With an impressive array of talent both in front of and behind the camera, we expected The Mandalorian to be good. What we didn’t expect was that it’d be this damn good. With Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker both disappointing critics and fans, The Mandalorian is now considered to be the standard-bearer for quality in Star Wars. As such, it was and is hugely popular, spawned a bona fide pop culture phenomenon in Baby Yoda and is responsible for a lot of subscriptions to Disney Plus.
So, what’s next? Well, Jon Favreau has confirmed that production on the second season is officially underway and it should be out this October. From what we know so far, it looks set to pit Giancarlo Esposito’s darksaber-wielding Moff Gideon against the Mandalorian as he attempts to find a safe haven for Baby Yoda. Beyond that, though? Well, our sources – the same ones who told us Transformers is being rebooted and National Treasure 3 is in development, both of which have since been confirmed – say that Disney and Lucasfilm are envisioning a five-season arc for The Mandalorian.
While it’s impossible to say exactly where the show will go in future runs, there were certainly some hints dropped in the final episode of season 1. For starters, we heard Emily Swallow’s Mandalorian blacksmith the Armorer talk about bringing Baby Yoda to “an order of sorcerers called Jedi” for training. So, I think we can take that as confirmation that at some point we’ll see the Mandalorian interacting with former Jedi to some degree. Given the show’s tone, I’m also betting that The Mandalorian‘s take on the Jedi won’t be quite what we expect. Here’s hoping for a full-on Mandalorian/Jedi throwdown.
The future of the show could also begin to depict the rise of the First Order. In season 1, the Imperial remnants were mostly tired veterans in battered armor, so perhaps we’ll see the political conflict between the final gasps of the Empire and the First Order. Either way, I just hope The Mandalorian continues to plough its own furrow.
