Disney’s premier of the Mandalorian took the Star Wars universe in a new and gritty direction while maintaining many features of the Star Wars cannon that fans have come to know and love.

Set after the fall of the Empire but prior to the rise of the New Order we follow a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter as he navigates the Outer Rim.

Do you believe the hype?

With all the social media hype and trending topics on Twitter the Mandalorian had its hooks in me before the show dropped.

I was interested to see how with movies like Rogue One and Han Solo influenced the show with something less fantasy based than George Lucas’ original and prequel trilogies.

Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold

References to Star Wars movies including Attack of the Clones and the Empire Strikes Back stood out to me immediately. The Mandalorian character reminds me immediately of Jango Feet whose screen time in Clones was all that I knew about Mandalorians prior to future series such as Star Wars the Clone Wars cartoon which I viewed on Netflix.

We see references to the Empire Strike Back when the Mandalorian encases a bounty in carbonite loading him onto his ship with several other catches. We see the droid IG 11, which brings back flashbacks of IG 88, one of the bounty hunters present on Vader’s Star Destroyer as the Empire is searching for the Millennium Falcon.

Official concept art from Chapter 2 of #TheMandalorian by Christian Alzmann (1/9) pic.twitter.com/uZPQUflgVs

— The Mandalorian (@themandalorian) November 21, 2019