Hey ‘Mandalorian’—Cool It with the Jedi Lore in Season 2

At this point in 2020, The Mandalorian Season 2 is one of the few bright spots left in the waning days of a disastrous year. Truly, my favorite show of 2019 could come back with a season that’s just 90-minute episodes of Din Djarin chasing Sebulba across the Dune Sea to “Yakety Sax” like an intergalactic Roadrunner cartoon and I’d probably be into it. I need to make it crystal clear that I’m happy with whatever showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni give me. I just want to get away to a galaxy far, far away! But, all that being said, there’s one hope I have for Season 2: I hope they take it easy on all the Jedi lore.

So far all we officially know about Season 2 is what we’ve already seen in the trailer. And in that trailer, we get what seems to be the mission statement of the season: our hero Mando has been tasked with delivering Baby Yoda to his home planet, back into the arms of a “race of enemy sorcerers” known, as sung in the ancient folk songs of Mandalore, as Jedi. And while that voiceover plays, we get a glimpse of someone who may be one with the Force (although it’s entirely likely that Sasha Banks is playing someone else entirely).

This is a big deal for The Mandalorian the show as well as the Mandalorian the man. Compared to a whole lot of other Star Wars movies and shows, The Mandalorian was pretty atheist. It focused heavily on the scum and villainy of the universe, fitting for a show with a notorious bounty hunter in the lead. The show’s only connection to the Force was one adorable green moppet with a higher calling (and, yeah, that last-minute Darksaber reveal). With Mando tasked with taking the child back to his people, Season 2 could become a relative Jedi jamboree.

That should not be the way.

Of course, this all boils down to personal preference—and personally, I prefer my Star Wars with minimal Jedi entanglement. But I do believe this preference is justified a bit because of not only when The Mandalorian is set in the timeline, but the specific vibe of the entire show. To be blunt about it: The Mandalorian is an original trilogy show—the 1977 to 1983 trilogy—in every way.

The Star Wars canon has become so Jedi focused over the past 20 years that it’s easy to forget just how few of them were featured in the original Star Wars movies. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine. That was it for three movies, and really, that was it until the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999 (unless, of course, you count expanded universe additions like Princess Leia and her children, Mara Jade, and—of course—Ken, the Jedi Prince). But the first three movies, all the Star Wars we ever thought we’d get for a long time, had only a handful of Force users.

The prequel trilogy—1999 to 2005—and subsequent animated spinoffs shifted the balance in the opposite direction. Gone were a lot of the smugglers and scoundrels that populated the original trilogy, replaced with hundreds of Jedi, Sith, Dark Jedi, the Inquisitorius—the galaxy was filled with Force users! The stories, naturally, became even more about magic and mysticism, a bit more sword and sorcery-y.

Note: I don’t think this is a bad thing. I love Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I love Ahsoka Tano, I love Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, I love Darth Maul’s transformation from disposable villain to evil mastermind, and I love all of the Jedi mythology that was unearthed in Star Wars Rebels. These aren’t bad things! They’re just different things—and so far, The Mandalorian has very definitively been one of those things.

Set five years in-continuity after Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian takes place roughly 28 years after Palpatine ordered the execution of every single Jedi, from youngling to master, in the galaxy. Palpatine so thoroughly declared the Jedi “fake news” that most of the galaxy has completely forgotten that a literal army of space wizards once kept the peace. When the Armorer tells Din Djarin about the Jedi in the Season 1 finale, you get the impression that this is the first time he’s hearing the word. It’s fascinating, and it gives The Mandalorian a unique, outsider, uninformed angle on Jedi lore that I hope they don’t squander by forcing in a bunch of Jedi info dumps.

Because right now, while The Mandalorian does feel like an “original trilogy” show, it feels even more like a totally original take on Star Wars. Prior to The Mandalorian, every show and movie had centered on either the Jedi or the Rebellion. The only exceptions to that are a handful of Clone Wars episodes and possibly Solo: A Star Wars Story, although that film tells the origin story of a great hero of the Rebellion. No Star Wars anything has focused so strictly on what’s going on over there, outside of the war between Jedi and Sith and the struggle between Rebellion and Empire. I’m excited to see the show continue to venture out into the franchise’s wild west!

All this being said, of course The Mandalorian Season 2 is going to have Jedi moments, just like it’s going to have Imperial and Rebel moments. We see all that in the trailer. And you better believe I am stoked as hell to see live-action Ahsoka Tano, the most important character in the Star Wars saga to never appear in live-action up until now. But I hope The Mandalorian, even on its quest to find Baby Yoda’s home, lets the Jedi stuff simmer in the background. Keep it special. Leave us wanting more Ahsoka. Don’t answer all of Din’s questions about the Force right away. Keep it mysterious and as vague as can be, just like in the original trilogy. That feels like the way, to me.

But also, as I said, if you want to de-age Din Djarin by a few decades and turn the show into Mando Babies, like… whatever. Just entertain me.

Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+