On Wednesday, show creator Jon Favreau officially unveiled a teaser for the live-action Star Wars series expected to premiere on Disney's upcoming streaming service in 2019. Titled The Mandalorian, the series follows "the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic," according to an Instagram post from Favreau styled similarly to the iconic Star Wars opening text crawl.
Also confirmed in the show description was where The Mandalorian fits in the Star Wars timeline: "after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order," confirming Favreau's early description of the series back in May, which placed the action three years after the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, which resulted in the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader in the destruction of the second Death Star.
While the very first details for the show are only now being officially unveiled, there are already a number of set leaks and rumors that can tell us even more about the big-budget project (with a per-episode cost rivaling Game of Thrones), most of which come courtesy of Making Star Wars.
But first, an inference: Favreau opening his description for The Mandalorian with "After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges…" would certainly imply a continuity between the cloned bounty hunter and this gunfighter. Whether or not the series visits Jango's home planet of Mandalore, expect The Mandalorian to significantly expand on our knowledge of their warrior society (and maybe even its subsequent peace, destroyed by Darth Maul in the animated series The Clone Wars).
The biggest rumor is the casting of Pedro Pascal in a lead role, which has since been denied by representatives for Pascal. You probably know Pascal from his Netflix series Narcos or as Oberyn Martell, who got aced by Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane in Game of Thrones Season 4. He certainly looks right for the part of a Boba Fett-esque bounty hunter, but for now Pascal's role is nothing more than rumor.
Making Star Wars also has photos leaked from the set, which depicts very Star Wars-y alleyways of grungy concrete and futuristic, vaguely octagonal doorways. Other photos depict blast doors, moisture vaporators (similar to the moisture farm where Luke Skywalker grew up) and what looks like a bazaar or market of some sort. Everything looks very Tatooine, which would be appropriate to a series set on the Outer Rim of the Star Wars galaxy, where both Mandalore and Tatooine are located. It's a lawless zone, only haphazardly controlled during the rule of Emperor Palpatine. It's easy to imagine the collapse of the Galactic Empire throwing the region into even more chaos.
Rumored directors include Favreau himself, of course, but also Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, Star Wars Rebels creator Dave Filoni and Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor. The first season of The Mandalorian is expected to run for ten episodes, though, like almost everything else about the series, there are rumors it will instead be eight.
Like the legend of Luke Skywalker, rumors about The Mandalorian are bound to spread faster through the galaxy than truth. We'll have to wait for 2019 to truly see what Disney, Lucasfilm and Favreau have in store.
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