Here is a non-canonical, or semi-canonical tale – maybe the distinction is beginning to blur – from the Star Wars universe, serving up some entertaining but very familiar Star Wars narrative tropes on a spectacular Imax scale. And if you thought it was possible to end a movie like this without a climactic aerial combat scene involving X-wing fighters, think again. It is developed from the Disney+ streaming TV series The Mandalorian and set in the timeframe just after Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, in which holdout warlords from the defeated Empire are plotting a return against the New Republic.
Pedro Pascal plays the Mandalorian, a badass freebooting bounty hunter not unlike Han Solo, only he has on his shoulder Grogu, his “ward”. (That quaint Victorian term is revived here for the first time since the days of Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne.) Grogu is the Yoda-species infant with nascent telekinetic powers. As for the Mandalorian, he has a voice like Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, and in fact he’s the guy with no face; he hardly ever removes his helmet – apart from in one key scene – despite the fact that it must surely restrict his visual field. And he must surely remove it occasionally to eat and drink and trim his moustache. Body-double actors Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne variously play the helmeted Mandalorian striding around, giving director Jon Favreau and Pascal exceptional leeway with the filming and voice-recording schedule. The Mandalorian is a vivid symbol of the importance of genre IP over old-fashioned star presence and the obvious comparison with Dave Prowse body-doubling Darth Vader is disconcerting.
The Republic’s Colonel Ward – a martial role which Sigourney Weaver politely phones in, rather as she did with her part in the Avatar films – hires the Mandalorian and Grogu to exfiltrate from imprisonment Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White); he is the son of the loathsome Jabba the Hutt, and Hutt Jr is being held by an imperial warlord played by Jonny Coyne. The deal with the hateful Hutts is that in return for Rotta’s freedom, they will give the Republic intel about what the Empire schemers are up to.
TM&G begin their bold quest at the wheel of a reconditioned battlecraft not entirely unlike the Millennium Falcon, and they encounter more than few wacky minor characters, including a nervy and over-caffeinated four-armed street-food vendor, cheerfully voiced by Martin Scorsese. Favreau gives us a fair few exotic and horrible creatures that the Mandalorian, often called “Mando”, has to battle, including a colossally yucky snake that emerges from the goopy depths presided over by the reptilian and duplicitous Hutts.
The film is watchable and barrels along capably enough, but perhaps there isn’t enough of the humanity, humour and extravagant space melodrama which has made and continues to make Star Wars lovable.
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is out on 21 May in Australia and 22 May in the UK and US.
