(DEBORAH CHOW ON PA)
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
JON FAVREAU: We're in kind of a unique situation in the Star Wars galaxy
where we're part of something bigger,
but we're also carving out our own story that follows these characters.
The first season of The Mandalorian was really about
just these simple stories
that were gonna be about a bounty of the week.
THE MANDALORIAN: I can bring you in warm...
Or I can bring you in cold.
FAMUYIWA: The events of season two started to come together
and I think for Jon and Dave, that really started to ricochet
in terms of where that could go for season three.
FAVREAU: We introduced a lot of new characters,
or, a lot of them are legacy characters, in the second season.
And each one of them had their own trajectory.
The Darksaber. It belongs to you.
She can't take it.
It must be won in battle.
By seeing how those characters interacted
and what was going on
in the Star Wars galaxy at that time post-war,
there were certain things that started to unfold in a very organic way.
Taking all the work I had done with Mandalorians
and bringing it together with all the work
Jon and things he had imagined about Mandalorians
were finding the way between the two things.
And along the way, we met other fantastic storytellers
like Rick Famuyiwa, who became a part of our team,
Noah Kloor, who became a part of our team
and added depth and dimension to everything we were doing.
FAVREAU: Kathy Kennedy, ever since, you know, bringing Dave and I together
to collaborate on The Mandalorian in season one,
has helped us identify a lot of other great filmmakers to work with.
FILONI: So now, it's just not one or two people's vision
of how these people come together, it's a group of us.
And our galaxy's getting bigger and more fuller
than it's ever been before.
The storytelling is not just about good story well told,
it is also about pushing the medium of filmmaking forward.
That is thrilling.
And every single season, Jon ups the ante.
CARL WEATHERS: It's just been an absolute joy to come to work
and really to ask myself a question,
which has become a part of my mantra now, "What am I gonna learn today?"
You know, between Rick and Jon and Dave and Bryce
and whomever else is working on a given day,
you can learn something from them, and I steal it all.
I felt so good about that, I wanna do it again.
(LAUGHTER)
FAMUYIWA: The founding spirit, I think, of the first season
was the idea of these talented directors, in their own right
coming in to the show and bringing their points of view and vision
but still having that point of view sort of fit under the overarching umbrella
of how Jon and Dave have seen the world from the beginning.
And so, I think as each season has gone on,
there's been these new voices that have come in.
(FAVREAU SPEAKING)
I was a director on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
among a couple of other things.
I think they had the feeling that someone who'd worked in animation
and sort of had a background
in dealing with the kind of previsualization that you do
in storyboards and in a lot of the phases of animation
might be a good fit for the way this process rolls out.
I think your look has to come all the way around and not stay there.
CAREY JONES: So it comes back to the front?
RAMSEY: Yeah, back to the front,
because then we'll catch you in a nice profile.
I've been a Star Wars fan since, really since the first movie came out.
So hearing about the possibility of being part of the show felt unreal.
LEE ISAAC CHUNG: I was editing my film Minari in 2019
and my editor was telling me,
"You have to watch this show called Mandalorian."
And it became the show that I was going to.
I was just talking to my agents and I said,
"If there's anyway I can talk to Jon Favreau,
"I'd love to just say hello to him and then ask him for a job."
Lo and behold, they were able to get a hold of Jon.
He had seen my film. He said that he enjoyed it.
And we had a wonderful conversation.
And I basically told him I would love to do this show if it's possible.
And he told me, "Okay, we'll have you."
It just really blew my mind and got me so excited about coming in here.
You would barrel roll as you are approaching the planet.
-KATEE SACKHOFF: Okay. -CHUNG: We'll see.
SACKHOFF: Okay. Beautiful.
RACHEL MORRISON: When I got the call to do Mandalorian, I delved into it.
Obviously, I had heard about the Volume.
And it felt like a chance to try something that I hadn't tried before.
Anything we can do to make it feel like it's a shot about Baby?
MAN: Cool.
MORRISON: With this guy kind of come flying at us through frame.
I think my background in cinematography absolutely informs my work as a director.
I think with my heart,
I feel with my heart, I shoot with my heart.
Our currency is empathy and is emotion.
And that translates whether it's physically
and technically through the lens
or working with an actor and making them feel something.
The Empire set out to punish us.
To wipe away our memory.
MORRISON: This experience has been really eye-opening from me.
Because I'm somebody who spent
the better part of at least a couple decades
thinking a grounded drama had to be a literal grounded drama.
And then to realize, thanks to The Mandalorian
that you drop anything that one can relate to
into a world and it's still grounded.
And it's still relatable and it's still emotional.
(STRAINING)
HOWARD: There's a challenge inherent in this series
when it comes to relationships
because our main character is wearing a helmet the entire time.
And so, I think that so much of what is being explored thematically
has to do with intimacy, vulnerability and kind of the mask
that we put over that.
(BABBLES)
Allowing a helmet or a mask to be the face of a character,
that's something I really associate with the original trilogy growing up.
You think of Darth Vader.
You think of the droids, you think of C-3PO or you think of R2-D2.
C-3PO: Behave yourself, R2. You're going to get us into trouble.
I really wanted to take on the challenge.
And Dave and I discussed this a lot.
"Can we have a show where somebody,
"where your lead character's face is hidden?"
By balancing that character out with Grogu,
you have this bifurcated lead.
Which is a very human, vulnerable, empathetic, soulful little child
and then you have this character who has lived life and done many things...
You can only imagine what challenges and adventures this guy has faced.
It was the combination of these characters that became the heart and soul.
