The Mandalorian on foot with blaster, forked rifle, and cargo
The first words of Mando – the armored bounty hunter in the Disney streaming series THE MANDALORIAN – offer a choice to one of his quarries. “I can bring you in warm or bring you in cold.” The words are delivered with the familiar tone and timber of Clint Eastwood. An arid statement of fact implying no preference from a speaker largely covered in metal. The knight-like visor reveals nothing of his face, not even eyes.
At the receiving end of the directive is Mythrol, an alien bail jumper. From his lagoon-creature face and blue pigment – he may be cold-blooded anyway.
Very cleverly, “warm or cold” recalls “Wanted Dead or Alive” posters of the Wild West. This opening reference is an auspicious set-up for an American Space Western television web series. During the eight manic episodes of Season One, there are numerous fight scenes and shoot outs in futuristic outer-world equivalents of cantinas.
More than once the action recalls the climatic scene of Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH, with its commandeered machine gun spraying a circle of bullets. Mando even learns to ride a Blurrg on the desert planet Arvala-7, by showing tenderness and gaining the animal’s trust. Never mind that the Blurrg has a face more like the moon than a horse.
Space Western it is, firmly rooted in the Star Wars universe. And yet THE MANDALORIAN proves to be so much more.
To begin with, the protagonist Mando’s look is an aggregate of medieval knight, steppe warrior of the Genghis Khan era, and Marvel superhero Iron Man.
Show creator and screenwriter Jon Favreau – he of COWBOYS AND ALIENS, IRON MAN I & II and a remake of THE LION KING – gives us a Sci-Fi series with a gorgeous soundtrack by Ludvig Goransson and visual splendor that takes its cinematic cues from many seminal films.
Chapter 4 “Sanctuary” borrows its plot and look from one of the most influential films in movie history – the 1954 Akira Kurosawa classic SEVEN SAMURAI.
In Chapter 5 “The Gunslinger,” Mando and a novice bounty hunter ride anti-gravity speeder bikes through the Dune Sea on Tatooine – an excursion that recalls the chopper riding in biker movies like EASY RIDER.
The influences of THE MANDALORIAN are many. Yet the series seldom feels unfocussed or lacking in identity. (The exception is one of the episodes that Favreau didn’t write, Chapter 6 “The Prisoner.”)
What, then, holds this series together? What is it about the show that keeps the viewer curious moment by moment? Or, in other words, what is the true subject of THE MANDALORIAN?
For many, I think, it’s the slow movement toward intimacy within the protagonist. The emotional temperature of this Tin Man in search of a heart. “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold.”
By the time we get to Chapter 5, the line is repeated with Mando on the receiving end. He has violated the code of the Bounty Hunter Guild on behalf of “The Child” and rescued a bounty – known to fans as Baby Yoda – from certain death at the hands of “The Client.”
His journey toward intimacy with the world around him could not begin at a more frigid moment in his psyche. As a workaholic bounty hunter in armor, Mando begins the series as a metal shell of a being, seemingly hollow on the inside. He has no family or friends. He has not shown his face to another living being since he was a child. Nor has his actual name been said to him since he was orphaned by an attack from the Empire on the Planet Mandalore.
He is a functional being who lives by the rules of the Bounty Hunter Guild and the creed of the Mandalorians. “This is the way.” Mando is the emotional equivalent of Templar in the 18th century drama NATHAN THE WISE, by Ephraim Lessing – a play set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Templar is a crusading knight, just as encased in doctrine and seemingly void of the capacity for love and empathy as Mando.
From early on, Mando’s main emotion is hostility toward droids. His anti-droid bent parallels the hatred for Native Americans exhibited by protagonists like Ethan Edwards in John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS. But he bears a violent grudge against one droid in particular – AG-11 – a bounty hunter droid who is later reprogramed as a nurse-droid. His animosity toward droids goes unexplained and unresolved until the final chapter of Season 1. (And the resolution is well worth the wait.)
THE MANDALORIAN hits its stride as a series when – seemingly on impulse – space dude becomes a surrogate dad. In the early chapters he is followed by a floating basinet containing an alien baby that resembles a very young Yoda. We aren’t privy to the expression on the warrior’s face as he rescues and flees with The Child, which only adds to the wonder.
Mando begins to speak to the Child as any father might.
“That’s not a toy.”
“Take that out of your mouth.”
THE MANDALORIAN revels in its mix of Western tropes and the emotional fodder of child rearing and protecting.
And both the utterances of a combat pilot and worried parent come from the metal man in conjunction with space battle scenes while aboard his ship the Razor Crest. With Baby Yoda just behind the co-pilot’s seat, the show encourages the audience to fear for the survival of ship, pilot, and adorable ear-wiggling cargo. Mando leads the most dangerous life possible as a quarry himself on the run from bounty hunters from all quadrants. “Traveling with me, that’s no life for a kid.”
THE MANDALORIAN’S co-pilot The Child beside Mando aboard the Razor Crest
Sure, emotional heartstrings are tugged. At times the series calls to mind single-parenting domestic comedies like KRAMER VS. KRAMER. Yet baby rearing in THE MANDALORIAN – as critics have pointed out – is about as unrealistic as it can be. And yet again, no more unrealistic than the rest of the show.
The Child doesn’t scream or fill diapers, but why should it? Why should it live up to the expectations we have of a human baby? As mentioned, the tot looks like the Jedi master Yoda and is already fifty years old! Older than – more than likely – his keeper Mando. And Baby Yoda is far from a helpless child. When the chips are down – really down – he wields the power of The Force.
In Chapter 2 “The Child,” Mando has been bested by a giant rhino-like creature, the Mud Horn. Caked in mud, our hero prepares for a warrior death. It will come from a giant beast ironically protecting one of its eggs. (Scavengers called Jawas have asked Mando to steal a Mud Horn egg for them in exchange for the return of stolen equipment from his ship the Razor Crest.) At the critical moment, The Child raises his magic hand and uses the Force to raise the Mud Horn into the air – and suspend it there – allowing Mando to plant his knife in the creature’s neck.
The Mud Horn suspended mid-air by Baby Yoda’s use of the Force
This scene begs the question: Who is looking after Whom?
THE MANDALORIAN goes beyond pleasing the kid or parent in us. The show demonstrates that both “more is more” and “less is more” as strategies can somehow function in the same series and work. By withholding the face of the hero and putting him on a quest for intimacy within the hostile worlds all around him, Jon Favreau pulls off one of the most intriguing heroes in a series I have seen.
[TO BE CONTINUED – PLEASE WRITE YOUR COMMENTS]
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