The Mandalorian brings Western sweep and Werner Herzog to the Star Wars universe – The A.V. Club

The plot of The Mandalorians premiere episode is very simple. A bounty hunter catches an escaped criminal and returns him to his boss. Dissatisfied with the middling jobs on offer, he agrees to take a mysterious commission from an enigmatic figure. He dons his armor and mounts his horseor bluurg (blerg? blurgh?), as the case may beand takes off across the desert. After a gunfight, he locates his target. Even the title of the episode is straightforward: Its simply called Chapter One.

Star Wars has always had an elemental quality to its storytelling, drawing as it does from Joseph Campbell and his heros journey. That folkloric quality contrasts with George Lucas (and all subsequent Star Wars creatives) specific and intriguing world-building, which has inspired such monumentally detailed achievements in nerdery as Wookieepedia, The Star Wars Wiki. Part of that can be attributed to the fundamental nature of nerds, but theres also something about the way Star Wars gives you just enough that allows imaginations to go wild.

The Mandalorian is the product of that same imagination, an entire series spun off from a character who only delivers four lines in Star Wars: Episode VThe Empire Strikes Back. That would be Boba Fett, who belongs to a nomadic tribe of mercenaries and bounty hunters from the planet Mandalorthus, The Mandalorian. Boba Fett is deador, technically, in the early stages of the agonizing thousand-year digestive process of the sarlaccwhen this new series opens, in the lawless outer reaches of the galaxy during the reconstruction period after the events of Return Of The Jedi. We dont yet know the name of the mysterious bounty hunter played by Pedro Pascal who stars in the series, nor is it likely that we ever will. We also probably wont see his face, as Mandalorians, as several characters point out in Chapter One, never take off their masks.

And thats appropriate, as the character from film history that the Mandalorian resembles most is Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name from Sergio Leones Dollars trilogy. (In what cannot be a coincidence, Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch says his portrayal of Fett was also inspired by Eastwood.) Leone was also a key influence on Lucas original Star Wars trilogy, and The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau leans into the Spaghetti Western aesthetic even before we get to the shot of the Mandalorian peering over a rocky cliff under harsh desert sunlight at the dusty outpost crawling with gunslingers below. The sets for the show, on which no expense was reportedly spared, have a wonderfully textured, dusty, lived-in quality to them, calling back to the original Star Wars and the period before Lucas became obsessed with tinkering his creations into incoherence.

The epic sweep and casual nihilism of Spaghetti Westerns are evident from the opening scenes of Chapter One: both the windswept ice plains and the indifferent reactions of the cantina patrons to the Mandalorian chopping a dude in half are straight out of one of an Italian B-Western. But the comparisons really resonate in the hail of blaster fire that leads up to the reveal of Disneys big secret Star Wars revealwhich I honestly didnt mind, especially compared to a similar revelation at the end of Soloat the end of the episode. Its really not much of a leap from that laser cannon to the machine gun Django drags around the desert in Sergio Corbuccis 1966 original.

But while I expected a strong Western influence based on what Favreau had to say about the show at Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, what I wasnt expecting was for the debut episode to be so playful. Much was made of Taika Waititis voice role as bounty droid IG-11 on The Mandalorian, but honestly, aside from the occasional kiwi-accented word, I could barely tell it was him. The Mandalorian was funnier with the Han Solo-esque timing of his quips in the climactic action scenes, andas much as I love TaikaI felt that both Nick Nolte and Saturday Night Lives Horatio Sanz brought more personality to their bit parts in Chapter One. Sanz in particular was very entertaining, as the hapless Mythrol the Mandalorian captures and freezes in carbonite at the beginning of the episode.

But my personal MVP of Chapter One was, unsurprisingly for anyone who knows me, was Werner Herzog, who simply loves playing a villain and will seemingly take any bad-guy role he can get. It is truly surreal to hear the director of Fitzcarraldo pronounce words like blaster, fob, and beskar (thats the metal the Mandalorian takes to the smith played by a masked Gina Carano, if youre not steeped in Star Wars lore) in that iconic German accent. But Herzogs role isnt just a novelty. His character, The Client, seems to be some sort of exiled Imperial officer, or at least an Imperial sympathizer. And given the parallels between the Empire and the Nazis, that lends The Mandalorian an intriguing Boys From Brazil kind of vibe, particularly this chilling line: It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray, dont you agree?

For the time being, the Mandalorian is on the side of the Empire-in-exile. Hes working for them, at the very least. But that may change soon, based on the bounty hunters reaction to seeing his target for the first time. There isnt much for us to go on in terms of the characters personality and where hell go from here, except for how bounty hunters and other such scum (Im thinking of a certain handsome smuggler here) have behaved when given the opportunity for heroism in other Star Wars movies. And honestly, with Star Wars, oftentimes thats enough. So while The Mandalorians debut is pretty thin, its also got a lot of wide open spaces to expand into.

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The Mandalorian brings Western sweep and Werner Herzog to the Star Wars universe - The A.V. Club