The Mandalorian Disney Gallery BTS Docuseries

Williams is fantastic. One of the best film score composers of all time. But Ludwig is a genius, IMO, and I don’t need him to produce a hundred more scores to prove it. I think he’s just a better and more inventive musical artist than Williams. I have spoken!

*runs for his life*

 

It’s okay I’m used to you being wrong.

 

Just wait 20 years. That’s the average amount of time it takes for everyone to realize I was right.

 

One thing I totally learned from this show is that Favs loves to say "Use every part of the Buffalo!" makes me nostalgic for another Star Wars producer who loved saying "Bold!"

 

I still really need to watch this

 

Bringing this topic also back to page 1, because I really really REALLY wanted to say that if you have not watched this documentary, you should absolutely watch it ASAP.

I have watched half of it so far (4 out of 8 episodes) and I am loving every minute of it. I have watched the episodes about Directing, Legacy, Actors and Technology. My favorite episode as a total so far has been the one about Technology, because I was blown away by all the stuff they can do with The Volume, and it also seems like such a cool and inexpensive way to be able to films multiple seasons of a show without even travelling anywhere. This is just phenomenal. Until today I thought they at least traveled to various locations in the US to film all kinds of desert, forest and city landscapes.

However, my favorite segment was in the Legacy episode, and specifically the 5 minutes of Filoni's monologue about what Star Wars is really about. The way he was able to summarize all 6 classic Star Wars movies, from the beginning of Anakin's story and the influence of Qui-Gon and the Duel Of The Fates, to the end of Return Of The Jedi with the most pivotal scene between Luke, Vader and the Emperor, was just magnificent. He stopped talking and everyone in the room was ready to cry. The man gets it and see George Lucas' vision perfectly.

Cannot wait to see the Chapters about Practical, Process, Score and Connections (essentially Lore). I don't see it, but I hope they put out another one of those for Season 2.

 

Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian - “Making of Season Two” - December 25 on Disney Plus.

 

Oops, didn't know we had a thread for this. I posted about it in the main Season Two thread.

Anyways, since this is being advertised as a special, I guess it is just going to be one single documentary this time around, rather than an eight part series.

 

I guess doing one doc makes sense, in that a lot of the stuff that was explored last year (the Volume, for example) wouldn't have changed much going into season two. COVID shutdown likely had an effect as well.

But yeah, I definitely hope for something pretty in-depth as well. The Director and the Jedi from the TLJ Blu is probably the best documentary of the Disney era in that regard, but the Disney Gallery series from season one is right up there too. Hopefully this brings together the best elements of both of those.

 

And while I had the same thought, they DID build a whole new larger Volume for season 2.

 

Is the 2nd season special out?

 

December 25th 2021.

 

Nope. It's out!

 

Temuera's "Mandalorian Blues" was one of the best things I have ever seen. I didn't know I needed that until I did... Might have been the best part of the BTS. LOL

 

Absolutely loved the BTS episode. Got emotional all over again.
Truly shows how much everyone is devoted and dedicated to bringing the heart and soul of Star Wars into each of the episodes.
Everyone seems to be having the time of their lives working on the sets.

 

Wow, absolutely no mention or footage of the Luke scene from The Rescue. Everyone at Lucasfilm must be really ashamed of the job they did.


I kid. Because this premiered so soon after the finale, it needed to be locked and finished well in advance. They likely didn't include the BTS Luke material in case it leaked. Similarly, the Art Of books for the ST didn't include those respective film's most spoilery scenes for the same reasons.

 

For reasons like this, I always tend to prefer BTS material that comes well after the fact, unless it is right up front and center chronicling the day to day production (like the supplements to Twin Peaks: The Return).

Some of my all time favorite behind the scenes documentaries are Charles de Lauzirika's supplements for the "Alien Anthology" box set, especially the one that does a really deep dive into the much maligned Alien 3. With the benefit of hindsight and people already being intimately familiar with the movies, Lauzirika and his team were able to do some really incredible deep dives, and with so much space since the release of the films, he was able to really focus on the negatives of the production instead of just making this documentary that presents everything as glossy and perfect (I'm looking at you, The Rise of Skywalker documentary).

Anyways, I had quite a bit of fun with this Mando doc. I preferred the more segmented style last year, but I'd imagine that COVID prevented any of that from happening this time around and that is obviously understandable. Loved getting some new looks at the Volume in action!

 

Also, DIY KING RODRIGUEZ

 

It blew my mind that Rodriguez did a test shooting of Boba Fett action sequence introduction using some action figures and his children as actors. XD



Such a cool mando galery episode, was really hoping to learn more about what went into making of 'The Jedi' and I was not disappointed. Even though they talked about the finale, NOTHING was revealed about Luke, I suppose they were trying so hard to keep it a secret they recorded no behing the scenes footage.

 

I think in the Luke scenario it wouldn’t have made a differences. Chances are it was only absolute essential staff allowed on set at that time and that probably meant no set photos, no extra cameras etc. unless you were in the need to know group you weren’t permitted. This probably meant they didn’t actually have any footage/material FOR the BTS.

Another highlight was John and Dave from the end of season 1 episode 5 where they’re debating the fan reaction to the boots. They were so switched on to exactly what would happen.

 

Filoni and Favreau gold here, from maclunkey to "spinning is a good trick", and yeah, Tem sings the blues was so wild it was almost impossible to believe we were watching it.

One thing that stood out to me is that they were pretty open about discussing the limitations and difficulties of Volume shooting and how sometimes it just didn't work. As Season 1 played out and we didn't even really have details on how it was shot or what the Volume even was, it just looked great and most of us assumed that it was a foolproof solution for, like, everything. Now it's pretty clear that they wrote and shot pretty carefully for the things the Volume does well, and of course we only saw the terrific results so we would be none the wiser. It's still amazing, though.

 

I definitely would've watched even twenty minutes on each episode over eight weeks, and not just because that would tide me over longer. I love learning about all the ideas, decisions, and insights that went into each one. For instance, I like Favreau's perspective of enjoying different levels of the production, and what Howard picked up from him about making things feel real through the filming itself. Kudos to Rodriguez for wanting and making that distinction between Din and Boba, and the backyard prep was great! On a different note, it was great to see Katee Sackhoff on set, because I can only imagine how cool this is for her.