And we knew that we had to work our way to that inevitable separation a few times.
And then this season was about bringing them back together again.
A Mandalorian has to understand maps and know their way around.
That way, you'll never be lost.
FAMUYIWA: When we start season three,
he's squarely faced with the ramifications of the decision
he made in season two where he took off his helmet
in order to help The Child.
THE MANDALORIAN: All right, pal.
It's time to go.
Don't be afraid.
FAMUYIWA: There are repercussions that happen because of that.
ARMORER: You have removed your helmet.
What's worse, you did so of your own free will.
You are no longer Mandalorian.
And then the, sort of, exploration of that opens up our world
into many different points of view on what it means to be Mandalorian.
And what does it mean to be The Mandalorian.
Your cult gave up on Mandalore long before the Purge.
Where were you then?
Bo in many respects this season is also The Mandalorian.
'Cause it's so much about her story and her journey
and her, sort of, initial ideas of going back
and bringing her people back together
that got derailed after she lost the Darksaber.
I am here to join you.
There's nothing left to join.
What of your plans to retake Mandalore?
When I returned without the Darksaber, my forces melted away.
She earned her stripes in adventures that we've all seen.
From nobility and she's been part of Death Watch.
She's existed in many different contexts.
And she's also a character where there's room for development.
Not all Mandalorians are bounty hunters.
Some of us serve a higher purpose.
She believes in the Darksaber.
But the Darksaber alone isn't gonna make you a great leader
just 'cause you hold a weapon.
She has to want to be this leader and she has to have belief in herself.
FAVREAU: She was a character that had not completed her life's journey
of where she was going to land as far as her identity.
And that's very rich for opportunity for storytelling.
Without that blade, she's a pretender to the throne.
Within this season, we are really getting to experience
a full journey and a full performance
where Katee can just absolutely bring, not only her incredible talent and her all
but this knowledge and experience that she has
because she's played this character for over a decade.
You succeeded where many have failed.
I've learned from the best, including you.
I wish I was good at something other than war.
SACKHOFF: When Dave first approached me
to play Bo-Katan in Clone Wars,
it was really just taking who he had created
and translating his vision vocally on to the screen.
Go on. I can handle this.
SACKHOFF: When the idea came up for me to play her in live-action,
I really had to stop and think about it.
Because I had absolutely zero idea
what she looked like not animated.
So I really had to learn the character all over again
and translate that into movement.
In the way that she used her mouth and the way that she walked and stood
and really start it all over again.
Which was hard. Harder than I thought.
I was part of the royal family.
I took the Creed and was showered with gifts.
But the rituals were all just theater for our subjects.
They loved watching the princess recite the Mandalorian tenets
as her father looked on proudly.
Such a heart-warming spectacle.
We didn't know how season three was gonna wrap up,
but we knew that we were gonna have to go to Mandalore at some point.
We knew that that's where things were headed.
And we knew that we were going to begin
to deal with what had happened and what we had set up.
And we also knew that
because of the lore around the rules and the Creed
among the Mandalorians with the helmet,
that as different groups of Mandalorians came together
and as he revealed his face,
we knew that we couldn't just hit reset and start over again.
So the decision was made.
What was true for the character was going to be
that he was going to have to receive some sort of redemption
if he were to be reaccepted into this culture that he held so dear.
The Creed teaches us of redemption.
Redemption is no longer possible since the destruction of our homeworld.
But what if the mines of Mandalore still exist?
Mandalore was an interesting challenge,
in that we haven't seen a live-action interpretation of that.
Dave Filoni created quite a bit of that for the animated series.
And our job was to take that and then translate to live action.
(WHOOSHES)
George Lucas had the idea that the planet was devastated.
So it's pretty much a virtual desert on the surface.
And the inhabitants of Mandalore live in these artificial domes.
Inside the domes is this very lush culture.
And it was really tricky in terms of balancing,
"Okay, how much destruction versus how much aesthetic taste
"to bring in for Mandalore?"
We looked at the nuclear Trinity test site where the explosion was so hot
that it fused the sand into a glass like material.
And Jon said that the idea was that the surface of Mandalore
had undergone such a series of nuclear blasts
that the surface had fused into this shiny material
with this green color that trinitite has.
And we went to all sorts of lengths to explore that,
including buying some radioactive trinitite
that you have to wear gloves to handle.
And eventually, we settled on a process that used a special resin
that gave us something that really looked like the concept art and was durable.
You gotta do something that's gonna last through production.
Jon and Dave, they love the old school way of making films.
A lot of models.
Andrew had given me a call and said, "You need to sculpt a cave set."
And then, Phil Tippett was gonna collaborate
and bring his team in and actually put all the flavor on the inside of this.
All the scenery.
So I basically sculpted the whole form
and then, Phil went in and made it beautiful.
FAVREAU: Part of what our memory is of Star Wars from growing up,
is a lot of it is Phil's aesthetic.
Whether it was the dejarik chess board with the stop motion chess characters
or, the rancor,
Phil Tippett was one of the original collaborators with George Lucas,
and we thought that Phil would be great to collaborate with
on what Mandalore would look like.
To create something that was both tech and nightmarish.
Because we wanted the mines of Mandalore
to look different from anything on the show.
And, of course, Phil Tippett's aesthetic
was something that we thought we would really benefit from.
We actually use his models to do photogrammetry
and help build it into the Volume and into the CGI.
This is obviously a huge episode for Star Wars fans to get to see Mandalore
and to get to see the ruins of a city destroyed.
Look around.
There's nothing left.
