Originally published on Patreon
The Mandalorian was a great TV show. The first live action Star Wars series, it had a lot riding on it, and expectations were high; and it managed to not only meet those expectations, but went above and beyond. Sadly, the comic never feels like it's doing that as we get instead a decent, but safe retelling of the first season of the show.
I know that there were some fans hoping that this series would do different things when it was announced, that perhaps we could get some stories set between episodes, or maybe even a prequel exploring the life of Din Djarin. And whilst I would have liked to have seen that, I wasn't against it being an adaptation of the show. Other comic adaptations have proven to be entertaining retellings, especially when they include new material or cut scenes.
But two issues into this series it doesn't look like we'll be getting anything like that, as there is nothing here that fans haven't already seen before, with this being an incredibly faithful copy of the show.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and the story is still entertaining and is presented well with some good art; but the story being presented in this way does kind of highlight how magical the show was, and how a lot of that is missing.
The story still works, the characters are still interesting, and the action is still good, but it's never really more than good. You don't have the actors bringing nuance and subtle performances to the lines, and if you don't remember how it was presented in the show exactly certain scenes can feel a little 'less' because of that. The music that made the scenes with little to no dialogue work much better isn't here, and we don't have epic, sweeping shots with the camera because we have static panels. And whilst that doesn't matter most of the time you really feel the absence here in the second issue, where there are huge amounts of the story presented with no dialogue.
Perhaps the comic could have benefited a little with narration, with getting to hear what's going on in Din's head so that we don't have a dozen pages of him silently doing things. I don't know if that'd worked or not. But when it's just pages of art telling the story (a story we already know) it fell kind of flat to me.
With this series putting one episode of the show into each issue I know that things are going to kick-off next issue, and that there'll be more action and more character stuff coming, so perhaps these things won't bother me as much then.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian isn't a bad comic, but it's not as good as the show. And whilst it's fine to sit and read these once a month I know that once this book is finish I'm likely to never pick it up again, because if I want to experience The Mandarlorian again, I'll just watch the show.
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