Fans went wild as Disney debuted the first trailer for its hotly anticipated original series, The Mandalorian, last night at D23, the annual fan extravaganza the studio has been organizing for the last several years. The series will be released in conjunction with the company’s new streaming platform, Disney+, on November 12, 2019.
Starring Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper, in Game of Thrones) as the Mandalorian, the series takes place a few years “after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order,'” according to the official synopsis. Pascal’s bounty hunter is “a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the New Republic.” Pascal delighted the assembled fans with a surprise appearance at D23, along with co-stars Gina Carano, who plays Cara Dune, a former Rebel Shock Trooper; Carl Weathers as Greef Carga, leader of a bounty-hunter guild; Giancarlo Esposito; and Taika Waititi, who voices the droid IG-11. Ming-Na Wen (Agents of Shield) has also been cast in the series.
Showrunner and series creator Jon Favreau was also on stage for the event, and he explained that, after the defeat of the Empire in Return of the Jedi, there was a period of chaos and lawlessness as a new government struggled to emerge from the wreckage. The trailer plays up the space opera/spaghetti Western crossover vive. There’s almost no dialogue, just scenes depicting a mysterious lone figure taking on an assignment from Carga to track something. Or someone. Could it be Han Solo trapped in carbonite?
There are battles in space and on land, and there’s even a tense standoff as the Mandalorian is surrounded. The only dialogue is uttered by Werner Herzog at the very end: “Bounty hunting is a complicated profession,” he drawls. “Don’t you agree?” All in all, it’s got a great Firefly feel to it. We can’t wait to see more.
The Mandalorian will premiere along with the Disney+ streaming service on November 12, 2019.
Listing image by YouTube/Star Wars/Disney
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