The Mandalorian at D23 Expo

The annual D23 Expo has begun and Lucasfilm has released a promotional poster for its first live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian. The lavish artwork harkens back to the original trilogy and The Force Awakens.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Jon Favreau (Iron Man) said:

“I’m trying to evoke the aesthetics of not just the original trilogy. 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.”

Alongside the poster, a long-awaited trailer was also released. The Mandalorian evokes the grit of Firefly and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.



Favreau previously shed light on the production process powered by ILM TV, which was founded for Disney+ content including Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios' spin-offs.

“In The Mandalorian because we’re doing live-action production, we’re using the Epic game engine and using that to do real-time in-camera visual effects. So if you visited the set for The Mandalorian you would’ve seen a completely video-wall wrapped stage and we were in there filming the characters in the foreground, and oftentimes either blue screen or full digital versions of set extensions in the background with Parallax, because the positional data of the camera was informing the backgrounds, so it was like a translight that had perspective. So that allowed us to have environments—as long as we could build them digitally and put enough work into planning it, we could have the game engine be used for creating effects in a timeframe that allows us to get a TV season done.”

Here is the official synopsis for The Mandalorian:

"After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic."

The Star Wars news at D23 doesn't end there. Ewan McGregor appeared on stage alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy to announce he's reprising the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for Disney+. Mic drop. And The Clone Wars returns in February 2020.

The Mandalorian is exclusive to Disney+ when it launches in the US, Canada and the Netherlands 12th November and Australia and New Zealand 19th November.