Thoughts on "The Mandalorian, Season 1"

Thoughts on The Mandalorian, Season 1

I liked Rogue One in particular for its characters and portrayal of the Empire. Krennic was a believable character, careerist, ruthless, and highly professional. He fit perfectly in the Imperial ranks where he didn't stand out - in fact, he was just like anyone else. In my opinion, that's exactly how the Empire should be depicted in all Star Wars movies and spinoffs - cold, technocratic, unforgiving.

The first season of The Mandalorian leaves me with mixed feelings. It got off to a good start and continued to entertain me, despite having some sidetracks (The Gunslinger, The Prisoner) that felt more like fillers than anything else. However, the end of Season 1 (The Reckoning and Redemption) couldn't have been worse.

Enter Moff Gideon, a totally overpowered kind of super villain who you'd expect to come from a different (comic) universe than Star Wars… who acts erratically, purposely to show off his ruthlessness but factually demonstrating utter cluelessness (The kid is extemely valuable to him but can be obliterated with no second thought if fighting starts - ok?!). Contrary to him, Werner Herzog's Character was excellent and conclusive. The standoff is, sadly, in the tradition of Star Wars movies, where Stormtroopers (and the supposedly elite Deathtroopers!) are nothing more than practice targets. To top it all off, the rather refreshing character IG-11 has to leave the show as a means to attribute more feelings to the character of The Mandalorian, who strikingly needs to become a better person for the sake of character development. This narrative comes at any cost it seems… weak.

All in all, Season 1 of The Mandalorian started promising, had a few dents along the way and ended up half assed in compliance with Disney's "HOWTO Star Wars" guidelines. I'm delighted that it didn't turn out nearly as bad as the movies, but that's already saying much about what you expect Disney to achieve with this supposed money printing franchise at their mercy these days. For a new format that had a good start, there could have easily been more in it.

May the force be stronger with Season 2.