If you love Star Wars, The Mandalorian it should have been one of the few joys of this 2020, especially for us Spaniards who saw the first season six months later than the United States and some other countries - when it came in March along with the launch of the platform Disney + - and that, as a result, we didn't have to wait a full year to enjoy the second season as well. On the quality of this revelation miniseries we have already spent rivers of words in our previous insights: Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have packaged one of the best productions set in George Lucas' faraway galaxy, and the first episode of the new vintage reminds us how nerd and how much they care about the original trilogy with a return to Tatooine with, let's say, surprising implications. In the next few lines, our review without spoilers but first ... a small summary.
Where were we?
In the finale of the first season, the Mandalorian - who we discovered is called Din Djarin - faced the Moff Gideon together with Cara Dune and Greef Karga on Navarro: although in pieces, the Empire is trying to get its hands on the Child for reasons still inscrutable. . Our men managed to escape it only thanks to the sacrifices of Kuill and the IG-11 droid and in the spectacular final duel Mando shot down the Moff's TIE fighter. Leaving his allies behind, Mando left in his own Falcon's Crest with a new mission: to find the unknown alien species to which the Child belongs. In case you didn't know, Yoda's species was never exactly defined in Star Wars lore, and so The Mandalorian could answer this question that has been haunting fans since the venerable Jedi Master's first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. Mando does not know, however, that the Moff gideon survived, and that the latter wields the Darksaber, the ritual weapon handed down by the rulers of Mandalore ...
The sheriff
The second season begins with a fight and in the very first few minutes Mando discovers that another Mandalorian has been spotted on Tatooine, in the city of Mos Pelgo, so he travels to the desert planet in search of help with his mission. There he discovers that the Mandalorian in question, the so-called "sheriff" of the city, is not a Mandalorian at all, but a man named Cobb Vanth (played by the always good Timothy Oliphant) who procured from the Jawas an armor that Star Wars fans know well: it is in fact the armor that Boba Fett wore when he fell into the Sarlacc shaft at the beginning of Il ritorno dello Jedi. The inhabitants of Mos Pelgo have a great deal to eat, namely a krayt dragon that haunts the city. Cobb proposes a deal to Mando: he will return the armor to him if our hero helps him get rid of the krayt dragon. Their plan will also end up involving the Tusken sandpod tribe and will result in a spectacular showdown at the end of the episode.
Cobb Vanth and the dragon krayt are not inventions of The Mandalorian 2. The first appeared for the first time in the novel Star Wars: Aftermath which inaugurated the new "canonical" editorial line of Star Wars after the acquisition by Disney. Favreau and Filoni have significantly altered the background of this character, even if the flashback with which Cobb tells it to Mando during the episode could very well be sweetened by the sheriff himself: in the novel by Chuck Wendig, in fact, Cobb was a very anti-hero. more ambiguous and shady. The drago krayt instead, it has much older origins: we see its skeleton for the first time even in A New Hope, and Obi-Wan Kenobi imitates his call to scare the Tusken marauders who are plundering Luke Skywalker's speeder. Later, this creature appeared in many novels and media, but especially in video games: the players of Star Wars Galaxies they will probably remember the krayt dragon hunts for their pearls, valuable relics that even the lightsabers of the Jedi can be powered.
A premiere dedicated to fanservice
As you may have guessed, the first episode of this second season treads a lot on the fanservice, and if you are a fan of Star Wars you will probably recognize the goodies scattered between one scene and another: the vibrolame, the shell of Anakin, the pearl of the krayt dragon and so on. The last one, in particular, is quite close to gamers, and reminds us how nerdy Filoni and Favreau are, but above all how they manage to insert these small, big details without forcing the plot: they are harmless, practically "inside joke" that further embellish the presentation of a TV series made by fans for fans. It must be said that this premiere - which, however, lasts a little longer than a normal episode, about 60 minutes - immediately catches the eye for the obvious adjustment to the budget: the costumes and make-up are even more refined, and the computer graphics have made a significant step forward . If the first vintage had already appeared excellent, from this point of view, the second promises even better.
What then The Mandalorian still maintains that "dirty" aspect that we have so much appreciated and that reminds us of the classic trilogy, but also the westerns, and in fact Mos Pelgo, with his sheriff and the banthas, the silent inhabitants and the semi-deserted bar, evokes exactly that kind of scenario. It's just ... we're back to Tatooine. The first season offered a good variety of planets and landscapes, so returning to the desert planet once more felt redundant, not to mention that the storyline itself is quite derivative and takes up the structure from GDR that we noticed in the first season: Mando arrives following a main quest, runs into a secondary quest, accepts it and carries it out, usually facing some kind of end-level boss. Once the quest is delivered, our hero continues his search, ticking an entry in the campaign that will lead him to the end of the season. Mando's narrative joining forces with a rival who becomes his friend and helps him raise a small community against a larger enemy is also something we have already seen in the fourth installment of the first season, when Cara Dune entered the scene. .
Mind you, this first episode of The Mandalorian 2 we enjoyed it a lot, if only because we had the opportunity to see in live action a character that appeared only in books and a creature that was nothing short of mythical in the imagination of George Lucas. The fact remains that the premiere did not move the plot by an inch, once again acting as a "sidequest" and delivering the return of the Disney + series into the hands of the fanservice: even the Baby - or Baby Yoda, as everyone calls him - had very little space, just making a few adorable funny faces. In short, everything would seem to be resolved in the very last shot of the episode, which brings back a very famous character on the scene: we are sure that this choice will raise a crawl space and the combination Filoni / Favreau will have to find an unassailable way to justify it. Needless to say, however, we are very curious to find out where they will end up.
Comment
Resources4Gaming.com
7.5
The first episode of The Mandalorian 2 slipped away in an instant and reconfirms the very high quality of this Disney + TV production. Net of all the visual improvements, especially as regards the special effects, however, we remain a bit doubtful about the choice to start the new season without great progress in the main storyline, except for the return on the scene of that character at the end. bet. Was it a good idea to exhume him too?
PRO
- Finally a krayt dragon in live action!
- Lots of fanservice
- The return of that character will raise controversy to no end
- The season practically started with a filler
