21 Mandalorian Season 3 Facts Revealed in New Behind-the-Scenes Documentary
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A documentary on the making of Mandalorian season 3 is now on Disney+.
It’s been two months since season three of The Mandalorian came to an end, and now it’s time to find out how they got there. This week, Disney+ released the latest episode of Disney Gallery: Star Wars The Mandalorian, a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the popular show.
The first season of Disney Gallery was exactly that, a full season. But last year, it was boiled down to two episodes and this year, it’s just one. So, for about eight hours of TV, you get one hour of making-of footage. Thankfully, the footage in the special is great and everyone involved with the show, like producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, basically, talk about everything you want to hear about: Mythosaurs, Ahmed Best, Lizzo, Jack Black, Moff Gideon, Mandalore, you name it.
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Early on, executive producer Rick Famuyiwa says what most fans had figured out over the course of season three. This season, Din Djarin isn’t the only title character. Bo-Katan is also The Mandalorian.
Actress Katee Sackhoff talks about how she had to relearn the character completely for live-action last season; this season, though, she was so comfortable she did as many of her own stunts as possible.
From Minari to Mandalorian
Director Lee Isaac Chung was watching The Mandalorian as he was editing his Oscar-nominated film, Minari. He loved it so much that he asked his agents to get him a meeting with Jon Favreau, which they did. Favruea loved Minari and when Chung asked him for a job, Favreau gave it to him.
Mandalore was a must
Favreau admits that he didn’t know exactly how season three was going to end when he started writing it, but he did know one thing: the story had to go to Mandalore.
Dangerous Mandalorian designing
Bringing the animated version of Mandalore to live-action was a challenge. Knowing what the story says happened to the planet, the production design team looked at nuclear test sites as inspiration. There, they realized the surface got so hot, sand crystalized into glass, which became a core design idea. The team even bought actual radioactive trinitite, a name for that substance, to reference, which could only be handled with gloves.
Tippet time
In designing the look of the underground world of Mandalore, Favreau and his team asked legendary artist and animator Phil Tippett to help create the visuals. His designs were then translated into the volume and post-production CGI.
Never going to fully reveal the Mythosaur
A brief section of the documentary talks about the decision to have an actual Mythosaur in The Mandalorian and the huge implications of it. However, the interviews suggest the team felt it was more powerful as something only Bo-Katan had seen, so it could challenge her faith, than a huge reveal.
Coruscant callbacks
In episode three, “The Convert,” the story goes back to the famous Star Wars planet of Coruscant. Director Lee Isaac Chung looked back at Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for inspiration on how to direct the planet, especially since he had a scene set at the same opera house. One result of that is Chung put the camera in the same place as George Lucas for his scene.
More Coruscant exists
Legendary Star Wars designer Doug Chiang reveals that when preparing for the Star Wars prequels in 1995, he and George Lucas designed way more of Coruscant than we’ve seen in any movie or show. So for some of the locations in The Mandalorian, all the team had to do was look back at Chiang and Lucas’s 20-year-old drawings.
No Baby Yoda?
It’s not really a season three reveal, but in this season three documentary, Dave Filoni says that he was initially against Jon Favreau’s idea of creating a “Baby Yoda.”
Grogu’s backstory
When discussing the Order 66 flashback in episode four, “The Foundling,” Jon Favreau explains that they are telling this part of Grogu’s story “in small chapters.” Does that mean we’ll see more? Probably!
A prequel reunion
A scene in the documentary features director Bryce Dallas Howard and Ahmed Best reuniting. Howard says she hasn’t see him since she was 16 years old and her dad, Ron Howard, brought her to the set of the prequels.
Also, good luck not getting emotional watching Best walk onto set for the first time. One of the best moments in the doc.
A ton of stunt people
This season of The Mandalorian had more stunt people on screen simultaneously than any others before it. Apparently, some scenes had up to 30 on screen at once. And that meant...
A ton of Mandalorian costumes
About 60 brand new Mandalorian costumes were created for this season, so that every member of every tribe had their own individual story, even if we never learn it.
The Wayne ritual
Brendan Wayne, one of the stunt people who plays Mando himself (he’s also the grandson of John Wayne), always makes sure he puts the Mandalorian gloves on himself before filming. It’s his ritual and way of getting into the character.
Big cameo casting
Bryce Dallas Howard directed episode six, “Guns for Hire,” and when she got the script Jon Favreau told her they already had three actors in place: Lizzo, Jack Black, and Christopher Lloyd.
Lizzo and Jack Black were very, very excited
Footage in the documentary shows Lizzo geeking out when she met Grogu, while wearing a Grogu cape of course, and Jack Black not only creating a dance-positive backstory for his character, but jamming out to the Mandalorian theme song. They were both beyond excited to be a part of Star Wars.
The droid bar
Everyone was very excited about the droid bar on Plazir-15, which had over 20 practical droids in it (Howard calls it a “greatest hits of all the droids in Star Wars.”) Each puppeteer controlled at least two at once, which they would transition between as the camera moved around the space.
Axe Woves was supposed to die
Apparently, last season when the character of Axe Woves was introduced, the plan was for him to die. However, everyone became such a fan of actor Simon Kassianides, they decided to keep him around and expand the role in season three.
IG symmetry
The way the IG and Grogu puppet was designed, the person who controlled it would remote from behind, and not only would they move the droid, their movements would sync up to Grogu’s hand movements. That way, it looked on screen like Grogu was actually piloting the IG. Oh, and the team wore “Baby on Board” patches too.
Moff Gideon’s death
Actor Giancarlo Esposito admits he expected Moff Gideon to die eventually, so he was okay with it happening, he just wanted to make sure it was done right. Which he felt it was. However, he also says that in Star Wars, anything could happen, so since we didn’t see Gideon die—just burn in a fire—he could come back.
The endgame
Ultimately, The Mandalorian so far has been about a loner who has slowly embraced family. Creator Jon Favreau says that while that was never the plan at the outset, he’s happy with where it’s gone. And now, with this chapter close, more adventures are on the way.
End credits: Where’s Pedro?
Our final slide is about something not in the documentary: star Pedro Pascal. Pascal gets seen briefly in footage from last season but he’s not mentioned or seen elsewhere in the documentary. It seems like a miss to do a doc about one of the biggest shows in the world, starring one of the biggest stars in the world, and not mention him. We know he wasn’t on set, maybe at all, this season—but he certainly did voice recording. Show some of that!
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