Kevin Smith may be an accomplished filmmaker in his own right having spent the last quarter of a century building his own personal brand through the View Askewniverse and his later detours into bizarre horror, but he’s always been a huge geek first and foremost. The man lives and breathes pop culture, and isn’t shy when it comes to letting his opinions be known.
Of course, the 50 year-old is also prone to the odd spot of hyperbole, and at various points admitted that he was brought to tears by Transformers spinoff Bumblebee, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Bill & Ted Face the Music. Not a lot of people shared that sentiment about any of those three movies, but the guy certainly wears his heart on his sleeve.
Smith recently offered his thoughts on The Mandalorian‘s season 2 premiere, and while it wasn’t enough to have him weeping, he still had high praise for the return of the smash hit Disney Plus series and how it deepened and expanded the mythology surrounding some minor species in the Star Wars sandbox.
“I loved it, I thought it was compelling as f*ck and I was like, ‘I can’t wait! I’m gonna binge the whole thing!’. And I forgot these f*ckers only drop one episode a week. This is the first episode I believe that is directed by Favreau. He didn’t do any of season one but he wrote this episode and directed it. It was very Baby Yoda light, which is totally fine because it was so Tusken Raider heavy and I found that story so fascinating. Doing that Krayt Dragon of course was cool and what not, but doing the sign language, Tusken Raider sign language, we just spent more time with those characters than anybody ever had before. Suddenly you were like, ‘I wanna watch a whole f*cking episode about their culture. It was insanely well written, and then of course it just had like the adventure going for it.”
As a lifelong fan of the franchise, the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot director was unsurprisingly excited about the storyline potential provided by the return of Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett as well, and what it could mean for the rest of season 2.
“And f*cking Boba Fett, but two Boba Fetts. One where you’re like, as you’re watching the episode you’re like ‘Oh, so that’s how they’re doing Boba Fett. It’s just his armor, and this is a random dude in the armor, fine’. And they told a great story, and Olyphant was basically Justified in space. Everything was copacetic and then in the end they showed the real f*cking Boba Fett and you’re like ‘Oh my god, so is this going to be the runner for the season? Is he going to be chasing down his armor or is he just in the next episode?’. Just as you were like, ‘Man, what a satisfying episode’, they were like, ‘Boba f*cking Fett, real Boba Fett’.”
The Mandalorian may not have opened with as spectacular a bang as many were expecting, but the first episode was a massively enjoyable standalone adventure that also gave Star Wars fans a new cult hero in Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth. Not only that, but we got a huge hint as to where the story could be heading now that the legendary Boba Fett is back in play.