A great society is now a memory.
MORRISON: You have people treading and retreading some of the same footsteps
and going deeper and deeper into the underbelly.
And how do you keep the gradience feeling different and new?
Do we go from a more translucent green to a deeper green?
And what does it feel like for Bo to see Mandalore for the first time
as somebody who was raised there and saw it destroyed,
versus The Mandalorian, who has sort of fetishized it
and has never actually set foot?
And how do we see that differently through each of their eyes?
"These mines date back to the age of the first Mandalore.
"According to ancient folklore, the mines were once a Mythosaur lair.
"Mandalore the Great is said to have tamed the mythical beast.
"It is from these legends that the skull signet was adopted
"and became the symbol of our planet."
FAVREAU: The Mythosaur originates from a graphic
that was included in the costume of Boba Fett.
It was a graphic that just probably seemed pleasing at the time.
It was a skull of some sort of tusked creature.
And over the decades, it has grown to be a particular species.
And there's talk that the Mythosaur was ridden by the Mand'alor
and that it was a creature that was evolved on that planet.
And as you talk about ancient Mandalorian history, it comes up.
But it all came from just that one visual.
And we referenced it back in season one, when he's learning how to ride the blurrg.
Do you have a landspeeder or speeder bike that I could hire?
You are Mandalorian!
Your ancestors rode the great Mythosaur.
Surely you can ride this young foal.
FAVREAU: I loved it there because it felt iconic for a western.
The riding of the horse, the breaking of the wild mustang.
(GROWLS)
So that was fun to play with there.
But as we got deeper in in going to Mandalore,
you start to say, "Well, what can we pull into this?"
And how could we incorporate a lot of the stories that have been told
that aren't necessarily canon per se
but still acknowledging that a lot great creative minds
have been contributing to Star Wars over the years?
ARMORER: The songs of eons past foretold of the Mythosaur rising up
to herald a new age of Mandalore.
Sadly, it only exists in legends.
FAVREAU: If you set something up in a movie in your first reel
and you pay it off on the last reel,
that is really great feeling of satisfaction
that you have this delayed gratification of something paying off.
Well, with television, you can do that over the course of many years.
And I find that extremely satisfying.
FILONI: The Mythosaur moment for her is this moment of faith
where she sees something that should be impossible.
And she is asked to believe in it.
If the creature gets up out of the water and reveals itself,
it's just way too obvious.
It has to be something isolated. Something that only she sees.
Something that she has to make a choice.
Do you trust your eyes?
"Did I really see that? How is that even possible?"
Did you see anything alive?
THE MANDALORIAN: Alive? Like what?
Nothing.
We're a communal species. We connect with one another.
We're influenced by the people we spend time with.
And especially people that we face challenges with and work with.
And so, what seems to be naive to her maybe there's something that...
It's not just a matter of her filling him in
on how things really are on Mandalore,
but maybe his fresh perspective is going to inform how she sees things.
FILONI: Why are all of these things that shouldn't be possible possible?
Why does this Mandalorian, Din Djarin, believe in all this hokey things
that only Mandalorian children were supposed to believe in?
But as she watches him have this faith and believe in it,
the world around him starts to change.
And it starts to change for the better.
So she starts to change, 'cause she thinks maybe this is the way.
ARMORER: When you choose to walk the Way of the Mand'alor,
you will see many things.
BO-KATAN: But it was real.
This is the Way.
CHIANG: This season, we were challenged with creating seven distinct environments.
Two of them were environments we've already seen.
One of the most fascinating ones for me was actually revisiting Coruscant.
OFFICER G68: A trillion permanent residents.
DR. PERSHING: Amazing.
All these people working together to make something better.
It makes me feel rather insignificant.
CHUNG: So, in my episode, once we transitioned to Coruscant,
we start to the episode off in the opera house.
It's the same opera house that you see in Revenge of the Sith.
So I went back
and looked at how that space was filmed in that original movie
and also the visual language in that movie.
And tried to recreate it a little bit here.
In Revenge of the Sith the character is going up the steps.
Anakin runs up the stairs.
And in here, Pershing goes down the stairs.
So we tried to put the camera in a similar spot
to give audiences a nod that,
"Hey, we're revisiting some places that you may have seen in the past."
-I'm very lucky. -(WOMAN SIGHS)
And we're lucky to have you, Doctor Pershing.
How are you finding the city? Comfortable, I hope?
Yes. Though anything would be comfortable compared to the Outer Rim.
Coruscant is one of those environments or planets that is so rich
and has so much history.
When I was working with George Lucas, designing it in 1995,
we actually designed a majority of the planet.
And in the prequel films you only see a small portion of that.
So there's a lot of layers of design that have always been figured out
and we never really had an opportunity to execute them.
One of the really fun ones for me was that
Coruscant has this very unique form language for these speeders.
Air taxis.
And we had seen some of them already back in the prequels.
I thought, "Wouldn't it be terrific to tie the design continuity
"to bring those designs back?"
And we literally did that.
It's almost exactly the same, same color palette.
And we just made it into our own bespoke version for our show.
DROID: Ah. Look at that, here we are. Amnesty Housing.
Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle.
When I came on to this job, Jon and Dave both told me
that I would do well if I could figure out a genre
that I'd like to put this episode into.
So, as I was reading the script, my mind instantly went to Hitchcock.
DR. PERSHING: You sure we're alone?
OFFICER G68: Yep.
Ships are all inoperable.
No need to guard 'em.
CHUNG: The entire sequence that we filmed in the train,
we tried to film in a Hitchcock sort of mode.
