One of the key things that Jon Favreau wanted to do with “The Mandalorian”, is how he wanted to connect the show to many different aspects of the Star Wars universe, bringing characters and props from Star Wars movies, video games and more.

The team wanted to make some deep cuts into the Star Wars universe such as the Ice Cream maker from “Empire Strikes Back” being brought into the show and why it was such a big thing for die-hard Star Wars fans. They wanted to make a series based on all the toys your big brother wouldn’t play with, which I thought was fun, since I remember having many of these characters as toys in the 1980s and rarely played with things like the Ugnaught, except to feed it to a Rancor.

You can tell from how much both Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni love Star Wars, as in the round table conversions, they have so much passion for the project. All of these little touches might not mean anything to everyone, but I love how the old toys inspired the show since I had them. And how they went back to some of the “non-canon” movies including the Holiday special and Ewok movies.

George Lucas has lots of influence over “The Mandalorian”, as Dave Filoni is very respectful to his legacy and talks about him throughout the series, which I think is one of the reasons “The Mandalorian” connected so well with audiences.

One of the cool stories was how Jon wanted more Stormtroopers for the final episode, but they had run out of costumes, so hearing how they brought in the 501st Legion, who are a team of super fans who Lucasfilm often use for premieres and events. Seeing how happy all the fans who took part in the series was a highlight from this episode.

This episode is full of fun stories from behind the scenes and you can’t help but laugh at some of the things they got up to, such as how Jon made the directors make cameos as X-Wing pilots in the series.

Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian has been an interesting series, the first few episodes felt like the usual fluffy featurette that you would find on a Blu-Ray, but as the series developed, we got to hear more and more about the creation of the series. The roundtable element is still my favourite part of the series, it reminds me of a podcast, just a group of people sat around chatting.

I really hope the Disney Gallery series continues, looking at how different movies and shows are created. It’s a simple format and works, but only if they are free to talk openly and not focus on trying to sell “it”.

Episode 8 was a great way to finish off the series, lots of laughs, lots of detail and lots of small things that made “The Mandalorian” special. Possibly one of my favourite episodes from the series.

Rating 4 out of 5.

Roger Palmer

Roger has been a Disney fan since he was a kid and this interest has grown over the years. He has visited Disney Parks around the globe and has a vast collection of Disney movies and collectibles. He is the owner of What's On Disney Plus & DisKingdom. Email: Roger@WhatsOnDisneyPlus.com Twitter: Twitter.com/RogPalmerUK Facebook: Facebook.com/rogpalmeruk

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