Disney leans hard into Space Western territory in new Mandalorian trailer

Pedro Pascal stars in The Mandalorian, a new Star Wars series debuting on Disney+ in November.

Disney's new streaming service, Disney+, launches next month, featuring the Mouse House's flagship eight-episode new series, The Mandalorian. It's a spinoff of the Star Wars franchise starring Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper in Game of Thrones). And judging by the latest trailer, Disney is leaning hard into Space Western territory with this tale of a lone bounty hunter navigating the chaos in the wake of the Empire's collapse.

Details have been scant, but per the official synopsis: "After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic." The premise is that after the defeat of the Empire in Return of the Jedi, there was a period of chaos and lawlessness as a new government struggled to emerge from the wreckage.

Pascal told Entertainment Weekly that his character is very much in the vein of Clint Eastwood, with advanced combat skills and "questionable moral character." Showrunner Jon Favreau confirmed as much, telling EW, "It's like after the Roman Empire falls, or when you don't have a centralized shogun in Japan-and, of course, the Old West, when there wasn't any government in the areas that had not yet been settled." So I guess it's like Unforgiven or Gladiator in space, which could bode well, since both those films are terrific.

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