We incorporated a lot of looks
and the types of suspense that he uses in the visual language.
A lot of this show happens with everyone wearing helmets.
But with Omid and Katy, they had to kind of carry this episode
through their performance, through their looks,
through the way in which they subtly react to different things.
They were phenomenal.
(WHISPERING) Keep it together, Doc.
(PANTING) You're better at this than I am.
Oh, you'll get the hang of it.
WEATHERS: We are not making typical TV.
I've been involved throughout my career with doing television, man.
This is another creature. It is so much bigger than.
It is so much broader than. So much more involved.
I wasn't steeped in Star Wars lore.
But the material was so damn good.
Four years later and we're still rocking and rolling.
It is your favorite director.
-WOMAN 1: Yeah! -MAN: Yeah!
-WOMAN 2: Yay, Carl! -(WEATHERS LAUGHS)
You can't say it, I'm saying it for you.
-(LAUGHTER) -Um...
Welcome back, uh, to 304.
Carl had a very big task this season.
With an entire episode with a ton of moving parts.
I mean, we have kids being taken by big birds
and tons of Mandalorians and big huge fight scenes.
And rock climbing.
And, you know, his episode legitimately had everything in it.
WEATHERS: It's fascinating to me that the Mandalorian culture
is something that we allude to throughout every episode basically.
And in the episode that I was fortunate enough to direct,
we open with this great sequence of training.
And so, we get a chance to see how you're introduced into that culture
with the various skill sets that are necessary.
And the baby plays a big part in that opening.
JUDGE: Ready.
Begin!
Whoa!
JUDGE: Three points. Winner!
FILONI: What puts a measure on your story is how creative can you be.
We try to give the audience something that they've never seen before.
Like in season one,
Jon wants to make a Baby Yoda.
I'm like, "What? Why? Why would we do this?
"That sounds like not a good idea."
But, you put that initial fear aside and you say,
"Okay, well, let's really examine this."
And I was like,
"Jon, if you're gonna do this, (LAUGHS) I'm gonna be there with you.
"'Cause I know Yoda's one of George's favorite characters
"and we cannot mess this up."
But I also knew Jon a bit as a filmmaker.
And I know he's got a great heart
and a great sensibility for telling stories that are meaningful to people.
And that maybe this little child could turn out to be something special.
But we didn't think it was gonna be a puppet the whole time.
We thought it'd be CG.
Jon's coming off of making Lion King and Jungle Book,
where the CG is practically unparalleled with its believability.
And here it is, we got Werner Herzog telling us, "No. Believe in the puppet."
And well, the world did.
I would like to see the baby.
(SMACKS LIPS) Uh...
It is asleep.
We all will be quiet.
HOWARD: The Grogu puppet improves every single year.
And the Legacy performers are always tinkering and finding ways
to honestly allow the puppet to do as much practically as possible.
FAVREAU: Don't underestimate how significant
his interpretation of the moment is.
MIKE MANZEL: Okay.
FAVREAU: 'Cause he's everybody's touchstone.
The best direction we get is when they treat the puppet like it's an actor.
They tell it what to do and we're all standing around to hear it.
And we're reacting to what the director wants.
(MORRISON SPEAKING ON PA)
There's an unspoken chemistry to this where we...
Just getting to know him and watching this character develop,
he's kind of got this personality of his own that we all understand.
-(EXCLAIMING) -THE MANDALORIAN: No, Grogu.
(LAUGHTER)
MAN: And, cut.
WEATHERS: How Jon integrates Grogu into these stories
and tells the story at times from Grogu's point of view is so beautiful.
It's just beautiful. It's the only word for it.
ARMORER: This is the Forge.
The Forge can reveal weaknesses.
(THUDDING)
(CRACKLING)
FAVREAU: We knew we had to tell more stories
'cause we've told flashbacks about what happened to Grogu.
And how Grogu escaped the Jedi Temple.
We've shown little glimpses and clips of his memory.
Most recently in The Book of Boba Fett.
And so, we wanted to continue to tell that story in small chapters.
We had to figure out, "What's the next chapter?
"What's the likely thing that would've happened?"
JEDI: Get the youngling to Kelleran! Go!
FILONI: What was clear was we needed Grogu to have a type of savior companion
that preceded Mando and that it would be a Jedi.
And then it becomes important to say, "Well, who is that?"
'Cause that'll be a big deal.
And for me, it's always nice when it's somebody,
"in the family" here at Lucasfilm.
Someone that's been out there representing Star Wars,
interacting with fans, carrying the banner.
And Ahmed Best has been such an important part of our Star Wars history.
Don't worry, kid. Everything's gonna be okay.
I come in and see it's the baby, do you want this to come down or stay up?
WEATHERS: It'll never be up because then you're not on guard anymore.
-Right. -WEATHERS: Right?
It doesn't come back up until you pick up the second one.
-Now you're gonna take care of business. -Got it.
FAVREAU: He grew up as part of it.
Through all different eras of it.
HOWARD: Jon! We haven't seen each other since I was 16-years-old on the prequels.
'Cause I was hanging around during the prequels.
FAVREAU: And he also has martial arts training.
He introduced the character of Kelleran Beq, a Jedi, into Star Wars.
And we thought that this could present a really cool opportunity
to incorporate him into The Mandalorian.
-It hasn't really hit me yet. -Yeah.
I never thought I'd be back, to be honest.
Especially like this. So, it's crazy.
Don't worry. We're gonna meet up with some friends of mine.
But hold on, it's gonna be a bumpy landing.
