Wednesday 1 March 2023

Mando Mania!



The clan of two, Mando and Grogu (he'll always be Baby Yoda to me), are back for the third season of The Mandalorian exclusively on Disney+.

In a network first, today's premiere episode will be shown on Disney+, ABC, Freeform and FX. Coincidentally, my annual subscription to Disney+ renews this month and there's no price increase. That's a win during the cost of living crisis. For the record, I've cancelled subscriptions to most streaming services.

Series showrunner Jon Favreau (Iron Man) recently confirmed to BFM TV that he's already written the fourth season, which ties into other Star Wars spin-off series including Ahsoka from Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars).

“Season 4, yeah I’ve written it already,” Favreau said. "We have to know where we’re going to tell a fully formed story. We had mapped it out, Dave [Filoni] and I, and slowly you start to write each episode. I was writing it during post-production. All of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story.”

Rosario Dawson will reprise the live-action role of Ahsoka Tano from The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+.

“[Dave’s] doing ‘Ahsoka,’ which I’m producing with him. He’s the writer and showrunner on that. To understand what’s happening on other shows….‘Skeleton Crew’ all take place within the same ‘Star Wars’ time period. There’s a lot more things that we’ve got to keep in mind and also stuff that we’ve built up to from previous seasons of ‘The Mandalorian’ as well.”

Favreau spoke to Vanity Fair about ILM's StageCraft in the wake of a growing backlash against the evolving technology when used poorly.

“The [technology] is going to get better and better and better… ‘Star Wars’ lends itself because of hard surfaces – rocks, metal, droids. It makes it easier to make it look real faster. Organic stuff is harder. The exterior stuff with sunlight is the one thing you really can’t do well here. So we still have outdoor sets that we go to with traditional blue screen… What we’ve learned is when the light hits the walls, it reflects. The screen reflects.”

As an aside for fellow Doctor Who fans. The Volume, an LED-based virtual set technology, is allegedly utilised by Bad Wolf in the upcoming Doctor Who series starring Ncuti Gatwa as the titular time traveller. The TARDIS interior springs to mind.

Season three of The Mandalorian sees Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) returning to Mandalore, devastated by the Empire, in a potential conflict and civil war with Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) over who wields the Darksaber and is the legitimate leader of all the clans.

Djarin had won the Darksaber from Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) in battle and offered it freely to Kryze at the end of the second season. However, Kryze rejected a gifted Darksaber as she knew this would negate her claim to the throne. It has to be earned.

As with previous seasons of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+, exciting new Star Wars collectables will be announced every Tuesday as part of Mando Mania.

Are you excited about the third season of The Mandalorian? And what collectables would you like to see announced from Funko, Hasbro and more? Let me know in the comments below.

2 comments:

  1. Mando's back indeed .. for my taste, it was a bit too tropy and full of fan-service snippets, but I guess one has to capture even people that have not consumed S1 and S2. Still stellar content, pun intended. Will watch with anticipation, looking forward more than the new Picard

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