The Star Wars universe continues to expand at the rate of the cosmos, and like the actual universe, it includes barely visible dwarf stars as well as unmistakable supernovas. Among the latter is “The Mandalorian,” a series that debuted on Disney+ in 2019 and won seven Emmys for season one. Season three is in pre-production.
As made clear in the introductions to the new book The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian, the series’ success is due in part to the fandom of its creative leaders. Director Jon Favreau was first known for his upbeat indie hit, Swingers (1996), before climbing the tent-pole of Iron Man and Avengers. His future was marked when at age 10, in 1977, he saw Star Wars with his dad and “got my mind blown.” Production designer Doug Chiang was also at an impressionable age, 15, when he saw Star Wars. “I dreamt of one day creating artwork for the Star War universe,” he writes. Chiang leads the team of artists whose colorfully painted scenes became the visual guides for the live action series.
That artwork is impressively displayed in the coffee table book; the painted frames flow from George Lucas’ insight that a realistic universe must include layers of sentient-made debris, the junk of its recent and older past—the rusted hulks of things still serviceable. The Art of Star Wars shows how the artists drew from the enormous holdings at the Skywalker Ranch, a library of historical artifacts and costumes that ground the look of Lucas’ worlds in actuality, regardless of how fantastic they might appear to viewers.
The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian is published by Abrams.
