After the first four episodes of The Mandalorian on the Disney+, I have a few thoughts.

First, despite having Marvel, the Disney library and some others… there is not a lot of interesting stuff to watch on the new service. You have to understand that I am not one of those people who likes to rewatch movies I’ve seen. There are just so many good new ones out there, it seems like a waste of time. Sure, I have a few classics I will rewatch – The Blues Brothers, The Princess Bride, etc. Other than The Mandelorian, it is pretty slim pickings.

I tried the series The World According to Jeff Goldblum but I tried watching a couple episodes and Goldblum seems to spend all his time trying to be a caricature of himself. He is like Jeff Goldblum trying to act like Wacky Jeff Goldblum and he just goes over the top. It takes an interesting concept and digs into about 10 minutes of that story. The other 20 minutes of this half hour show is Goldblum acting wacky.

As far as The Mandalorian goes… I like it. Yes, it is written very simply. It is quite predictable. It uses every adventure trope known. The soundtrack is weirdly disconnected – sweeping orchestrations that sound like they should be during a grand finale of a blockbuster film. The Child (a creature of the same race as Yoda) is sickeningly cute and is used for every innocent youth trope and is sure to have been created simply for the product sales.

In short, the series created and written by Jon Favreau could have been put together by a smart junior high school kid. This is not high art. But, as I said… I like it.

Pedro Pascal (Narcos) is the Mandalorian bounty hunter (Mando_ that comes across like Clint Eastwood‘s spaghetti western characters – questionable honor, but a soft spot for the innocent. Despite his monotone affect, he sticks to his character and is easy to like. He is nothing like the Mandalorian we know and hate/love from earlier Star Wars films – Boba Fett.

Guest appearances by Nick Nolte, Carl Weathers and others are interesting but serve more as distraction than anything else. Again, these are not high-art or even remotely cleverly written episodes. They are simple but fun.

by Chris Doelle