Here's Everything We Learned About "The Mandalorian," The New Live-Action "Star Wars" Show

Badassery. Personified.

This week BuzzFeed attended the The Mandalorian panel at Star Wars Celebration in Chicago. The panel was compiled of all the biggest names working on the project, including Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, and Carl Weathers. Here's just a bit of what we learned:

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1. The show will take place several years after the events of The Return of the Jedi.

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"I had been working on this idea because it was really compelling to me," Favreau said. "This idea of the Empire falling, the revolution is successful, but...then what happens? Because if you look throughout history, it's fun at first, but it gets very complicated very quickly. You have only the strong surviving and you have chaos taking over in the galaxy."

2. The tone will be that of "scum and villainy," inspired specifically by the characters featured in the iconic Cantina scene.

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"There's all different tones in Star Wars, but I always loved...when I saw the original Star Wars and I saw all the characters in the Cantina — the smugglers, the underworld, the scum and villainy — to me that was a very rich environment to tell a story in with a very rich tone," said Favreau.

3. The story will follow the titular Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) as he's sent on a mission to collect a ~mysterious~ bounty.

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"He's a mysterious, lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy," said Pascal. "Some might say he has...questionable moral character. Which is in line with some of the best characters. And he's a badass, what else can I say?"

4. Gina Carano’s character, named Cara Dune, is an ex-Rebel Shock Trooper having trouble assimilating back into society after the destruction of the Empire.

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"I know! It's not what you were reading online," Carano said in response to the audience's shocked reaction. "I'm a bit of a loner — which isn't a far stretch for me — and I'm having trouble reintegrating myself into society."

5. Carl Weather's character, Greef Carga, is the leader of a guild of bounty hunters.

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"He's a guy who's running this group of bounty hunters. He's kind of the head of this guild of bounty hunters," said Weathers. "He's looking for someone to go after a product that he wants to bring back to a client that's very valuable and guess who he finds? He finds a bounty hunter named Mandalorian. He figures he can get the job done."

6. The show is the first Star Wars property shot entirely in Los Angeles, which was made possible through a mix of new technology and practical effects.

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"Part of what made that possible was a lot of cutting-edge technology and stuff that I learned from making Iron Man, The Jungle Book, and even The Lion King," Favreau said. "About using all this game engine technology, video walls, VR for planning...but Star Wars, at it's core, has to feel handmade. So we do have a lot of animatronics and puppetry."

7. And speaking of, the name of the Mandalorian's ship is "The Razorcrest," and many shots of it were done using miniatures rather than CGI.

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"It's this really cool, reflective, silver, old army surplus gunship," Favreau said. "We had talked about it and were like, maybe let's do ONE shot with the miniature like they used to with a rig. And then people started coming out of the woodwork when we started doing this, and there was a lot of interest around it."

8. The stars of the show did A LOT of their own stunts — even though Favreau told them not to.

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"How it would usually go down is I'd do a lot of writing, we'd plan it, we'd do a rehearsal, we'd shoot the master, and then I'd leave for a few hours to do visual effects approval for The Lion King," said Favreau. "And then I'd come back and the directors would be on-set and Carl [Weathers] would be wearing a squib and flying around doing his own stunts and Gina [Carano] would be jumping off of something onto her back and I'd be like 'What's going on here? They are our stars!'"

9. And finally, many well-known directors have taken part in the series, including Bryce Dallas Howard and Taika Waititi.

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"You got a glimpse of our great group of directors and our prerequisite was that they HAD to be a fan of Star Wars and love Star Wars and they did," Favreau said, after a behind-the-scenes reel showcased the directors. "And everyone was from a different perspective, a different generation, and that's what we love to do here. We love to pull all the stories together."

The Mandalorian will be exclusively available on Disney+ beginning Nov. 12, 2019!

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