The Mandalorian

Hats off to anyone who has been managing to thrive in lockdown, but with one exception.  It’s a massive boo hiss boo for Jeff Bezos of Amazon (the company, not the rainforest) as he’s grown far too wealthy and everyone is jealous they haven’t got the same amount of cash to spend on all that cardboard his deliveries are overpackaged in.  With this in mind, and having stopped buying anything on Amazon a while back (they’re not even on the Avios online shop), I finally cancelled my Amazon Prime membership.  I wasn’t bothered about next-day delivery, but I did want to make sure I had watched the final series of Vikings.  But where did I stick my spare monthly seven quid or so instead?  Well, I don’t think The Walt Disney Company are that hard up (I assume it’s run like Succession), but I became the proud owner of a shiny new Disney+ account (via a points-busting special offer on the Avios online shop).  I wanted to catch up with everyone else and, in particular, the sixty-seventh best TV show according to current IMDb ratings (an Amazon company – whoops); the time had come to watch The Mandalorian.

Let’s firstly digress into my history with the world of Star Wars.  In short, I was never that arsed with it.  I even spent five early years of my career running all of the TV sponsorships for LEGO Star Wars and mostly spent that time wondering what a Mace Windu was.  With nothing else to do, I decided to test-drive the Disney+ experience with a film a night in chronological order (by storyline, not production date).  Well, what a roller coaster of nine evenings that was (plus another two sessions for the standalone films).  Turned out, of the three trilogies, I had seen about three films once and two many times, and the rest never at all.  And there was no way of knowing which was which as the names are all a bit similar, aren’t they?  Nevertheless, I came to treasure 7pm, fresh from my commute home (from the seat in my poxy home office corner over to the sofa on the other side of the same room I have been in alone the whole day) settling down to the rousing orchestral swelling of the theme music (that’s what she said), accompanied by the PowerPoint of the scrolling plot prompts, keeping me abreast of the latest trade route taxation disputes.  Disbelief suspended, I willingly bought into the richly imagined universe of a galaxy far far away.  I can’t be doing with superheroes, but I am happy to tolerate clone armies, light sabres and the Force being with people.  It’s a bit like Game Of Thrones, only make it super PG and throw in some crazy vehicles.  My further observations are below:

1. Health and safety doesn’t seem to be a concern for the Dark Side.  Every Imperial construction might look all shiny and new, but there’s nary a handrail in sight.  No wonder people are always falling over the edge of very high walkways.  With my vertigo, I’d be straight off the side.  I don’t suppose it matters as these are normally the settings where people are getting an arm chopped off anyway.

2. Talking of the Imperial forces, why is everyone so bad at shooting?  I’m assuming the Stormtroopers go through some basic training, but about 100% of each plot hinges on the fact they’re never on target.  It’s their only job.

3.Inconceivable technological advancements have made rapid interplanetary transport a reality for what looks like quite a low entry cost.  Yet most of the populations we see are eking out their livings as subsistence farmers.  Let’s live in poverty, but have automatic doors.

4. Those not languishing in barren deserts can be found in one of many daytime drinking establishments.  Always full to the brim with plenty of extra-terrestrial ne’er-do-wells (and spoilt for choice with live music options) it’s clear the costume department has had a field day imagining an array of impractical lifeforms.

5. While galactic diversity is celebrated, huge chunks of dialogue are conducted inexplicably in two languages.  Whether it’s a droid doing some beeping or a Wookiee gurgling, an English-speaking cast member will always reply in their own tongue, with nobody querying how they’ve deciphered complex instructions from what sounds like a fax machine coming online.

6. Whole planets have single habitats and people give locations in terms of the planet itself.  Imagine asking where something was and being told “Earth” only Earth is just one desert that all looks the same.  Well, that’s Star Wars.

7. The Stormtrooper outfits.  We all know single-use plastic is a bad thing, but their armour offers literally no blaster protection at all.  Even punching their helmets knocks them out.

8. This works out well for the fact that most shootouts happen in corridors, often with nooks and crannies to hide behind while someone strides out, blaster aloft, making the classic command, “Cover me.”  I don’t even know what that means.

But this is all part of the charm.  A slightly camp, family-friendly imagining of a futuristic society with a late seventies/early eighties perspective on technology results in a world where swords and cloaks mix with spaceships and robots, creating a compelling terrain on which good can battle evil and we can be really clear who we’re rooting for.

As a modern update, The Mandalorian gives us a bit more of a grey area.  I’m sure these Mandos have many beliefs, but their most central tenet is keeping their helmets on.  This means, throughout its two seasons, we see hardly any of our star, Pedro Pascal.  His ever-present voice lends some of his trademark charisma to proceedings (as seen in Narcos and Game Of Thrones (Season Four)) but he’s otherwise comfined to his armour, giving us more time to admire the Disney-est thing about the whole show: a little baby “Yoda”.  Perhaps the whole treatment started with a merchandising idea, but let’s just go for it.  Our Mando is a ruthless bounty hunter till he sets eyes on the cute one.  From then on, we’re basically viewing a multi-planet babysitters’ club, but it’s all great fun.

The fun is directly proportional to the budget, with everything looking very expensive.  Our hero’s ship, the Razor Crest, features heavily, even finally answering the question of whether these things have toilets on them.  Every time we set off, Mando must flick and click a great number of switches in his cockpit, perpetuating the legacy of Star Wars’ analogue origins.  If it were being imagined now, he’d just have an iPad in there.  Yet, sitting down each day at my home office desk, turning on all my various bits of gubbins, I too am able to imagine I am some sort of Star Wars pilot preparing my ship.  On goes the laptop, the big screen, the speakers, the lamp, the wireless mouse and keyboard.  I’m not taking on the Empire but some of my work emails are rather fiery.  Try it yourself.

But yes, back to the show.  It’s a big tick from me.  I had to come to terms with the fact that this is basically a western.  This Mandalorian is the most lonesome of rangers, with each episode featuring an almost self-contained micro-mission en route to the great big mission of the series finale.  I’m not normally a fan of moving from setting to setting, but each lush spectacle of a new planet is a further glimpse into the inner workings of the Star Wars world.  I wanted to stop and see what each person was doing.  I mean, where is everyone going in all those Empire corridors?  You can be certain of quality viewing, though.  All I could suggest to elevate things is some actual gore.  Let’s be clear, most of our adventures involve an absolute massacre of Stormtroopers, yet the violence can have a cartoonish quality.  At one point, I was reminded of Power Rangers, and nobody wants that.  I won’t suggest, however, that we investigate more intimate activities in pursuit of that adult rating, as I have already pointed out that fervent Mandalorians don’t take their helmets off, much less, I imagine, their breeches.  There’s plenty of other action to enjoy, and you’ve always got Bridgerton/Industry/Euphoria/Normal People if you need some rumpy pumpy.