LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Playful Special Ties Three Seasons of Mando, Just for Fun
By John Kirk
Rating: A
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian follows The Way – the Playful, LEGO Way that is.
Back in the early 2000s, when LEGO decided to team up with Lucasfilm and develop animated series based on their vehicle playsets, it’s unlikely that they could have predicted how long-lived the concept would be.
More than 20 years later, the animated LEGO Star Wars shows are almost as popular as their dramatic counterparts.
And playful – which is the draw to this show.
My favourite toy was a gigantic bag of LEGO, which I would use to make Star Wars vehicles, of course. Once I needed to figure out how to make an Imperial Star Destroyer. There were no kits or guidebooks to go off (and no YouTube videos). It was purely imagination-driven, which was the fun of LEGO.
Now, I now have a large LEGO Star Destroyer in my office. Full circle, I guess.
The combination of LEGO and Star Wars is unbeatable. But add those two ingredients to a non-self-serious animated show that and you have an approximate 46-minute animated special filled with laughs and messing-about that takes you on a light ride a galaxy far, far away.
The story isn’t complicated. It’s basically a re-telling of the entire three seasons of The Mandalorian, but with lampoon-ish twists. These include caricatured versions of the main characters. Grogu is impossibly cute and Din Djarin, aka the Mandalorian, is gruffer and grimmer but somehow adorable.
When Tatooine spaceship mechanic, Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) decides to throw a party for Mando, she invites all of his friends. Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), the Armourer (Emily Swallow) and Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison). Even former enemies like Migs Mayfield (Bill Burr) show up to celebrate their pal, the Mandalorian (Gavin Hammon) and his protégé, Grogu.
As his friends take turns recounting their parts in his adventures, trouble looms in the background with the return of some enemies from his past.
The voices of some of the actual actors from both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett are welcome presences, goofing off their signature characters.
It’s like a giant LEGO playset come to life.
There’s even an appearance of Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s character, Captain Carson Teva. I personally know that Paul played with LEGO Star Wars when he was a child. He must have felt like a kid again, voicing Teva and seeing himself as a LEGO minifig.
Accomplished actors like Rosario Dawson, Nick Nolte, and Giancarlo Esposito also return to voice their characters for sheer amusement. The dialogue is adorably funny and damn it … frolicky! Yes. They’re definitely frolicking.
If they can feel like kids while they’re performing this, then we can feel like kids while watching it.
There are great sight gags too. When Luke Skywalker has a load of rocks (LEGO rocks remember – they’re squarer) dumped on him, a’ la Wile E. Coyote, it’s a bit that could have only been inspired by Loony Tunes cartoons. Which is appropriate, by the way, given that Luke Skywalker is voiced by none other than the current voice of all the Warner Brothers characters, Toronto’s own Eric Bauza.
It’s an entertainingly hilarious show that celebrates the fusion between LEGO and Star Wars. Fantasy and the spirit of play are well-captured in this show, and given the source material, that’s what you should expect.
After all, this is the playful way.
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian. Directed by Chris Buckley. Written by Michael Price. Voice cast: Gavin Hammon, Amy Sedaris, Bill Burr, Katee Sackhoff, Emily Swallow, Giancarlo Esposito, Matthew Wood, Min-Na Wen, Eric Bauza, Nick Nolte, Rosario Dawson, Taika Watiti, Temuera Morrison, Timothy Olyphant, Carl Lumbly, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Steve Blum
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian is currently streaming on Disney Plus.