Connections, the eighth episode of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian on Disney+, made clear that with its references to past Star Wars productions, The Mandalorian was trying to give its audience the feels.
“We’re doing fan service like creatively, like, would this be cool?” The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau says. “We’re definitely thinking, how’s this going to play with the fans?”
But the new Disney canon makes it so much of The Mandalorian as constituted shouldn’t exist in the first place.
In the canon, the Battle of Jakku and the immediately subsequent Galactic Concordance on Chandrila means the end of the Empire, according to Aftermath: Empire’s End. (Note the very title of the book, too.)
Yet, the Empire is in The Mandalorian. Which is set four years after the Battle of Jakku. The Battle of Jakku is one year after the Battle of Endor from Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. (Favreau has said the show is set five years after the Battle of Endor, according to Vulture.)
The Mandalorian including the Empire after the political force was supposed to have been decimated doesn’t make sense.
The Mandalorian is the biggest streaming show out right now. But I don’t see anyone questioning why if at least how much of it is constituted is a problem.
It was also a big deal when Disney wiped the slate clean with Star Wars canon. And now, it appears that the canon the studio has since created is creating problems for itself.
It’s clear that Disney needs to watch its steps.
I’m going to continue to enjoy The Mandalorian. But I’ll do so knowing that it has a major problem on its hands.
Or, we could get rid of the Empire in the show.
Connections pointed out a variety of things from past productions that were used or seen in The Mandalorian. Because it pointed out that there were death troopers; an “ice cream maker” held by an extra in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back and an IG unit being among characters that were “deep in the background” in films.
“And Jon (Favreau)’s like, with these elements, we can launch Disney+,” The Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni says especially to the “background” remark, to laughs from episode directors.
Other items from past productions varied from an AT-ST to the R-5 unit that Luke Skywalker said had a “bad motivator.”
The episode sees a cool moment where Favreau looks to Star Wars creator George Lucas on the set of The Mandalorian. Jon asks if a device from the Star Wars Holiday Special was canon because it came from Lucas. Lucas said it wasn’t really. It was a moment that indicated that Lucas understands that not everything he created is canon.
Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Disney-owned Lucasfilm, later says that Lucasfilm personnel cares “so much about what they are trying to do,” with Lucasfilm “always operating at such a high bar.”
I believe that. So how did they miss this key Star Wars timeline element?
Does The Mandalorian have an issue as long as it has the Empire? Comment below!
