The Mandalorian Chapter One Review

With our famed Star Wars film saga coming to an end, it is time to branch out an tell some new stories. Disney hopes to christen its new streaming platform with The Mandalorian, an epic series that it hopes will drive viewers to its platform.

Synopsis: A Mandalorian bounty hunter tracks a target for a well-paying client. (Disney)

As far as Chapter One is concerned, it certainly does not waste any time by throwing us straight into its world and it was surely an impressive one reminiscent of the original film trilogy. It becomes immediately clear the level of care by everyone involved in creating a living and breathing world while favoring practical effects over CGI as much as possible. There is definitely quite a lot to behold here. Though it may be interesting, we were only given a taste. The scale was there but this episode did a great job at reigning all of it in and allowing us to focus on the series’ titular character of the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), a bounty hunter with an infamous set of armor and a helmet for which he did not remove.

Following such a seemingly lifeless character as the Mandalorian could mean doom and gloom but despite the obvious distancing ploy with the helmet, there was still a lot beneath the surface as he was compelling to watch throughout while allowing some of his personality to come out. Meanwhile, he wouldn’t be alone as the episode also introduced several characters (that we may where they stand) to help counterbalance him to a certain degree. For those wondering about the series’ connection to Star Wars lore as a whole, there were some bits scattered throughout.

However, a series such as this one was never going to play its hand right away. Though the jury may still be out on how it will eventually handle this which could honestly be in a multitude of directions from the seeds that were planted (it wasn’t necessarily clear where this episode was going or what it wanted to be), it was still intriguing enough to warrant further viewing. The ending to this episode will most likely stand out for most viewers as it will create plenty of discussion among Star Wars fans (a discussion for another day). The Mandalorian is a surprisingly complex character that may be more cut and dried as he seemed. It will certainly be interesting to see where he goes as a character from here. We got a quick backstory but there’s definitely more.

In the end, with Chapter One, The Mandalorian has all the pieces there, along with extraordinary production values and a great lead performance from Pedro Pascal to boot, but still needs to find its footing. While it may fit within the Star Wars universe, it still needs to find a solid direction in order to ensure any long-term viability. Considering all the talent involved, there’s no reason why that can’t happen.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.