The Mandalorian is visually stunning, but the pilot episode is like the first five minutes of a Star Wars movie, stretched out

Vox

The Disney+ Star Wars series is a triumph of atmosphere, boasting a great sense of place -- but not much else, says Emily Todd VanDerWerff. "Even at 39-plus minutes, The Mandalorian feels pretty long," says VanDerWerff of the pilot episode, adding that Jon Favreau’s "script and co-creator Dave Filoni’s direction of that script pause so often to be, like, 'Isn’t it cool that we’re making a Star Wars show?' that I kept dropping out of the action. The show is somehow at once sprightly and ponderous." VanDerWerff adds: "The Mandalorian appears to be following the dreaded 'X-hour long movie' model that afflicts so many streaming dramas, where the action is padded, the storytelling is lax, and the character development is trapped by the cinematic model of tracing a character’s gradual progression from one thing to another over two-ish hours. Successful TV shows often encompass any or all of the preceding ideas, but they usually wed them to an episodic structure that allows them to tell many smaller stories within a larger one. I and many other TV critics have been harping on this for years, but Disney+ did not get any of our memos, as it turns out. Ultimately, The Mandalorian’s chief effect is of an efficiently paced show that is nevertheless devastatingly boring. We might be watching a long movie, but little thought has been paid to how to make every part of the movie interesting to watch in and of itself, beyond slathering it in high production values. Hence all the atmosphere."

