This was published 1 year ago
Star Wars’ biggest mistake, and how The Mandalorian plans to fix it
Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian with Grogu.
The Star Wars franchise, on television and in the cinema, is defined by scale, magnificence and impactful storytelling. Father-and-son stories with Biblical undertones, angelic Jedi Knights and fallen Sith Lords, iconic lightsaber duels and at the heart of it all, the mystical, unexplainable Force.
All of it, that is, except the 1978 made-for-television Star Wars Holiday Special which took the original cast to the Wookie home planet Kashyyyk, introduced Chewbacca’s relatives Itchy, Malla and Lumpy, and featured TV guest stars such as Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll and Harvey Korman.
The words train wreck don’t even do it justice. Even creator George Lucas distanced himself from it, telling fans that if he could destroy every remaining copy he would. (Meanwhile, says YouTube, hold my drink.)
But it is testament to the power of The Mandalorian, which has canonised story details from the Holiday Special, such as the Wookie “Life Day” and the double-pronged Mandalorian rifle, that there is a path to redemption even for the darkest chapter in the history of Star Wars.
The Mandalorian creators and showrunners Jon Favreau and David Filoni.Credit: Corey Nickols/Getty Images
“There’s room for everybody at this party,” says the show’s co-executive producer, writer and director Jon Favreau. “And that’s beyond just the Holiday Special. It goes for everything, even stuff that’s not canon that we could bring into canon. If it’s loved by fans, then it’s worth considering. And let’s see how many people could come on the boat with us.”
Favreau and his producing partner, writer/director Dave Filoni, make no apology, confident that they can heal some of the scars that linger from the original work. “I was so young [when it aired], but Star Wars being on TV blew my mind,” Filoni says. “I remember the Boba Fett animation and the pulse rifle [which featured in the special]; our memory of it is like a golden thing.”
“Your memory, the fans’ memory, is what really serves as the ultimate editing machine,” Favreau adds. “But you also have to remember what you felt like at that age when you engage with it. Our big thing is, it’s all Star Wars. And people are going to connect with different things depending on when they were kids.”
Both acknowledge the Ewok-themed movies – Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984) and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985) – as another piece of the cultural jigsaw, mocked by some but important to others. (Filoni even makes a confession: “I loved the Ewoks. I took an Ewok with me to see Return of the Jedi”.)
The pair have also brought a substantial part of the animated Star Wars universe into live-action, including the Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), who have appeared in The Mandalorian, and Cad Bane (Corey Burton) in The Book of Boba Fett. (Still on our wish list: Assaj Ventress, Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn.)
“George always understood those connections,” Favreau adds. “So you’re seeing the kids who grew up with the Star Wars film prequels who are now adults, and they have tremendous emotional connection to those characters and those plot lines and the music.”
She stars, she slays, she ... sings? Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978).Credit: Smith-Hemion Productions
The success of The Mandalorian, aka bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), is simple to unravel: an authentic blend of nostalgia and new experience, which brings new characters and stories to familiar settings, such as the planet Tattooine, and knits into the mix characters established in earlier Star Wars stories, such as Jedi master Luke Skywalker or underworld thug Cad Bane.
For Favreau and Filoni, however, every step is still a very cautious one. Both say they are never quite certain that they are getting it right, even if the consensus among fans is that they are delivering Star Wars at its A-game. “I always feel good about where we are and then, sometimes you get flowers and sometimes you get a bucket of cold water,” Favreau says.
“Our process is the same: let’s be true to what came before, let’s acknowledge all Star Wars around us,” Favreau adds. “Let’s figure out what George’s vision was, and then let’s try to tell a story that has mythical integrity, as George set out to do as well. So we stand by that.
“We are putting our best foot forward. That is part of the fun, though, honestly, because we don’t know. And people certainly have opinions about where things should go. So, I hope we take them on a journey [that] maybe surprises them but ultimately makes them feel really satisfied.”
Breakout star: Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, in The Mandalorian.Credit: Lucasfilm
As for whether Australia might play host to a Star Wars series, Favreau and Filoni are optimistic. Australia has a rich history in the storytelling of Star Wars: the second and third of the film prequels, Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), were made here. And the Disney-owned visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) set up a local franchise in 2019.
“Certainly the artistry is there and the great crews and great productions and great effects come out of that part of the world,” Favreau says. “Right now we’re all built on a lot that works out of Manhattan Beach, and we’re using technology that’s geared towards that, but there are very compelling reasons to have productions down under. Anything is a possibility.”
At the heart of the very biggest of pop culture franchises, Star Wars in particular, is a fan-as-shareholder relationship that has to be delicately navigated. The billion-dollar enterprise was built on box office, and what are ticket stubs but de facto share certificates. For generations who sunk billions in pocket money into movie tickets, the sharemarket angst is real.
“People have invested in their relationship with Star Wars, as with many other intellectual properties,” Favreau says. “In our case, we’re inheriting something that was created by George Lucas. And there are people who have dedicated a lot of time and a lot of emotional energy into these stories.
“So we want to make sure that we’re not being dismissive of that, and we want to make sure that we’re working as hard as it is expected of us to make sure we’re doing the best we can,” Favreau adds. “Not everybody sees everything the same way, but we don’t want it to be for lack of care and lack of trying.”
Luke Skywalker appears in the season two finale of The Mandalorian.Credit: Lucasfilm
That transaction is “ever-changing”, Favreau adds. “Hopefully, we can allow the existing fans to feel the way that they once did, and invite a new audience in so that Star Wars continues. That people might use this as an entry, and look around. So many people are watching Clone Wars after [The Mandalorian].
“These are opportunities [for the audience to] feel like they’re getting a glimpse of something, so they can explore it more deeply,” Favreau says. “It is our responsibility to leave Star Wars behind at least as good, if not better, than we found it. So that it could be passed on to the next set of storytellers and that these iconic characters could live on.”
The ‘missing link’ episode that sets up season three
Even to diehard fans, the return of Grogu – aka The Child, or more plainly, Baby Yoda – to the side of his adopted parent in the new season of The Mandalorian comes as something of a surprise. In the final episode of the show’s second season, Grogu left Mando to study with Luke Skywalker.
The missing link in the story can be found in another Star Wars series, The Book of Boba Fett. That series focused on the exploits of former bounty hunters Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) on the planet Tattooine, after Fett retakes the iconic desert palace of the Star Wars franchise’s most famous crime lord, Jabba the Hutt.
Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) on the mean streets of Tatooine.Credit: Lucasfilm
Here, briefly, is the story so far. The first season of The Mandalorian opened five years after the events of the Star Wars film Return of the Jedi, in which the rebel alliance, led by Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo, destroyed the second Death Star and toppled the Empire.
What is left in the Empire’s wake are “Imperial remnants”, power factions that are struggling to dominate in the outer rim of deep space. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), a Mandalorian bounty hunter, was hired to retrieve “the asset”, but when he realised the asset in question was a Force-sensitive child, he instead elected to protect the child from the sinister forces hunting it.
The final three episodes of The Book of Boba Fett plug in the gap between the second and third seasons of The Mandalorian. In them, Luke Skywalker gives Grogu the choice of remaining as a Jedi-in-training or returning to the side of Din Djarin. Grogu chooses Mando.
They also explain the historical significance of the Darksaber, the weapon Mando took from Moff Gideon last season. It is the planet Mandalore’s equivalent of Excalibur: that is, whoever wields it, is heir to the throne of Mandalore. But having revealed he had removed his helmet in front of Grogu – apostasy to the orthodox Children of the Watch – Din is told he is a true Mandalorian no more.
The Mandalorian is on Disney+.
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