The first season of the American television series The Mandalorian is part of the Star Wars franchise, set after the events of the film Return of the Jedi (1983).
Favreau signed on in March 2018, with Pascal cast a month after filming began in October 2018 at Manhattan Beach Studios in California.
[20] Directors for the season were revealed the next day, including Filoni, Taika Waititi, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, and Deborah Chow.
[25][11] Lucasfilm announced the next month that Pascal would star alongside Carano, Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers, Omid Abtahi, and Werner Herzog.
[26] Favreau revealed in March 2019 that Taika Waititi would provide the voice for a bounty hunter droid in the series, believed to be the character IG-88.
[8] Weathers' character, Greef Karga, was originally an alien that was killed off in the third episode; the prosthetic make-up was removed and the role extended during production.
StageCraft consists of large LED video screens on which digital environments can be rendered in real time for actors to perform in front of.
[22] Howard felt protected by the experience of Favreau and Filoni, feeling comfortable to go to them with any questions about filmmaking and Star Wars, respectively.
[44] Favreau noted that the StageCraft technology used during filming allowed the filmmakers to use more traditional production techniques since they were working within an environment that they could see on set.
[46] One of the modelmakers creating models and puppets for the series was Tony McVey, who worked on the original Star Wars films.
This differed from K-2SO, a droid that animation director Hal Hickel had created for the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), which was based on a motion capture performance.
[44] For Rogue One, Hickel had collected various shots from the original Star Wars films of starships that had been created with physical models and motion control camera systems.
[46] After seeing the model, Favreau suggested that a single shot be filmed using motion control techniques as further reference for the CGI.
ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll built a new motion control rig for the series to use that he described as "garage operation style, quick and dirty".
[18] About a week later, Favreau released a photo through his official Instagram account featuring a rifle with a two-pronged barrel, an apparent callback to Boba Fett's weapon in The Star Wars Holiday Special.
[55][56] Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and the main cast hosted a panel for The Mandalorian at Star Wars Celebration Chicago on April 14, 2019, where the first footage premiered to fans in attendance.
[16] Favreau stated that Disney was on board with this decision,[7] even though it meant they were unable to begin work on merchandise featuring the character before he was revealed in the series premiere in November 2019.
[16] After the series premiered, "The Child" became a breakout character with more attention on social media and in news stories about it (1,161) than any of the Democrats running for president at the time.
[68] It included two featurettes, "Remnants of the Empire" that looks at the Imperial design within the series, and "Forging the Covert: Part One" with Favreau, Filoni, and other crew members examining the creation of the Child, the Mandalorian's arsenal, and the season's practical and digital effects.
The site's critical consensus reads, "Action-packed and expertly-crafted—if at times a bit too withholding—The Mandalorian is a welcome addition to the Star Wars universe that benefits greatly from the cuteness of its cargo.
[71] Zaki Hasan of the San Francisco Chronicle said the show "in essence allows the franchise to take a mulligan with Boba Fett.
"[74] While reviewing the season's finale, Sonia Saraiya from Vanity Fair highlighted the performances as "enthusiastic and spirited" which she considers to be an essential part to understand the characters motive, while also adding the importance of the family in the Star Wars franchise and said in her review, "The Mandalorian brings found family out of the subtext and into the foreground.
Around father and child gather an unlikely crew of kindly mechanic, blustering bounty hunter, Alderaani refugee-turned-mercenary, and killer nurse-droid, drawn together by the loss of everything else—and the desire to nurture a little seed of the future.
"[75] Fionnuala Halligan of the Screen Daily wrote, "From the aforementioned bars, to market sequences, the jabbering Jawas with their moveable fortress, to blistering sunsets in the sand, The Mandalorian makes a pilgrimage to pay its respects to the cinematic origins of this series.
Pretty soon, though, Favreau and his team are adding their own iconography, whether that be the immovable helmet, a floating crib, or the sight of The Mandalorian himself in his full Mescar [sic] armour as he cradles a small package in the manner of Chow Yun-fat in Hard Boiled.
Almost single-handedly the cute critter has given this Star Wars spin-off a meme-led profile that will distract from the realisation that, although it's undoubtedly an imaginatively staged entry in the iconic sci-fi franchise universe, the action does get ploddy at times.
The timeline lands us between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens as we follow bounty hunter The Mandalorian — or Mando to his chums, if he had any — a masked mystery man (pictured top) who reveals a soft side when confronted with the aforementioned infant Yoda.
Kain also praised Göransson's score, deeming it as one of the highlights of the show and calling it a perfect way to capture the music of Star Wars and a classic western.
Roeper also praised Pascal's performance noting his "distinctive personality through his line readings and the physicality of the character", describing him as a "Clint Eastwood in Robocop armor".
[79] Within four days of its release, The Mandalorian had stronger U.S. demand compared to four of 2019's biggest streaming originals: Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, When They See Us, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and Amazon Prime Video's Good Omens.