Ok, so I\u2019ve never seen \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d TV series. After \u201cThe Last Jedi,\u201d I was 40 years into \u201cStar Wars\u201d and that seemed like enough. Really: I never understood \u201cBaby Yoda\u201d or other references.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re like me, I have good news. You need to know nothing about the series, which ran for three years, in order to enjoy \u201cThe Mandalorian and Grogu.\u201d Director Jon Favreau and his writers have set up such an amiable, easy to get premise that you don\u2019t even need to know whether this story takes place during the trajectory of the 10 (counting \u201cRogue Nation\u201d) original films.<\/p>\n
Pedro Pascal, who seems to be in everything, continues his role as Din Djarin, aka The Mandalorian. He\u2019s a bounty hunter and adventurer not unlike Han Solo although he wears a helmet most of the time. His sidekick is Grogu, who seems real but is animatronic. They reminded me of other human-non human space buddies like Ryland Grace and Rocky from \u201cProject Hail Marty,\u201d or even Han Solo and Chewbacca.<\/p>\n
Din is a man of integrity, but he has a price, so Sigourney Weaver, who plays the leader of the galactic rebels, hires him for a job that could get him killed and everyone else blown up. At this point, I\u2019m pretty cynical, so you now everything will work out ok and that there will be two sequels. So sit back, and relax.<\/p>\n
I think people forget that \u201cStar Wars\u201d and \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d were all based on serials that played in theaters before TV was a thing. There was no endgame or higher purpose. Like \u201cFlash Gordon.\u201d They were just fun romps, diversions from reality. I felt like \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d movie was like that, a relief from the news. it\u2019s totally captivating.<\/p>\n
I guess this is also maybe the first \u201cStar Wars\u201d movie without John Williams as composer. But Ludwig G\u00f6ransson has done a superb job with the score. It\u2019s not just that it will get Oscar attention, but the music hums with life and character not unlike something we\u2019d get from Williams. It illuminates the movie in all the right places and drives the story forward. It\u2019s also full of catchy hooks that I kept looking forward to.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of \u201cStar Wars\u201d Easter eggs to keep the fan boys and girls happy. The main antagonist is Rotta the Hutt, son of the late, lamented Jobba the Hutt. (Jeremy Allen White, not sounding like \u201cThe Bear,\u201d is his voice.) Indeed, we get to meet a few members of the Hutt family, and they are not an attractive gang. Still, we know so much about Jobba at this point, it\u2019s totally fun the meet the relatives. They would never have been invited to the Skywalkers for dinner.<\/p>\n
Grogu is a mini-Yoda, I guess from whatever species that constitutes. He\u2019s cute as a button, even though he never speaks. But like Yoda, he\u2019s totally ingratiating. Because he doesn\u2019t speak, he\u2019s not terribly philosophical, but \u2014 even if you don\u2019t know him from the series \u2014 he supplies ballast and humor to Din\u2019s dour personality.<\/p>\n
And yet, for me. Grogu was almost the scene stealer but was usurped by someone else. The voice of legendary director Martin Scorsese is used for a snappy four-armed CGI kiosk operator who knows what\u2019s going on across the universe. Din pumps him for information and \u201cHugo\u201d (named for a Scorsese movie) is a slick operator with all the answers. I hope Scorsese got a merchandise royalty.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve read some carping on line that \u201cThe Mandalorian and Grogu\u201d \u2014 which sounds to me like \u201cWayland Flowers and Madame\u201d \u2014 is \u201cjust fan service\u201d or a long episode of the series. Again, so what? To those of us who knew nothing going in, this is a real movie and nothing less. Pedro Pascal, as he was in \u201cFantastic Four\u201d and other projects, is a sympathetic guide through an eccentric world that you can only find in movies. He and Grogu are quickly established in a warm relationship. You never get tired of learning more about them.<\/p>\n
One or two more of these? Yes, probably. I do hope that The Mandalorian gets a romance \u2014 there are no women in this movie. But there will never be great drama. This is called \u2018fun.\u2019<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ok, so I\u2019ve never seen \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d TV series. After \u201cThe Last Jedi,\u201d I was 40 years into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-679890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}