When Disney announced that they were going to launch there own streaming platform I was one of those guys that was like "meh, don't care." I guess I wasn't thinking straight because when I think Disney, I think of cartoons, most of which i have already seen many many times. I feel like a bit of a dolt because I failed to remember that Disney owns just about everything these days, including the exclusive rights to everything Star Wars.
I've made a genuine attempt to make this completely SPOILER-FREE but i know how sensitive people can be about their favorite stuff, especially something like Star Wars. I am only focusing on overall themes and stuff unrelated to what happens in the episode. However, if you like to go in completely blind, maybe skip this
Jon Favreau is a decent actor with a lot of connections in the entertainment industry. However, i feel as though he truly shines as a creator, producer, and writer. Basically he is the Dr. Dre of the tv and movie industry. Therefore, i was quite excited to find out that Favreau has near complete creative control of this entire series.
George Lucas serves as an adviser, but since he sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney for something absurd like $4 billion, they could feature 12 Darth Vaders doing a dance number and there would be nothing he could do about it. Thankfully, Favreau is a life-long fan of the stories and from what I've seen so far is doing a very good job of it.
*The Mandalorian" takes place after the fall of The Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. So basically just a little while after Return of the Jedi. This is not a spoiler, it was in the press junkets and isn't even spelled out in the episodes.
Like a lot of people, I was less than pleased with how Disney handled the recent Star Wars episodes and also thought they tried too hard to make it appealing to kids at the expense of ostracizing their old fans. While it was very understandable why they would do this, since they want to secure a new generation of fans, i was one of the people that was very vocal about how much I was disappointed in it. Then came Rogue One, which was darker and had more of an "adulty" look and feel to it. While it is too early to say for certain, it appears as though Favreau is going for a more adult-oriented audience while making it PG-enough for the youngsters.
The focus of these episodes is on bounty hunters - which was always a very cool aspect of many of the full-length films but was never really focused on very heavily. Therefore, i think for old fans and new, the plot is going to be very interesting.
from the official Star Wars channel
If the above trailer doesn't give you chills then I don't think you can consider yourself a true Star Wars fan.
From a production standpoint I enjoy how they use CGI as sparingly as possible. I am yet to encounter a character who is fully CGI and mostly they are just very carefully contrived puppetry or costumes. I think that I speak for everyone when I say that they officially used all the CGI I was prepared to endure in episodes 1-3. There also hasn't been any sort of political agenda in The Mandalorian such as what we were force-fed in The Last Jedi.
They also use "traditional transition frames" that were so much fun from the original trilogy. I don't know if this makes sense but when you see it, you will know what I am talking about, and if you are a fan you will love it as much as I did.
In closing, i would like to say that just from watching one episode I can already see that this can easily be transitioned into a video game and seeing as how everyone over at Disney kinda likes merchandising and making money (they gotta work off that $4 billion!) I would be willing to bet that there are multiple developers already working on it.
If you are a fan of Star Wars, and I think most people are to a certain degree, you are going to love this. It appears as though Favreau, himself a super-fanboi has a very good knowledge of exactly what fans old and new would like to see and delivers us exactly that.
Mostly i would say that this should be watched by everyone
