Star Wars fans depending on who you ask Disney has either saved Star Wars or burnt it to the ground however there is one thing that both sides could agree on and that's the fact that The Mandalorian was worth getting excited about. Well now the first episode has indeed been released on Disney+ with episode two due on Friday and so that means that yours truly is here to give you my first impressions of the show and please note there will be a spoiler in the post.
The plot of the episode is really simple an unnamed Mandalorian is sent on a mission to kill a target and that's really it. Yeah for a first episode the plot was really simple and easy to follow which does indeed make sense since it does allow new fans to follow what's going on but at the same time I was kind of expecting something a little bit more complex but who knows maybe we'll get that in future episodes.
Starring in the episode are Pedro Pascal as "The Mandalorian" , Carl Weathers as Greef Karga , Werner Herzog as "The Client" , Omid Abtahi as Doctor Pershing , Nick Nolte as Kuiil , Taika Waititi as IG-11 , John Beasley as Bartender , Horatio Sanz as Mythrol , Tait Fletcher as Alpha trawler , Ryan Watson as Beta trawler , Dmitrious Bistrevsky as Quarren trawler , Christopher Bartlett as Ferryman , Brian Posehn as Speeder Pilot and Emily Swallow as Armorer.
For once I have no idea how to judge the acting from our lead character because his face his hidden all the time and we only get small bits of him speaking but based of what I heard in the episode the acting from Pedro is honestly really good. The same thing can also be said for the acting from the other actors in the episode with each of them clearly putting in effort and it really does show in my opinion.
Now I was going to talk about the CGI here but the only image I could find about the effects was a spoiler image so instead i'm going to talk about when this show takes place because not alot of people will know when the show takes place. The show takes place in the thirty year time gap between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens which for me is a good idea because there's more room to tell interesting stories there since we won't know how certain characters end up.
SPOILER START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These effects were so freaking good and after doing some research that really shouldn't come as a shock because the effects were done by ILM. I honestly want to know what the effects budget was because the CGI in this is insanely good like it's feature film good even the character who i'm now calling Baby Yoda (because look at it) looks really good I honestly wouldn't have blamed this show for not using that much CGI because Disney+ is a new service but not only did they use alot of it they went the extra mile to make it look good.
Speaking of Baby Yoda (yes I know it's not Yoda but I have idea what species Yoda is so yeah) he / she looks damn good for fifty years old. I'm not even kidding the baby in this episode is said to be fifty years old damn I hope I look that good when I reach fifty. All jokes aside giving this western type character a baby to look after is a good idea because now he has a link to a human side something which wouldn't be present if the baby wasn't there.
SPOILER ENDS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now then I have to talk about the action because for a TV show it was far better then what I was expecting it to be. In my head I thought that we'd just see a few punches being thrown and that was it but nope was I wrong and it was just so cool to see on the screen that's honestly the best thing that I can say about the whole episode is that it's cool in every single way possible and it makes me want to see the next episode because of it.
Now as you all know this show debuted on Disney+ and is one of their many shows being made available at launch. That is however if you don't live in most of Europe or various other countries because we in the UK have to wait until 2020 to get the service which is big mistake on Disney's part because they've made all the trailers available for all to watch and so people are excited to see the shows or films and so be not launching it worldwide on the same day there now encouraging people to use "other methods" to see the shows and films that are going to be coming out on the service which will in turn hurt them.
Now I will admit that i've not clicked on any reviews for this show but it will does astound me that many reviewers put out reviews after a single episode. Case in point The Guardians Charles Bramesco who's headline reads "The Mandalorian review – splashy Star Wars show is a dusty disappointment" you cannot base a review of a show after one or two episodes even in the opening few lines he says that the show fails to impress.
Another example of this is Emily Todd VanDerWerff's (yes that's her actual name) for Vox who despite being a little more positive says that the show is just fine. Again you cannot base an entire review on just the first one or two episodes you need to watch at least the first series / season in order to do the review justice since then you'd actually know what your talking about it's clear to me that the people who do this while they do have a job to do are also doing it for the clicks and that's why you won't see a full review from me until either the end of this first series / season or the show.
Overall this was a solid first episode and while I personally didn't find it as epic as everyone else who saw it on launch day did I still feel that the episode deserves it's high score of RT. Like I said I won't be jumping on the bad wagon on basin a review of the first few episodes and by the way episode two is due on Friday i'll either do it when the show ends or the first season ends but it'll most likely be when the show ends just because the final episode is going live a few days after Christmas.