MEET THE CREATIVE
The Mind Behind The Mandalorian
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When he started creating The Mandalorian – the first-ever Star Wars™ live-action TV series – Jon Favreau leaned toward the dark side.
“I wanted the show to play into this post-revolutionary time, to lean a little bit more into the Mad Max version of Star Wars,” he says from his L.A. office. “More of the freakier side and less the geekier side.”
The result is a Star Wars like you’ve never experienced: a gritty exploration of previously unseen corners of the galaxy. (Think grungy space western with a lot of Star Wars references.)
Featuring Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal as a bounty hunter without a name and set between the fall of the Empire and the rise of the First Order, The Mandalorian has a lot of ground to cover.
We spoke to Favreau about the show’s connection to classic samurai films, Easter eggs, and why each episode of The Mandalorian is arriving weekly and is perfect for mobile screens.
At the beginning of the series the Mandalorian isn’t exactly the hero type.
Right, he’s got a long way to go. He's a bounty hunter, so he’s down there in the mud. Much like westerns and samurai films, the show is about characters who are surviving while surrounded by people who aren’t necessarily the nicest – and dealing with situations that threaten to compromise their integrity. Watching them grow is baked into the western tradition.
What was behind the decision to release episodes weekly instead of in a bingeable bunch?
I was a fan of Game of Thrones. I loved how the conversation each week was influenced by what had just aired. Although you’re not getting the communal experience of seeing it in the theater, there’s a virtual community that develops around shows like that. That’s a big part of what’s fun about these types of stories – everybody gets to weigh in and guess where it’s going.
How has the proliferation of mobile consumption of media affected your creative process?
Part of the challenge of creating entertainment is taking into account the circumstances in which people are watching. Everybody’s TV is slightly different, and sometimes people change the settings.
But Apple tends to build in parameters on their devices so you’re watching with most of those variables dialed in. There’s a tremendous consistency in the quality of the image – the dynamic range and brightness of the screen. So to me the most important piece of the viewing experience is looking at it on Apple displays, because that’s going to be the most consistent way to see the final version.
What can longtime Star Wars fans look forward to in The Mandalorian?
There are a lot of references back to the films and other Star Wars content, whether it’s Easter eggs or story lines or characters. We wanted to lay a lot of stuff in there so people who are new to Star Wars can enjoy it on one level but people who’ve been there a long time will see we’re fans as well.
How do you see storytelling evolving over the next few years?
There’s a fluidity developing between media. You can watch something on a big screen, then see other story lines at home. One folds into the other.
When I was a kid, there was a big line between TV and film, but I notice with my kids there’s not a delineation. Now we’re seeing stories that may once have been on the big screen on the small screen.
You have the talent pool, the budgets and the audience, but you don’t have to fit within the hour-and-a-half or two-hour format. It’s an exciting time as a storyteller – a lot of the limitations are being reevaluated.
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