The brand new Star Wars series named The Mandalorian is here and it came together with the brand new streaming service Disney+ today. Unfortunately, the streaming service is only available in the Netherlands, in the United States and in Canada, but it will become available in New Zealand and in Australia in one week from now. The rest of the world will have to wait. England, France, Spain, and some more countries have been promised Disney+ in May 2020, but besides that, we know nothing more about the release of the streaming service elsewhere in the world.
It is important to know the writer before you read a review dealing with something in the Star Wars universe. How come? You have freaks who love everything that is Star Wars, then you have those who love Star Wars, but who are really critical to anything new within the Star Wars universe, and then you have those who strongly dislike Star Wars. And then you have me… a guy who likes good action, good TV series and movies, and who have seen all the Star Wars movies so far. Not because I am a giant Star Wars fan, but because I like good movies. And to be honest, not all Star Wars movies were great (especially not The Phantom Menace and the 1-3 movies), but still – they have given me some nice hours in front of the TV or in the cinema.
But, what’s up with The Mandalorian, the first Star Wars series created by Disney and created by Jon Favreau?
The creator isn’t a nobody in the industry. He is a famous actor, and he is also becoming a well-known direction and creator. One year ago, he created the Mowgli movie in 2018 (a Netflix original movie), and he has also been active in the Avengers movies, with his own cooking program, and so much more. And now – he is creating a Star Wars TV series.
One of the creatures we meet in The Mandalorian
What is The Mandalorian all about?
Based on the first episode, we wouldn’t know much about the universe in which The Mandalorian is played, if the information hadn’t been given beforehand that it takes place in the universe after the end of the sixth movie (Return of the Jedi).
We quickly meet The Mandalorian. He is a bounty-hunter catching bad-guys and other people in exchange for a nice fee. He seems to be very talented, and it is also a fact that the Mandalorians’ seem to have a very good reputation among the people currently alive in the Star Wars universe.
The Mandalorian is always on the hunt for new jobs, and he gets information about a job that is way more dangerous than all the others, that will pay him way more than all other jobs. He is to catch somebody, but this time he doesn’t even know who it is, simply the location of the character. He gets on the way and starts his quest that I believe will last for many more episodes and probably seasons.
The first season of The Mandalorian will consist of eight episodes. The final episode of The Mandalorian season 1 will air on Disney+ on December 27th in 2019.
(Parts of this review have also been published in the IP Address Guide)
The Mandalorian Chapter 1 – My thoughts
I have watched the first episode, and I sat with mixed feelings throughout the way. It is 100% Star Wars, and you can clearly see that the creators have worked a lot to make it fit into the Star Wars universe. All the animals, the creatures, the people, the vehicles, the aircrafts – they are all fitting perfectly into the Star Wars world as we know it.
At the same time, this has nothing to do (so far at least) with what we know about Star Wars so far, meaning that it almost feels like if you would call something Desperate Housewives and make it look like the original story, have similar characters, just letting it take place at a different place and time. There is nothing wrong with this, but I was just sitting and thinking about it while watching the first episode.
The first episode of a new show can sometimes be hard to watch. We need to get a lot of information to understand what is going on, and therefore, it is always hard to create good pilot episodes. It took the creators an entire episode to make me curious, but in the end, I felt as if this is something I want to continue to watch. I don’t know anything about where the story is heading, but it has at least gotten on in a direction, and I look forward to seeing where the story will take me from here.
I wouldn’t give The Mandalorian a 10/10 score, but I guess it wouldn't be very far away either (more like an 8,5).
Information page: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/82856-the-mandalorian?language=en-US
Rating: AA+
If you do not have access to Disney Plus, it can be kind of hard to watch The Mandalorian online. We will never be able to stream it on services like Amazon Prime, Hulu, or Netflix, so Disney Plus is the solution. However, it is really hard to find solutions for accessing Disney Plus abroad, but to find a working solution, read the referred to article.
Would you like to know more about what people have been looking forward to streaming on Disney+? Check the following article which @unbiasedwriter wrote a few days ago containing a video presenting some of the highlights available on Disney+ from November 12th in 2019.