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• The Mandalorian feels like true vintage Star Wars: "Fans will obsessively pick apart this first episode in the coming days, but Star Wars has always been at its best when it's welcoming to even the most casual audiences," says Jeva Lange. "The Mandalorian hasn't forgotten those roots, nor has it left behind its predecessors' lessons in what makes a great space story: Incredible worlds, captivating music, strange and unique creatures, and most of all, a hero who — even if you can't see his face — you'll follow to the ends of the galaxy."
• The Mandalorian's first episode is 39 minutes of mediocre Star Wars: The Mandalorian looks great -- "or at least very much like something on which Disney spent one-eighth of the eight-episode season’s $100 million budget," says Sam Adams. "But it feels uninspired from its very first scene, a confrontation in an intergalactic cantina that ends with the show’s titular bounty hunter … collecting a bounty. The show’s premiere ... ends with a mild surprise, suggesting it will build out an area of the Star Wars universe that has been hitherto unexplored. But before that it’s at pains to confront viewers with the familiar, to make them comfortable enough that they can slide right into The Empire Strikes Back when they’re done and not feel the slightest jostle."
• As a bombastic first entry into live-action TV, The Mandalorian is a bit of a disappointment. "Crafted around a protagonist designed to be obscure (he never removes his helmet, and even his voice is modulated into bland evenness), there's little in the way of an emotional connection in the first episode," says Kelly Lawler. "Like prequel film Rogue One, Mandalorian captures the aesthetics of the Star Wars universe without understanding its heart."
• It’s quite satisfying to see a much-anticipated, heavily guarded pilot episode like The Mandalorian execute with such efficiency: "Characters are introduced with clarity," says Ben Travers. "The story as told is simple and effective. Patterns are established in order to be consciously subverted, creating visceral surprises and substantial twists. By the time Jon Favreau wraps his first episode, the creator and writer has constructed a clear path forward and an enticing relationship worth watching unfold. Perfect. Great. Sign us up for three months of Disney+, please. That is… unless you’re struck by a lingering sense of déjà vu."
• While the pilot achieves a certain distinctness, it lacks in distinction -- it is its own thing, and yet not much of anything: Jon Favreau sets "the majority of this episode’s scenes in genre-appropriate desert climates, with a noteworthy departure on an ice-planet concealing a less-than-impactful CGI monstrosity," says Charles Bramesco. "The long-form homage works, on the whole, until the time comes to lay the cards on the table and Favreau has to re-stage a classic sequence from The Wild Bunch just to muster a grand finale. 'Spaghetti western but in space' is so much better in theory than in practice, a recurring theme in the pilot episode."
• The Mandalorian pilot is surprisingly intimate: "Through that pilot, the thing that struck me first was how small, relatively speaking, it is," says Daniel Fienberg. "The premiere is still fun and packed with technical marvels that devoted Star Wars fans never could have even fathomed appearing on TV a decade ago. It's just small. Written by Jon Favreau and directed by Dave Filoni, the pilot clocks in at less than 40 minutes, which is barely enough time to establish a premise, much less characters. Nearly everything we think we're introduced to in the premiere could be undone in short order."
• You can take Star Wars out of the movie theater, but you can’t take the television out of television: "That was my first impression on seeing The Mandalorian, the expensive-looking new show that is the marquee offering of the Disney+ streaming service," says David Sims. "There have been TV forays into George Lucas’s sci-fi universe before, in the form of much-maligned holiday specials and animated programs aimed at young audiences. But the first episode of The Mandalorian...looks like it could be the first act of a blockbuster film, laden with elaborate alien creatures, blaster shoot-outs, and dazzling set design. The impressive production values, however, can’t cover up a relatively skimpy plot. 'Chapter 1' of The Mandalorian is a thin piece of setup stretched over 38 minutes, barely introducing its hero and then dangling a tantalizing twist at the end. The narrative flimsiness is a sign that, despite the studio’s financial resources and the imperative to make this TV debut feel like a major event, Disney+ is following the No. 1 rule of streaming as first defined by Netflix: Dragging out one story over the course of a whole season is the best way to hook subscribers."
• What's great is there's no rush in The Mandalorian: "We’re going to be spending a lot of time with these characters over the years," says Germain Lussier. "So here, in the beginning, we just meet this Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) looking for a bounty, and there’s no need for any big explanation or backstory. The first scene simply sets up that he’s very good at his job as well as the tone for the show. The bounty he takes in, played by Saturday Night Live’s Horatio Sanz, is funny. You kind of like him. And yet, the Mandalorian shows no mercy. He straight up freezes him in carbonite without hesitation. Also, the fact the show references going to the bathroom almost immediately (in a back tube?) is another hint that this show is going to be as Star Wars as you want, but seen from a different perspective. It feels like Favreau and Filoni made a list of all the cool shit they love in Star Wars, or questions you always had about Star Wars, and put them all in one show."
• The Mandalorian is perfect for Star Wars fans who like the franchise's gritty side: "One of the many problems with George Lucas's Star Wars prequels was their clinical, slick veneer," says Matt Miller. "Those films took place in sleek Naboo starships, in the halls of luxurious political chambers, in the grand Jedi temple. Even the dusty dunes of Tatooine in Episode I somehow lacked that dirty charm of the originals—those sleazy cantinas, and ragtag groups of rebels. That was part of what made Star Wars so beloved—that it was sci-fi that didn't lean so heavily on the techno utopia of Star Trek. This is a long time ago, after all, where, yes, there are droids and lightspeed capabilities, but the ships are broken down beaters, the cruisers hobbled together, and the droids walking trashcans. The two new spin-off Star Wars series Rogue One and Solo did much better at capturing the aesthetic of a galaxy filled with criminals and hustlers and mob bosses and scoundrels. In its first episode, Disney's The Mandalorian takes us back to the Star Wars underbelly...The Mandalorian maintains that gritty Star Wars charm, while also effectively using modern technology."
• Hiding Pedro Pascal’s face under the helmet the entire time seems a poor use of an expressive performer
• Your level of engagement may ride on how vested you can be in a character who will, reportedly, never remove his helmet
• The epic sweep and casual nihilism of Spaghetti Westerns are evident from the opening scenes of “Chapter One”
• Westerns are revered for their simplicity, and The Mandalorian embraces its fresh new start by bringing basic storytelling to Star Wars
• Breaking down The Mandalorian pilot ending
• Pedro Pascal's ascent from Game of Thrones to Star Wars: Just six years ago he was doing one-offs on police procedurals
• Does Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Samurai film Yojimbo give away The Mandalorian's plot?
• Taika Waititi compares droid IG-11 to the Terminator
• Jon Favreau is glad The Mandalorian is being released weekly: “It’s fun not to have a preciousness in the way we’re telling these stories, because next week we’re coming back at you with another one,” Favreau explains. “With the streaming service it’s a bigger budget (and) it has a lot of the qualities and aesthetics of the films, but the novelization is where it opened up a lot of freedom and opportunity for us to not feel like we’re repeating or copying anything else that people have experienced."