(HAMMERING)
FAVREAU: When I wrote the character of The Armorer
in the very first episode of The Mandalorian,
we were trying to fill in what that Mandalorian lore was.
And we made the decision early on
that this character would be seen as the shamanistic figure.
ARMORER: This was gathered in the Great Purge.
It is good it is back with the tribe.
This audition came along that my agent said was
probably something to do with Star Wars.
I knew that this character was the leader of a group of people in hiding.
And it said that she was Zen-like. And that's what I had to go on.
I do remember that in the audition scene
I had to say the line, "This is the Way."
And, of course, I had no idea.
ARMORER: This is the Way.
MANDALORIANS: This is the Way.
SWALLOW: Jon said that especially for her,
they were really going back to a lot of Kurosawa films and The Last Samurai.
And just that majesty and that stillness, that regalness.
And that helped so much.
FAVREAU: Emily has done a really wonderful job
in helping to breathe life into this character
and to make the character human.
On top of the mask and on top of the archetype.
Our people have strayed from the Way and it is not enough for a few to walk it.
We must walk it together.
RAMSEY: There's a lot of backstory
and there's a lot of moving parts to the saga that seem like
they've kind of really started to come to fruition with this season.
THE MANDALORIAN: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga.
And those that do fought against him when you rescued me
from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Since then, he's had a change of heart
and has risked his life to save mine as well as the foundling in my charge.
My episode centers around Greef Karga and Nevarro.
I won't abandon my city.
We have to get the public to safety.
WEATHERS: Greef Karga at this point is a bureaucrat really.
But he is still a guy who can handle himself.
And who will step up when necessary to do some handling.
Don't mistake my hospitality for weakness.
Is that what you call gunning down my helmsman in cold blood?
When he let down his guard on your planet.
He shot first.
RAMSEY: There's a few different genres that I feel this episode touches on.
Our pirates led by Gorian Shard
are definitely beholden to classic buccaneers.
Right down to wardrobe details.
So we had a lot of fun with that.
But once the action really gets going and the siege is under way,
the Mandalorians come to the aid of the people of Nevarro.
And it turns into kind of a pitched battle that feels a little bit like
something out of Saving Private Ryan.
It really does become like a full on battle sequence.
There's explosions, there's kind of handheld cameras,
there's all the signatures of battlefield action.
(EXPLOSIONS)
MAN 1: You fall in love with a storyboard,
and we're never gonna get that. Look at that.
MAN 2: Yeah.
-MAN 1: Three people midair at once. -MAN 3: Wow.
MAN 1: With the fireball.
FAVREAU: I'll pay you the highest compliment, it looks like CGI.
(LAUGHTER)
This season's been fun just playing around with different things
that we can do with jetpacks and these weapons that we've been given
and these Star Wars rules.
We've definitely got to play with a lot more different fun ideas.
(WHOOSHING)
(GROANS)
(SHRIEKS, GROANS)
(CHEERS)
DASHNAW: This season there's a lot more Mandalorians.
We've had some times where we have 30 plus stunt people working at one time.
And just having to watch everything
and make sure everyone's performing the same way and with the same intensity,
that's probably the hardest thing.
Just because of the number and just the scale of what we're doing.
(VOCALIZES FIRING)
You'll get a little support fire as he's coming.
And you can come up, boom, boom, and Joe will pass you for the thing.
Pop, pop. But when she doesn't shoot, watch. Boom, boom, boom.
You can come over here and just come after her like this. Boom.
You'll come up into this.
As long you're in the front, lead this charge.
HOWARD: Weapons are intrinsic to the Mandalorian culture.
So I think that's something really fun to get to explore.
JOSH ROTH: One of the challenges for us this season
was the amount of Mandalorian weapons.
The quantity of it.
We still like to do the same methods as season one.
So what we normally do is start with the artwork.
We show the illustrations to Jon and Dave and Rick and Doug.
Get approval on everything. And then once we start building.
These are the notes we basically did for Mando's new blaster that he's getting.
So we extended the barrel like you wanted.
Made it longer, inch and a half longer. Changed the grip
to go back to the original grip where the top's in center.
But still makes it feel Empire. A cool gun for Mando.
Mando's blaster is iconic.
I love that gun. We've had it for three seasons.
And it's a big change to go to a new blaster for Mando.
But I think it works really well.
Star Wars has always been the blending of technology
with the right amount of just pure hand built craftsmanship.
Which I think is what's really exciting about the world.
And so, I get geeked out as much by the latest prop that I have to work with.
(LAUGHS) Or droid that's being built.
Or a costume and how it flows. And how it feels lived in
as anything we're doing on the Volume.
FAVREAU: Could you all put your helmets on for us?
SHAWNA TRPCIC: Creating 60 brand new Mandalorians
from the three different tribes was amazing.
We got to do a survivor look.
We got to do the original covert look.
And then we got to explore the Bo-Katan group.
Former, I guess, Death Watch or former Nite Owls.
We called them the Marines.
It was very much influenced by the animation.
FILONI: I designed this helmet on a Southwest flight one day.
-MAN: Shut up. Really? -It was on a napkin and I...
I wanted Bo-Katan to have a specific style cutout.
And so, it's based on a barn owl.
And it's like the beak
-and the eyes of the barn owl. -MAN: Oh, cool.
TRPCIC: It was fun to create each individual art.
With them all wearing basically the same armor
but being able to distinguish one from another.
Basically what we did was,
we sort of created an assembly line in the creation of the armor itself.
But then, we found unique ways of, especially with the survivors,
replacing bits of armor with like,
what would you find on a planet that had been through an apocalypse?
