a surprise. In the final episode of the show’s second season, Grogu left Mando to study with Luke Skywalker.

The missing link in the story is found in another Star Wars series, Boba Fett’s book. This series focused on the exploits of former bounty hunters Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) on the planet Tattooine, after Fett reclaimed the legendary desert palace of the Star Wars franchise’s most famous crime lord, Jabba the Hutt .

Here is the brief history so far. The first season of The Mandalorian opened five years after the events of the Star Wars film Return of the Jediin which the Rebel Alliance, led by Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo, destroyed the second Death Star and overthrew the Empire.

What remains in the Empire’s retinue are “Remnants of the Empire,” power factions vying for supremacy in the outer rim of space. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a Mandalorian bounty hunter, was hired to recover “the asset,” but upon realizing the asset in question was a Force-sensitive child, he instead chose to save the child from the sinister ones to protect forces that hunt it.

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The last three episodes of Boba Fett’s book Bridge the gap between the second and third seasons of The Mandalorian. In it, Luke Skywalker gives Grogu the choice to stay as a Jedi-in-training or return to Din Djarin’s side. Grogu chooses Mando.

They also explain the historical significance of the Darksaber, the weapon Mando took from Moff Gideon last season. It’s the planet Mandalore’s equivalent of Excalibur: that is, whoever wields it is heir to the throne of Mandalore. But after revealing he took his helmet off in front of Grogu – defection from the orthodox Children of the Watch – Din is told he’s not a true Mandalorian anymore.

The Mandalorian is on Disney+.

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