The Mandalorian season two resumed late this year (my thoughts from s1) without missing a beat, and keeps getting better and better. I'm thoroughly impressed by a few things, not least the production quality. It's great that the serial format has continued, where there are a few recurring characters but most episodes change up the cast and plot. The slowly developing main story thread around Mando and 'the child' pulls it all together and drives the terrific action. It remains very much a space western (most of all s2e1 'The Marshal'), still reminding me of Firefly and the Man with No Name, within the realm of Star Wars. You can also tell this show's reputation is on the rise, as there have been some really good actors (I'm thinking Timothy Olyphant, Titus Welliver, Katie Sackhoff) in small parts. Clearly there's also the potential for spinoffs and a couple have already been announced.
What I'm trying to briefly express is that it's definitely worth watching, which is far from a controversial opinion at the moment but true nonetheless. This is what Star Wars should be going forward. I'm talking smaller scale, engaging stories in an extremely diverse and interesting universe. Luckily they, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni apparently, finally figured out that there's a lot to explore beyond only Skywalkers and Death Stars. As for the major films, I'm back to thinking people should just watch Machete Order, IV->V->II->III->VI, and ignore both episode one and the newest trilogy entirely. That would lead into shows like the Mandalorian perfectly.
That's not the gist of this post however. Today I want to touch on the Mandalorian theme. First of all, I should say I'm a fan of a number of movie scores (like LotR, Last of the Mohicans, so much Jon Williams...) and I like to geek out about this type of thing sometimes. This one is a seemingly perfect fusion of the music from spaghetti westerns (like this) and what you'd expect from Star Wars (like this). I really like it, and it gets stuck in my head every episode.
What I find happening, though, is a consistent morphing (in my head, while I'm humming) into another theme I know. It took me a bit to make the connection, but there's a string of similar notes at the beginning of both main tunes. Besides that they're certainly different, especially in terms of pace and mood. Both are LucasFilm, so in some ways the Mandalorian theme is derivative of John Williams, who did both Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
Can you hear it too?
I found these cool sheet music pages that play a sample. Thought I'd share them as well.
That's all I have for today, Merry Christmas, ya'll.
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