Wood and leathers and furs,
anything you could put together to protect yourself.
But because you're from a religion of the Mandalorians,
you would find a way to sculpt that into traditional shapes.
-B2 battle droid. -MAN: Oh, that's cool.
Each individual Mandalorian tells a story. And that's always what I tell my artists.
I wanna know the story behind the choices that we're making
for every crack, every stitch.
BRENDAN WAYNE: Mary, my costumer, gets very frustrated with me
because I like to talk about game time preparations.
I don't let her put my gauntlets on or my gloves.
That's something I do.
It's like tying up my shoes before a basketball game.
That's part of my process.
ARMORER: This is the Way.
THE MANDALORIAN: This is the Way.
SWALLOW: The first few times I wore the armor,
I had to rely so much on what I knew it looked like
because it felt incredibly awkward.
And, um, it's funny now,
I meet so many of the members of the 501st
or the Mando Mercs, or the Rebel Legion, who do the cosplay all the time.
They all just nod their heads and they're like, "Yup. Yup. Yup."
ARMORER: We each begin as raw ore.
We refine ourselves through trials and adversity.
Suit acting is very different than acting with a face, if you will.
You really have to be conscious of what a head movement says.
Every tilt, every little thing was so loud on camera.
And so, we had to be incredibly specific about what we were doing.
It was such a wonderful time of trial and error.
ARMORER: Bo-Katan Kryze is going off to bring other Mandalorians in exile to us
so that we may join together once again.
This is my fourth season working with The Mandalorian family.
For a lot of the episode, it's the introduction of a new planet.
It's the introduction of a new cast of characters we've never seen before.
You will always be welcome in our domed paradise.
HOWARD: I read the script and then I was like,
"Oh, okay, so casting, what are you thinking?"
And Jon's all, "Oh, yeah, we already have three key new cast members.
"Jack Black, Lizzo and Christopher Lloyd."
I was like, "(LAUGHS) Right. Okay!"
Bombardier.
Jon Favreau claims that he wrote this role for me.
TRPCIC: I think he did.
BLACK: I love the name Bombardier.
I like to think that I'm a badass.
That I actually could hold my own in battle.
There's no talk of that.
In the script it just says that I used to be...
-TRPCIC: Yeah, it fits. -BLACK: ...a facilities planning officer.
(LAUGHTER)
-Is Bombardier a dancer? -TRPCIC: I think so.
BLACK: Dude, his name is Bombardier. It's got bomb in the name.
(LAUGHS) How can he just be a facilities planner?
He's got a blaster. You just don't see it.
HOWARD: What's so fun is that Lizzo and Jack
have been very public about their support for Star Wars
and this show and the characters.
Oh, my (SHRIEKS) God!
HOWARD: Amazing, right?
-Yes, I got my Grogu hat on. -(LAUGHTER)
I'm a huge fan.
(LAUGHTER)
Their enthusiasm was absolutely infectious.
Who wouldn't wanna party with Bombardier? (LAUGHS)
Everyone wants to party with Bombardier.
I'm gonna have to do a quick research study on all dancing
that's ever taken place in any Star Wars film or side series.
'Cause I definitely feel like I need to have the moves.
(FAVREAU SPEAKING)
(LAUGHTER)
(VOCALIZING MANDALORIAN THEME SONG)
(LAUGHTER)
Just a little taste for the behind the scenes!
My job working with Jack and Lizzo was to just not break.
Because no take is the same.
(LAUGHS) And my goal was just to get out of the way.
Who wants to take on the champion?
HOWARD: They infused so much energy and enthusiasm
and passion into every single moment.
The moons of Paraqaat.
The moons of Paraqaat,
-that's a hit. -(LAUGHS)
It reminds us yet again that, "Oh, my gosh, we're making Star Wars.
"Isn't that bananas?" (LAUGHS)
Okay, this is... I... This is...
If you guys wanna be on time today, get this baby out of my hands.
-(GRUNTS) -(CHIMING)
(TRILLING)
(ALL CHEERING)
A Quadro-blast! I've never seen such a streak!
(SIGHS)
On Plazir, it's kind of this idealized city of the future.
And as part of their working force, they sort of lean into robots.
The citizens voted against any interruption in droid services.
They can't live without it.
We thought, "On Plazir, wouldn't it be terrific
"to have a cantina but make it a droid bar?"
BARTENDER DROID: Can I help you?
That depends. Is this The Resistor?
BARTENDER DROID: This is.
Literally, this became one of the most fun sets for me
because when you look around the room,
you're seeing droids from all of our films,
from all the different eras.
All sort of in this one environment.
HOWARD: It's like the greatest hits of all the droids in Star Wars.
And that was just an enormous amount of fun.
And also really complicated.
He looks a little bit like he's giving the middle finger.
WOMAN: Okay, tan droid, put your left arm down, please?
HOWARD: One of the things that's important to depict in terms of droids
is having the majority of them be practical droids.
Like actually being there and being performed and operated by human beings.
HENSLEY: I think it was the most droids in one scene,
-I could be wrong, in a Star Wars thing. -MANZEL: Yeah.
HENSLEY: Including like, inside the sandcrawler.
-It was so cool. -Yeah, 20 puppeteers.
-Yeah, 20... -Scrambling around doing...
-Mostly doing two puppets at one time. -Yeah.
Every person had at least two puppets, maybe three.
You start here with these puppets and as the camera went by
you jump over to two other puppets down the line.
-HENSLEY: It was really fun. -MANZEL: Yeah.
