Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Let’s start this roundup with the major spoilers, mainly because my favorite second-day take is all the questions raised by the [spoiler] in the end. I too have many questions! For a less irreverent take, there’s this, I guess. And there are tweets, you guys like tweets, right?
Continue reading “The Mandalorian: Everybody loves [spoiler]”
Jon Favreau is game to revive (and maybe redeem?) The Star Wars Holiday Special for a new generation. “Let Disney+ know,” he told ET’s Ash Crossan at the Saturn Awards (where he was honored for his MCU work, and where Resistance won Best Animated Television Series).
I still say, you gotta get hopping on this while the sequel trilogy gang is still under contract, guys:
Meanwhile, the complete list of movies and TV shows going up at Disney+ at launch is out, and there are few Star Wars surprises – all the films through The Last Jedi, and all the released animated shows since The Clone Wars – so no 2D Clone Wars, Ewoks, Droids, or the never-seen Detours. One surprise though – the 2004 documentary Empire of Dreams, which documents the making of the original trilogy.
And no classic Holiday Special either, which is probably more of a blessing than anything else – although it truly does have to be seen to be believed. (If you dare, and please feel free not to.)
As the parade of articles we’ve been getting over the past few days indicates, The Mandalorian is the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV preview.
Weirdly enough, the biggest news out of the cover story wasn’t even broken by EW themselves – it’s Deadline who ID’d the actress playing the character we see in the lead photo – Julia Jones, who may be most familiar to the general audience as Leah Clearwater from the Twilight films. (Hopefully her Star Wars character gets a better deal. She also had a brief role in Westworld S2. ) She can also be seen, briefly, in the D23 trailer. Maybe there’s another article coming with a detail or two on her character? Maybe?
And speaking of characters from the trailer, how about that Twi-lek who we only know is played by Natalia Tena because she tweeted about it? And Ming-Na Wen?!? We did get another photo of Gina Carano’s Cara Dune…
Anyway, the cover story is low on new info for the die-hards, but we do get an indication of the personality of Taika Waititi’s IG-11:
The Kiwi, who also helmed the season 1 finale, labored on finding the perfect voice for the role before landing on a tone that he says is somewhere between Siri and HAL 9000. “[IG-11 is] very innocent and naive and direct and doesn’t know about sarcasm and doesn’t know how to lie,” Waititi says. “It’s like a child with a gun.”
And of course, another big question – will Pedro Pascal ever take off that mask?
Assisted by Pascal’s laconic line delivery and terse physicality, along with expressive choices in camera work and editing, [Jon] Favreau manages to infuse the character with a surprising amount of personality. “What’s remarkable is when you see the whole stretch of the first season how engaging the character is,” Favreau says. “It’s amazing how many Star Wars characters are emotionally engaging that aren’t even anthropomorphic. R2-D2 is my favorite character and he barely has an eye.”
Unanswered.
More on The Mandalorian from Entertainment Weekly: On the differences between the title character and Boba Fett, (send this to your friends who don’t know the difference!) and how the show will explore the origins of the First Order.
Jon Favreau talks to The Hollywood Reporter about The Mandalorian and his other ventures in a wide-ranging article that confirms that a trailer for the Disney+ series is coming to D23.
Continue reading “Jon Favreau talks storytelling, tech and The Mandalorian”
Sounds like The Mandalorian is getting a second season – Jon Favreau tells Jimmy Kimmel that he’s already begun writing it.
A second season of the show is hardly a surprise – after The Rise of Skywalker, the franchise won’t have any new movies until 2022, so the Disney+ series will likely be the franchise’s most high-profile new content for a time.
Meanwhile, a report says that one of the first season’s directors, Rick Famuyiwa, is in talks to direct episodes of Disney+’s second Star Wars series, which focuses on Rogue One’s Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). They say he’s also attached to direct episodes of The Mandalorian‘s second season as well.
S1 of The Mandalorian will debut with Disney+ in November; The Cassian series is expected to begin shooting in the fall.
The Mandalorian is going to D23 – it will be part of the Disney+ presentation on Friday, August 23, with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. Lucasfilm will have a pavilion on the con floor, bringing at least a part of their SDCC trooper display.
What this means, basically: 10-20 minutes in the midst of a giant panel (it’ll be all the Disney+ stuff in one) and maybe they’ll release a trailer. It’s a big maybe, given they released none of the footage that was shown at the Celebration panel.
D23 Expo is being held at the Anaheim Convention Center from August 23-25. The first episode of The Mandalorian will launch with Disney+ on November 12.
io9 is connecting some dots, linking The Empire Strikes Back’s Willrow Hood, his ice cream maker, and The Mandalorian, in case you forgot about that Jon Favreau photo from back in October.
Because an ice cream maker in Star Wars can never just be an ice cream maker.
What’s the fun in that?
Sure, The Mandalorian debuted footage here at Celebration Chicago on Sunday… But they haven’t actually released any of it elsewhere, not even the behind-the-scenes reel. There are a couple of stills and a basic plot breakdown.
The Mandalorian himself isn’t getting a name just yet, but we did learn that he’s working for Carl Weathers’ Greef Carga, who heads up a guild of bounty hunters. Gina Carano is playing Cara Dune, a former Rebel shock trooper, who gets in pulled in… Somehow. More over at StarWars.com.
Here’s the livestream, sans footage. It’s pretty much the Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau show, though Pedro Pascal is pretty hyped up about the whole thing:
For the record, I am never in favor of con-exclusive footage, but hey, if Lucasfilm and Disney would prefer to play whack-a-mole all over the internet with fuzzy subpar copies, that’s their business. Meanwhile, there are many recaps.
And here’s the cast on the live show stage later:
The first episode of the show will be on Disney+ at launch on November 12, and the current plan does seem to be a weekly release, which is a big relief (for me at least.)
Oh, Jon Favreau. So, is Taika Waititi voicing IG-88? All we know for sure is that he is a confirmed director for the series. We don’t even know if that’s actually IG-88, although we have seen it – or a similar droid – before.
Or… Is the helmet the actual hint here? I leave it to you, Mandofans.
The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars TV show, is expected later this year. It will be exclusive to the Disney+ streaming service.