The Mandalorianis already primed and ready to be special given that it’s the first-ever live-actionStar WarsTV show, but in a manner fitting a franchise as huge and iconic asStar Wars, it sounds like the approach to creating the upcoming Disney+ series was anything but ordinary.
The show was created byThe Jungle BookandIron ManfilmmakerJon Favreauand takes place five years after the events ofReturn of the Jedi. ActorPedro Pascalplays the titular Mandalorian, a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the New Republic.
We still know very little about the story of the series, but when Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with actorGiancarlo Espositoabout his role in the upcoming filmStuck, he shed some light on the cutting-edge technology that was used to bring the series to life.
Not only isThe Mandalorianthe first substantial live-actionStar WarsTV series, but Esposito notes that it’s also the first majorStar Warspiece to shoot its soundstage work outside of London—in this case, Southern California:
“I’ve got a great costume. We got great set pieces. I’m not giving anything away because [Jon Favreau] is an artist, truly an artist. [He was] working with George Lucas on this particular piece and making it a piece that we can really relate to now in our world that we’re in. Besides the fact that there are so manyStar Warsfans out there that really don’t get enough of this, finally we have a [Star Wars] piece that for the first time ever is shot outside of a London studio.”
Esposito says the show—or his scenes, at least—utilized a Volume for production. A Volume is basically a giant, bare warehouse with blue screens all around and tracking cameras everywhere, so as to capture human performances in a digital environment. This is the manner in which theAvatarmovies were shot, as well as the virtual reality sequences fromReady Player One, and it’s usually used for motion-capture:
“Jon Favreau’s brilliant. Technically, this show has a new technology [that’s] never really [been] refined as much as it is right now. We’re in a place called The Volume, where we do most of our acting, where set pieces are brought in, where we can control the physical atmosphere of what is projected on the walls and control how gravity is; you get a feeling that gravity is being played with. This is a show that’s gonna be really fantastic.”
It’s unclear if Esposito means he’s playing a motion-capture character, or if the actors performed their live-action movements but were surrounded by motion-captured environments to bring the world ofThe Mandalorianto life. We know from official images that the show does indeed have practical sets, so I’mverycurious to see how the Volume came into play, and how that manifests onscreen.
Additionally, in praising Favreau for handing directing reins over to other filmmakers with diverse points of view, Esposito appears to reveal that Favreau worked withGeorge Lucasto create the series in the first place:
“Well you know what’s cool aboutMandalorianis you figure a guy who wrote it, who figured it out with George Lucas, would direct every episode. That would be all ego, right? He has amassed some incredible directors from different parts of the planet to give their take on an episode. I find that to be so phenomenal because then we have new and fresh ideas every single episode, coming into this show, that reflect the fans—because the directors are also fans. They’re from Australia, from England, from wherever you are, it reflects their take of their people on how they saw the original and how they’re going to do it as well. So you get new, fresh energy into a piece that is already energetic because of all the stuff that’s going on on the screen, because of all the technology that they’ve worked out. This is going to be a fantastic show.”
Lucas was famously developing a live-actionStar WarsTV series after the prequels, before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, and he even had dozens of scripts written and ready to go. The hurdle at that time was budget, as no network was willing to spend the money necessary to make aStar Warslive-action TV show a reality. The whole thing was scrapped after the Disney sale, but one wonders if some of the ideas hatched during that time have made their way intoThe Mandaloriangiven that Lucas was consulted.
Then again, it’s possible Favreau simply used Lucas as a guide, consulting to make sure he was heading in the right direction and keeping with the spirit of Lucas’s vision for theStar Warsuniverse. There are still a lot of questions aboutThe Mandalorian, most of which we probably don’t even want answered until we’ve seen the dang series for ourselves. But this makesThe Mandalorianthat much more intriguing.
The series debuts on Disney+ on November 12th. For more on the show, peruse our recent coverage below:
