A review of Disney's new hit show: The mandalorian
There are a lot of things that separate the work of an experienced creator from an inexperienced one. But today, I just want to talk about three: self-awareness, focus, and efficiency. All of these, about how one aspect leads into the next, and in relation to the new Star Wars show: The Mandalorian. Which follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter who goes against the contract when he decides to save his target from being captured.
It all starts with self-awareness. The subtle art of knowing what exactly it is you’re making and why your audience enjoys it. It’s important knowledge to have, because it’s the basis of the next ideas. Focus is homing in on what the audience cares about and devoting resources to improving those aspects to peak performance. Efficiency is the result of this philosophy; it's when every part, every scene, every line of dialogue supports and builds on those core ideas that make the content worth experiencing.
For an example of this done really well, let’s talk about Inception. The core appeals at play here are two-fold: It is first and foremost, a heist movie, the plans and re-plans, the action set pieces, the danger, the intrigue, the fun characters who perform the heist in the first place. This is what makes Inception worth watching, and Christopher Nolan devotes his time and resources to make these as quality as possible.
The second appeal is the character drama surrounding protagonist Cobb and his grief over his wife's death, the death that he caused. But it’s the mark of a true master that these appeals don’t exist in a vacuum; each idea builds upon the other magnificently. The heist makes the character drama more interesting by showing what Cobb learned from the death and what he didn’t, you’re rooting for him to not give in to the honeyed words of her memory and finally move on. The character drama makes the heist more interesting by not only giving you a reason to care whether or not the heist is successful, but also because every new bit of information we learn about Cobb and his relationship with Mal, we slowly begin to realize how deep in jeopardy the mission really is. So when it finally starts, the air is that much more tense.
That is what mastery looks like, and its this quality is the reason I hold The Mandalorian in such high regard.
The Mandalorian doesn’t waste a second establishing what makes it worth your time. We are immediately introduced to a darker, grimier Star Wars; A far cry from the beautiful high-rise setpiece locations, the fate-of-the-universe conflicts, and the black and white morality of the film franchise.
And so it is revealed the first focus of the Mandalorian: Worldbuilding. You can tell how much work and resources went into this aspect of the show when you step back and notice how much of the immense budget was spent on art direction, sets, props and background characters, with one fan noting: “[The Mandalorian’s] extras look like movie instead tv extras, and that’s an important distinction.”
Industry and Star Wars veterans Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni understand the importance of the setting in a show like this. The plot of The Mandalorian is quite literally an “Us against the Universe” type of story, the show would be so much worse off if that universe was made of boring, interchangeable locations, uninspired art direction, and populated by stock characters.
Then we have our first look at the title character, in a scene so classic that Kung Fu Panda parodied it. Our lone, silent badass steps through the saloon doors, a group of thugs that were bullying another character when he came in take an interest, and start instigating our protagonist, not realizing who they are dealing with, they are swiftly and and spectacularly dispatched by our lone hero.
Yup. The second of The Mandalorian’s focuses is revealed: It’s a bona-fide Spaghetti Western baby (with some samurai influences—but then again the whole Spaghetti Western genre is samurai influences). And as such, it’s focused on delivering fun and varied action setpieces, kooky characters and factions, various outlaw or political groups, Indians, and the Long-Arm-of-the-Law trying to tame the Wild, wild West.
And by being so by-the-numbers most of the time, it reveals its greatest strength, and what I’ve been talking about this entire article: Self Awareness. The ability to look at what it is, a Star Wars Western, and ask itself: What makes these genres good? How can we capitalize on that? What makes these genres bad? How can we solve those problems?
For example, The Wild West is a fantastic setting for fun Action-Adventure romps and is surprisingly malleable to different settings, audiences, and tones. But historically, Westerns have been incredibly slow paced, which does a big disservice to a genre that so typically has “Wild” in the name. The Mandalorian is much more efficient with its runtime, a testament to the great structure that Star Wars has always been famous for; Every moment serves a purpose, and because of that, every moment is interesting, it holds your attention and delivers you to the next until it has finished building into the climax of the episode, which is always a new and very high quality action set piece.
