THE MANDALORIAN Will Showcase The Darker, Freakier Side Of STAR WARS

Back in April, I traveled up to Chicago to attend this year's Star Wars Celebration, where the assembled press was put through a battery of panels covering just about every aspect of the ever-flourishing Star Wars universe: we learned about the goings-on at Disney's Galaxy's Edge theme park, watched the first trailer for JJ Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, saw Warwick Davis zooming around the convention floor on a Segway, and - in what was the clear highlight of the entire trip - caught the very first footage from Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian (you can read my report on that footage here).

Speaking as a dude who has only a casual interest in the Star Wars franchise, it's worth noting that I responded so strongly to that Mandalorian footage. To my eyes, it looked like a truly fresh take on Disney's biggest property, interesting and weird and kinda rough around the edges (the footage contained a shot of several Kowakian monkey-lizards - that's Salacious Crumb's species - roasting over an open fire in a marketplace). It also had Werner Herzog in it, behaving precisely as you'd want Werner Herzog to behave within a Star Wars TV show. Favreau came out on stage and talked at length about the series, said all the right things, and left me very hyped to check this one out when it hits Disney+.

Now Favreau's saying even more of the right things. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Mandalorian showrunner explains what kind of feel he was aiming for with this mega-budget series:

“If you notice, there’s a certain look that the Mandalorian lead character has, there’s a size that the spaceship is, there’s a scale that lines up with the original trilogy. I’m trying to evoke the aesthetics of not just the original trilogy but the first film. Not just the first film but the first act of the first film. What was it like on Tatooine? What was going on in that cantina? That has fascinated me since I was a child, and I love the idea of the darker, freakier side of Star Wars, the Mad Max aspect of Star Wars.”

I dunno that I'd call the footage we were shown Mad Max-esque, but he's certainly right about it being darker and freakier! It is also, according to Favreau, designed to be a big, yet intimate story:

“Disney+ is emerging and there’s an opportunity to tell a story that’s bigger than television, but you don’t have the same expectations that a big holiday release has, which to me isn’t that type of Star Wars that comes out of me. The type of Star Wars that I’m inspired to tell is a smaller thing with new characters.”

Yup, all of this sounds good to me. How about y'all? You folks excited for The Mandalorian? Reserving judgment until you've seen some footage? Are you planning to subscribe to Disney+, and if so, how much does Favreau's series factor into that decision? Sound off in the comments below, and stay tuned for more on The Mandalorian as further updates roll in.