Here's what happened in the secret footage of The Mandalorian
Here’s a rundown of the secret footage of The Mandalorian shown to fans at Star Wars Celebration today.
Lucasfilm turned off the live-stream of the presentation, but EW has a description of what we saw.
Fade up:
Aliens are conversing, playing sabaac, muttering to each other in a cantina in various colorful, otherworldly tongues.
Pedro Pascal’s nameless, faceless bounty hunter sits at a table opposite Carl Weathers’ Greef Karga, who runs a guild of similar trackers who seek out and capture those who are wanted dead or alive.
The pickings are slim. “I have a bail jumper, a bail jumper, another bail jumper,” Greef tells him, tossing metallic pucks on the tabletop — each one apparently loaded with data on the person (or creature) he is supposed to find.
The best Greef has to offer is, “A wanted smuggler.”
The Mandalorian sighs. “I’ll take them all.”
Greef is resistant. “There are other members of the guild, and this is all I have,” the older man says.
“What’s your highest bounty?” The Mandalorian asks.
“Not much,” Greef says. “5000.”
The Mandalorian scoffs. “That won’t even cover fuel these days.”
But … he’ll take it. He needs it. But there’s no puck. This is an off-the-books kind of gig. “Underworld,” Greef says. He suggests it’s too danger, too much. Not right for The Mandalorian, but he’s playing him.
Something about this doesn’t feel right. The Mandalorian hesitates. “Do you want the chip or not?” Greef asks.
He … he takes it.
The next shot is a bustling marketplace. There are some foods roasting on a spit. Oh God. They are kowakian monkey-lizards. Someone is cooking Salacious B. Crumbs! (A rumble of laughter followed by gross-out groans rolled through the audience.)
The Mandalorian follows his lead to an alleyway, where he finds a door, answered by a robotic eye on a metal stalk, similar to the one that greets visitors at Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi.
A blocky Gonk droid leads him down a passage. In a back room, he finds an array of retro stormtroopers, looking worn out. And tense.
Their white armor is dirty, yellowed, scratched, and battered. They look like toys that have recently been uncovered in someone’s backyard.
“Greef Karga said you were coming,” snarls a German accent. It’s Werner Herzog, the real-life documentarian and filmmaker know for his stoicism and imperious manner. He’s a delight as an anonymous underworld boss.
The Mandalorian stands alert. “What else did he say?”
“He said you were the best in the parsec,” Herzog’s character says.
A side door opens, and another figure darts in. It’s Omid Abtahi of American Gods, playing a man in a crisp gray uniform. A scientist of some sort.
The Mandalorian, surprised, draws his blaster. The Stormtroopers raise theirs, and we have a Reservoir Dogs situation.
“No, sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm,” the doctor cries out.
“Dr. Pershing,” Herzog character says. “Please excuse his lack of decorum. His enthusiasm outweighs his discretion. Please lower your blaster.”
The Mandalorian tells them to lower theirs first.
“We have you four to one,” a Stormtrooper says.
“I like those odds,” he answers.
Herzog’s character refocuses the conversation around money. “Greef also said you are expensive. Very expensive. Please, sit.”
On the tabletop is a cloth folder. Inside is a square of silvery metal, embossed with an Imperial stamp.
Beskar — Mandalorian iron.
This is a rare, extremely precious metal from old-school Star Wars “Legends” stories that have been decanonized (but re-canonized frequently by director Dave Filoni in his animated shows.)
Think of it as the Star Wars equivalent of what Vibranium means to a Wakandan in the Marvel universe. It’s not just akin to money. It has a history and a tradition in Mandalorian culture, and yet … it is marked by that Imperial symbol. It once was in very dark hands. Think of it as a gold bar with a Nazi symbol.
The thing that Herzog’s character wants The Mandalorian to locate is a living being.
“Deliver yes, alive, although I have knowledge that bounty hunting is a complicated profession,” he says. “Proof of termination is also accepted. For a lower fee.”
“That’s not what we agreed to,” the doctor jumps in.
“I was simply being pragmatic,” Herzog says. The doctor is like a yappy dog, displeasing its owner.
Herzog’s character offers him a tracking fob, a last reported position of data.
“A man of your skill should make short work of this,” Herzog says.
He has a large amount of Beskar to deliver to The Mandalorian if all goes well. “The Beskar belongs back into the hands of a Mandalorian. It’s best to restore the natural order of things after a period of disarray. Don’t you agree?”
The Mandalorian does.
From there, the secret footage became a montage. A fight with Gina Carano’s Cara Dune, hurling each other against the ground and pulling guns on each other as they lay sprawled. She has one similar pistol to the one we associate with Han Solo.
Then we see Giancarlo Esposito as an Imperial officer, whose war is lost although that hasn’t extinguished his bloodlust. He is still leading a group of black-masked Deathtroopers, first seen in Rogue One. “Burn them out,” he commands, and a Stormtrooper armed with a blowtorch unleashes a wall of fire.
We also see an outlaw played by comedian Bill Burr, engaged in a gunfight with a shoulder-mounted laser cannon. We also glimpse Sons of Anarchy actor Mark Boone Junior (best known as the Elvis-loving biker Bobby), coming There’s a shot of a screaming, horned alien — of the kind we saw in the Mos Eisley cantina — as an explosion erupts behind him.
Finally, we see an IG-88-style bounty-hunting robot — it’s actually a different droid, known as IG-11 — spinning on his own torso as it rapidly fires blaster bolts in the midst of a gunfight.
There’s another shot of Esposito’s Imperial officer piloting a TIE Fighter over assorted images of carnage, blaster fire, and infernos.
“The Empire improves every system it touches,” we hear Herzog’s voice say. “Safety. Prosperity. Peace.”
As the violence and cacophony explodes onscreen, we hear him complete the thought.
“Compare Imperial rule to what is happening now,” he says. “Is the world more peaceful since the revolution? Look outside, I see nothing but death and chaos.”
We’ll find out more when The Mandalorian debuts on Disney+ on Nov. 12.
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