Pics and tidbits from behind the scenes of The Mandalorian

All week long, Entertainment Weekly has been revealing bits and pieces of information about The Mandalorian, the first-ever live-action Star Wars series. We can all watch the show when it premieres on Disney+ this November, but in the meantime, we sure are enjoying the little tastes.

Today, EW revealed a big cover piece feauring interviews with the cast and crew, as well as a gorgeous never-before-seen cover shot. The show also stars Gina Carano as Cara Dune, a former Rebel Shock Trooper turned mercenary; Giancarlo Esposito as former Imperial Moff Gideon; Carl Weathers as Greef Carga, the leader of a bounty hunter guild, and Taiki Waititi as the voice of IG-11, a bounty hunter droid. Also on board are Werner Herzog, Nick Nolte, Ming-Na Wen, and star Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell Game of Thrones), who plays the titular character, a hard-scrabble bounty hunter making his way on the outskirts of the galaxy following the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi.

"New image from The Mandalorian from StarWarsLeaks"

James Hibberd, who provided EW with on-the-ground coverage of Westeros over the years, was also on the set of The Mandalorian. Below, he takes us behind the curtain:

"The Mandalorian stealthily enters the safe house. Two stormtroopers stand guard. The soldiers have become freelance mercenaries since the Empire has collapsed, their once-pristine armor now grimy with dirt. The bounty hunter creeps up behind them and fires his blaster, gunning them down."

If you were at all worried that Disney would take its first shot at a live-action Star Wars show and make it silly or childish, then that description should allay your fears. Heck, just watching the official trailer for the show should have done that:

Creator/showrunner Jon Favreau weighed in on the setting for Disney’s new epic. “It’s like after the Roman Empire falls, or when you don’t have a centralized shogun in Japan­ — and, of course, the Old West, when there wasn’t any government in the areas that had not yet been settled. Those are also cinematic tropes in films that originally inspired George Lucas to make Star Wars.”

Hibberd notes that The Mandalorian draws inspiration from the first-ever Star Wars film, A New Hope, meaning we’re light years away from the pomp and finery of the prequel trilogy. It should chart its own course, too. We’ll see Pascal’s character travel to many different star systems, and there are no plans to include legacy characters, “at least, not in the first season.”

Does that mean we can expect old friends to turn up in season 2, which Favreau is already writing? Put a pin in that one.

“I’ve always been curious what the other people in the cantina are up to,” Favreau continued. “We’re digging really deep in the toy chest and pulling out the action figures that people were always curious about and were not quite in the center frame, but have a lot of potential.”

Director Dave Filoni jumped all over that metaphor: “These are the [action figures] you got,” he said. “Your older brothers have had ‘good’ ones. Somehow you got Boba Fett. And if you have Boba Fett, you could always tell a good story.” I feel like Filoni may have said more about his childhood than he meant to there?

Some other highlights:

• We won’t see Pascal’s face much during the eight-episode first season — apparently Pascal spent a lot of time on set bumping into things. That’s fine by me, as the helmet has always been the coolest parts of the Mandalorian armor, and Favreau insists that the character will be entertaining anyway. “What’s remarkable is when you see the whole stretch of the first season how engaging the character is. It’s amazing how many Star Wars characters are emotionally engaging that aren’t even anthropomorphic. R2-D2 is my favorite character and he barely has an eye.”
• Taika Waititi’s voice for IG-11 is a cross between Siri and HAL 9000. Waititi describes the character as “very innocent and naive and direct and doesn’t know about sarcasm and doesn’t know how to lie. It’s like a child with a gun.”
• Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito describes his character, Moff Gideon, as different from your usual governor. “He’s an Imperial remnant of a very fine officer who then switches to become sort of the guardian of the people. But what does [Moff Gideon] really want? This guy is going to be a big player because he has an idea of how to keep order.” We have our own ideas about where that might lead.

The Mandalorian arrives on Disney+ on November 12, with episodes coming out one per week.

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