The Mandalorian is only weeks away from finally premiering on Disney+, and it will deliver the first Star Wars TV series set around the original trilogy era since Star Wars Rebels went off the air back in early 2018. While The Mandalorian action is going to take place far from the heroes and villains made famous by the original trilogy (and Rebels), the thrilling new trailer suggests that maybe the first Star Wars live-action TV show could deliver some closure about a previous animated TV show.
The trailer itself (which you can watch in full lower down) opens with a voiceover from Werner Herzog's still unnamed character that leads me to suspect that The Mandalorian will -- appropriately enough -- reveal what happened to Mandalore following the Star Wars Rebels episodes there, which set the Mandalorian rebels up to fight the Imperial presence on the planet. Let's start with Herzog's voiceover:
Is the world more peaceful since the revolution? It is a shame that your people suffered.
If we assume that Werner Herzog's character is speaking to Pedro Pascal's Mandalorian here, then it's safe to say that he's referring to Mandalore and what happened to it during the original trilogy. Star Wars Rebels Season 4 revealed what the remaining free Mandalorians on their home planet intended to do, and that took place shortly before the events of Rogue One/A New Hope. Rebels' epilogue didn't reveal what happened to Mandalore, as Sabine hadn't returned to her home planet and the epilogue was packed with bigger shocks.
Rebels suggested that the reason why there were no Mandalorians fighting in the original trilogy was that they were consolidated on Mandalore, united under Bo-Katan, with the goal of liberating the planet from Imperial control. Given that none of Bo-Katan's fighters were around the main action by Return of the Jedi, the odds seem that either the Mandalorians lost on Mandalore or their fight was still ongoing.
Since Return of the Jedi would have been more than four years after the Mandalore episodes of Star Wars Rebels, Mandalore couldn't have been in good shape for the people there if there hadn't been a decisive victory over the Empire.
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Considering The Mandalorian takes place five years after Return of the Jedi -- so, around a decade following Rebels' Season 4 Mandalorian adventure -- and it sounds like the troubles on Mandalore didn't exactly go away with the end of "the revolution," as Werner Herzog's character put it, the odds seem pretty good that the new show will fill in some of the blanks left by Star Wars Rebels and the original trilogy.
It doesn't sound like The Mandalorian will feature a ton of characters or even cameos from previous Star Wars projects (including the most famous Star Wars character to ever wear Mandalorian armor), so I wouldn't count on Sabine (despite actress Tiya Sircar's interest) or Bo-Katan or Fenn Rau turning up in the flesh, but answers about the Mandalorian people from the time of Rebels and the original trilogy are definitely possible.
Of course, even if The Mandalorian doesn't deliver the kinds of answers I for one would love since the end of Star Wars Rebels, the new trailer promises there will be plenty to keep Star Wars fans entertained. Take a look!
By the looks of things, nobody is going to need to know the history of Star Wars Rebels, Mandalore, and possibly even the Star Wars saga to enjoy the epic scale of The Mandalorian! Star Wars isn't going halfway with its first (but far from only) live-action TV venture. This show is bound to be a success; the question moving forward is how the Cassian-centric Rogue One prequel series and Ewan McGregor-starring Obi-Wan series will compare.
You can find the first episode of The Mandalorian streaming on Disney+ when it goes live on November 12. The full series of Star Wars Rebels will be available streaming as well, in case you need some Star Wars fixes between episodes of The Mandalorian and ahead of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker (with a Star Wars Rebels nod of its own) in December.