-HOWARD: Looks so good. -WOMAN: Team Legacy, y'all.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
MAN: Thank you so much.
SACKHOFF: Bryce's episode is a lot more lighthearted
than some of the other episodes this season.
But she also has the task of this
tremendous heaviness at the very end of it.
Which is where Bo-Katan goes to get her people back.
And try to convince them to follow her again.
BO-KATAN: I've come to reclaim my fleet.
AXE WOVES: It's no longer your fleet, is it?
Then I challenge you,
one warrior to another.
SACKHOFF: And it's this epic fight between Bo-Katan
and Axe Woves, played by Simon.
Do you yield?
-(SHOUTING) -(WHOOSHING)
In the first season that he was in,
in my episode, his character Axe Woves was originally written to die.
And I've gotta say this, like, Simon is so wonderful.
Part of the reason why we want to keep him around is because he's so great.
I had no idea I'd be back.
And not only am I back but I've come back to this arc.
That just knocks my socks off.
You'll never be the true leader of our people.
You won't even take the Darksaber from him.
He's the one you should be challenging.
Enough Mandalorian blood has been spilled by our own hands.
Mandalorian belief is that
whoever possesses the Darksaber rules Mandalore.
And you cannot accept it as a gift. You have to win it in battle.
And for anyone who has seen Clone Wars and Rebels,
they know that Bo-Katan accepted it one time.
And she believes that moment led to the Night of a Thousand Tears.
Which was the destruction of the planet and the people.
ARMORER: Bo-Katan is a cautionary tale.
She once laid claim to rule Mandalore
based purely on blood and the sword you now possess.
FAVREAU: I think people expected Mando.
He had the sword, he's gonna take the throne.
He's gonna change from a travelling bounty hunter to Aragorn or something.
And you felt like, "Oh, that's seems like where you're gonna go with it."
But if you look at the clues, it actually hopefully,
makes you reach the conclusion of where we went
because if you notice in the first time he uses Darksaber,
it's heavy for him. Even The Armorer tells him that.
ARMORER: There. Feel it.
You are too weak to fight the Darksaber.
It will win if you fight against it.
You cannot control it with your strength.
FAVREAU: But then Bo-Katan gets her hands on the Darksaber when Din Djarin's trapped
and she uses it like a fencing foil.
She coveted that Darksaber so much
but without even thinking gives it back him before he wakes up.
After she rescues him.
And so, what many may have expected to be a show down between the two of them,
ends up with them both going for something very different
and working together.
And ultimately, all of the different Mandalorian groups coming together.
BO-KATAN: Mandalorians.
It is time to retake our home world.
I need volunteers from both tribes.
FILONI: They need each other.
And we are learning all the time
that we need other people to help us in our life.
So that's why these things are powerful and relatable.
For Mandalore!
ALL: For Mandalore!
FILONI: In Star Wars, you want a feeling of hope,
a feeling of adventure but more so uplifting positivity to be happening.
ARMORER: It is a sign that the next age is upon us.
FILONI: I think we need a range of stories and experiences in Star Wars
that go from being cute and fun to being serious and dark.
You knew in the old movies when Darth Vader showed up,
it was time to get serious.
But you knew when it was fun when you see the Jawas or the Ewoks.
It was a little more lighthearted.
But you also knew that those lighthearted things
that seem fun and simple might pay off later in a big way.
They might be meaningful.
The smallest lives, the most insignificant people
can sometimes rise up and do the greatest things.
If you wanna see Baby Yoda walking around
in a metal body like exoskeleton power suit like Ripley in Aliens
we've got that.
-IG-12: Yes. Yes. Yes. -(LIVELY CHATTER)
FILONI: I thought it was really fun idea.
I never try to lose touch with the kid that saw Star Wars that I was.
And think, "Boy, I would've loved that."
(WEATHERS LAUGH)
Go, Grogu. Go.
MANZEL: I was actually piloting IG,
so I was the one who had IG strapped to my shoulders.
And these guys puppeteered the Baby inside of it.
Rick, Rick Galinson built IG.
Amazing piece of art itself.
Inside the cavity, where Grogu lives,
he has two control stations to make him walk around.
And when Grogu moves, these two make the character walk.
It actually moves Grogu.
So these are motorized and we have a duplicate of this chassis area
that's a control station and when we move these sticks like this,
these ones follow suit.
And looks like he's piloting the character and not the other way around.
Once it got on set, we kind of knew that something special was happening.
FILONI: There's serious stakes and people get hurt and it's a battle.
But here's this child, this little Baby Yoda,
Grogu, that because...
If he's nothing else, he's filled with heart and compassion.
And he wants to save and protect. And that's what he wants to do.
He protects The Mandalorian,
who doesn't seem to need a lot of protection.
Grogu, I'm going to need you to be brave for me, okay?
(BABBLING)
We can't keep running.
If we don't take out Moff Gideon, this will never end.
FAMUYIWA: With all great villains,
there's a guilty level of likeability
that we have as an audience for these characters.
And even though we might revile what they're doing or their motivation,
there's always been a certain charisma.
I mean, from Vader on, there was an attraction to these characters
and I think that is what Giancarlo brought to the role of Moff Gideon.
Thanks to your planet's rich resources,
I have constructed the next generation Dark Trooper suit
forged from beskar armor.
The most impressive part is that it has me in it.
FAVREAU: Giancarlo's a storyteller.
And he thinks things through.
He considers it, then completely invests in it.
And when you're working with an actor like that,
you're really working with a partner.
They're helping you. They're asking you the right questions.