In short. The Mandalorian is a show defined by its engaging world, characters and the best action on TV. It revels in its ability to consistently deliver exactly what you wanted, and sometimes then some.
It all starts with self-awareness. The subtle art of knowing what exactly it is you’re making and why your audience enjoys it. It’s important knowledge to have, because it’s the basis of the next ideas. Focus is homing in on what the audience cares about and devoting resources to improving those aspects to peak performance. Efficiency is the result of this philosophy; it's when every part, every scene, every line of dialogue supports and builds on those core ideas that make the content worth experiencing.
For an example of this done really well, let’s talk about Inception. The core appeals at play here are two-fold: It is first and foremost, a heist movie, the plans and re-plans, the action set pieces, the danger, the intrigue, the fun characters who perform the heist in the first place. This is what makes Inception worth watching, and Christopher Nolan devotes his time and resources to make these as quality as possible.
The second appeal is the character drama surrounding protagonist Cobb and his grief over his wife's death, the death that he caused. But it’s the mark of a true master that these appeals don’t exist in a vacuum; each idea builds upon the other magnificently. The heist makes the character drama more interesting by showing what Cobb learned from the death and what he didn’t, you’re rooting for him to not give in to the honeyed words of her memory and finally move on. The character drama makes the heist more interesting by not only giving you a reason to care whether or not the heist is successful, but also because every new bit of information we learn about Cobb and his relationship with Mal, we slowly begin to realize how deep in jeopardy the mission really is. So when it finally starts, the air is that much more tense.
That is what mastery looks like, and its this quality is the reason I hold The Mandalorian in such high regard.
The Mandalorian doesn’t waste a second establishing what makes it worth your time. We are immediately introduced to a darker, grimier Star Wars; A far cry from the beautiful high-rise setpiece locations, the fate-of-the-universe conflicts, and the black and white morality of the film franchise.
And so it is revealed the first focus of the Mandalorian: Worldbuilding. You can tell how much work and resources went into this aspect of the show when you step back and notice how much of the immense budget was spent on art direction, sets, props and background characters, with one fan noting: “[The Mandalorian’s] extras look like movie instead tv extras, and that’s an important distinction.”
Industry and Star Wars veterans Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni understand the importance of the setting in a show like this. The plot of The Mandalorian is quite literally an “Us against the Universe” type of story, the show would be so much worse off if that universe was made of boring, interchangeable locations, uninspired art direction, and populated by stock characters.
Then we have our first look at the title character, in a scene so classic that Kung Fu Panda parodied it. Our lone, silent badass steps through the saloon doors, a group of thugs that were bullying another character when he came in take an interest, and start instigating our protagonist, not realizing who they are dealing with, they are swiftly and and spectacularly dispatched by our lone hero.
Yup. The second of The Mandalorian’s focuses is revealed: It’s a bona-fide Spaghetti Western baby (with some samurai influences—but then again the whole Spaghetti Western genre is samurai influences). And as such, it’s focused on delivering fun and varied action setpieces, kooky characters and factions, various outlaw or political groups, Indians, and the Long-Arm-of-the-Law trying to tame the Wild, wild West.
And by being so by-the-numbers most of the time, it reveals its greatest strength, and what I’ve been talking about this entire article: Self Awareness. The ability to look at what it is, a Star Wars Western, and ask itself: What makes these genres good? How can we capitalize on that? What makes these genres bad? How can we solve those problems?
For example, The Wild West is a fantastic setting for fun Action-Adventure romps and is surprisingly malleable to different settings, audiences, and tones. But historically, Westerns have been incredibly slow paced, which does a big disservice to a genre that so typically has “Wild” in the name. The Mandalorian is much more efficient with its runtime, a testament to the great structure that Star Wars has always been famous for; Every moment serves a purpose, and because of that, every moment is interesting, it holds your attention and delivers you to the next until it has finished building into the climax of the episode, which is always a new and very high quality action set piece.
In short. The Mandalorian is a show defined by its engaging world, characters and the best action on TV. It revels in its ability to consistently deliver exactly what you wanted, and sometimes then some.