Clank. Clank. Clank. The sounds of a Mandalorian hammer strike from somewhere offscreen. Even as the intro is still playing, we are immediately brought into the first episode of the third season of Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” which just aired earlier this month.
Emily Swallow’s character, The Armorer, is pounding away at a piece of metal. Returning fans of the show instantly recognize what’s happening: The Armorer is forging a new piece of Beskar armor.
Without going into too much detail, the rest of this scene consists of a ceremony being held on a scenic beach surrounded by tall walls of rock. Before the main event of the ceremony, a giant, crocodile-turtle hybrid creature, erupts from the ocean in front of them; Mandalorians are always prepared for a battle. Quickly the group defended themselves. Despite their efforts, things went poorly. That is until our knight in shining armor, The Mandalorian himself, Din Djarin (played by Pedro Pascal), swoops in to save the day on his brand new mighty stallion, the heavily modified N1-starfighter.
This opening episode brings an incredible start to the third season. The quality of the CGI appears to be improving, which is not something that can be said for other Disney productions.
There’s a new character, an alien pirate who plays a driving role in this episode, whose costuming and make-up is wonderfully accented by CGI. The way he moved, and with his rigid but still somewhat fluid facial expressions, he looked as if he could’ve been real. I’ve noticed throughout this show that a lot of the aliens can appear like they’re just someone in a stiff costume. I was happy to see this small but noticeable improvement. And I also noticed similar, minor improvements that taken together have increased the quality of the visual style — which has already been doing an excellent job of looking good so far.
By the end of the episode it was absolutely clear that the showrunners have a story planned out for this season. One of my biggest issues in the past for this show is that often it felt like most of what they did was filler. I can already tell that Mando is in for an adventure in the coming months.
With an interesting plot, exciting characters, and epic set pieces, I would have to give Season 3, Episode 1 of The Mandalorian 5/5 Baby Yodas (Yes I know his name is Grogu). If you haven’t been watching this show already, be sure to boot up Disney+ and reward yourself after a hard day with this exciting show.