So, it's a real collaboration.
Did it once here, 'cause I loved how it looks.
But then I did once...
In fact, I did it to retake the homeworld of Mandalore.
And I kind of like that too.
-MAN: Yeah. -So we'll play it.
Part of what the success of Mando is
is that we're talking about mythology and the hero's journey.
Even Moff's journey somewhat as a warlord,
as a warden of the galaxy with aspiration,
even his journey is the hero's journey.
Because he's looking for something he doesn't have.
His first lines in that first season are, "You have something I want."
I mean, that's powerful stuff.
FAMUYIWA: There are so many repercussions that have happened
because of the fall of the Empire.
And this figure in Giancarlo
was kind of a reminder of what that past Empire was.
Long Live the Empire!
ALL: Long Live the Empire!
But he also in many ways is a free agent and has his own ideas.
Moff Gideon sems to have really focused a little bit more on the materials.
He had the Darksaber, that enabled him to be stronger.
He creates this new Dark Trooper suit.
What was missing that he's trying to put together?
Well, it's the Force, is what was missing.
He wants that kind of power. Which I thought made it complete.
You were a talented people, but your time has passed.
However, as you can see, Mandalore will live on in me.
CHIANG: We never really... One of the challenges for Mandalore
is we wanted to imply that there was a hidden base
where Moff Gideon was conducting his experiments.
And we thought, "What should that environment be?"
Because the planet itself has been devastated.
We thought that there might be these pockets of natural caves
and that's where the Empire would come in and modify some of that architecture.
But then build their Empire aesthetic to it.
We were gonna have these TIE Interceptors and we were gonna turn them white.
Then we thought, "Instead of having them
"just sit on the tarmac of these hangars,
"how about if we hung 'em from the ceiling like bats?"
It was all those very subtle emotional cues
that we always try to build in to sort of reinforce,
"This is an underground environment, this is the Empire
"but we're seeing a fresh, new context."
And so, that whole environment is now the centerpiece
for this giant battle at the very end.
FAMUYIWA: We're in our final battle between Moff and Bo,
which turns into the final battle between Mando, the kid, and Bo and Moff Gideon.
Which ultimately we've been building to this.
So let's do some great work this week.
And have some fun doing it.
So, here we go, marking rehearsal.
And action.
Rick's episode, episode eight, there's a lot of action on that one.
It's difficult but, man, I love the challenge.
That one felt pretty damn good.
SACKHOFF: Lateef is one of the best stunt performers
I've ever worked with in my life.
He's so, so, so good.
In this season, we had an opportunity to actually do some stunts
and some fights together and I loved every minute of it.
My biggest struggle with Katee is telling her no.
'Cause she wants to do everything, which I love.
SACKHOFF: There was this moment where they said,
"Okay, and then you slide across the floor and you bring out your shield
"and you protect Mando.
"But you immediately come back up and start shooting again.
"The sparks are gonna come down.
"But don't do that stuff, Katee, we'll do that with Joanna."
And I went, "It's just a flickin' knee slide, right?
"Like a run, knee slide, shield up, guns, keep going, right?"
He went, "Well, yeah." I was like, "All right, cool."
So I just did it.
You could hear JJ, our stunt coordinator, scream at the end of it.
'Cause he screamed at me like I was his child
that had just done something that was told not to do.
But that he was also slightly proud of.
And it was this, "Katee!
"(GASPING) That was awesome."
It was so good. And I was so proud of myself.
Hand over the Darksaber and I will give you a warrior's death.
(BO-KATAN SCREAMING)
(BOTH GRUNTING)
I know the inference was that always one day
that Moff Gideon probably would meet his demise.
And that wasn't a problem for me at all.
It's just when and how
and how tangible it is for an audience to see what may happen to him.
I love this particular franchise because it's never clearly defined
what really happens.
Even for Luke Skywalker, when he goes over the edge, he's over the edge.
You don't see that brutal demise or death.
And there's always a possibility that the rise from the ashes is possible.
(RUMBLING)
FILONI: Looking at The Mandalorian, he starts out as such a lone individual.
In the very description he's the lone gunman.
Building him into a character that not only accepts family
and having Grogu as like a de facto son,
but to welcome others into family
and be an arbitrator between different groups of people
to bring them together is quite a change for him.
FAVREAU: Din Djarin's a Mandalorian but he's not from there.
He's become one because of the way he lives his life
and what he values and who he's met.
And who saved him.
And Grogu is in this family not because that's his biological dad
but because they're fulfilling those roles in each other's lives.
ARMORER: You are now Din Grogu, Mandalorian apprentice.
FILONI: With Star Wars, most of the time, it's about family.
Different types of families.
Not just in way that it's your mom and dad and close relatives
but families that are created out of necessity.
Friends that come together,
people that have things in common that create a bond
and become like a family.
There are many different interpretations of family now.
And I think that, that's something that people are relating to
in this great galaxy.
FAVREAU: It's more about what you value,
what you're willing to sacrifice, what you hold dear.
And the role that you fill in each other's lives.
I like that that's where this landed.
I don't know if that was what we set out to do
but storytelling isn't always about that, it's what you discover and what comes out.
Resolving the season the way we did,
it does fulfill one of the western tropes of the gunfighter moves on
and things change, his presence has helped things take the next step.
But that doesn't mean the gunfighter belongs there.
Maybe they get a brief respite,
but you know that new adventures are around the corner.
FILONI: It might feel like the ending of one adventure
but it's always the beginning of another now.
(WHOOSHING)
(DOOR HISSES)