10 little-known facts about the making of The Mandalorian season 1

With the upcoming second season, refresh your memory of season one with 10-little known facts about The Mandalorian.

When The Mandalorian released last year on Nov. 12, it exploded with popularity. From Baby Yoda to tough Mandalorian warriors, creator Jon Favreau introduced a whole new world for us to fall in love with. The show is regarded as the best thing to come out of the Star Wars universe since it was bought by Disney from George Lucas.

Winner of seven Emmy awards, the upcoming second season is highly anticipated, as fans can’t wait to get their hands on new episodes of one of tv’s most exciting shows. So, to get you ready for the brand new season releasing on Oct. 30, here are 10-little known facts about The Mandalorian season one.

1. The Baby Yoda puppet

Yes, just like the original trilogy Yoda, the Baby Yoda featured on the show is a puppet as well. Very little CGI is used, with two technicians operating him at each time. One is in charge of overall head and eye movements, while the other controls The Child’s facial expressions. This ever so popular puppet, who took over all of our social media memes and frankly, our hearts, also costs a pretty penny too, at $5 million dollars.

2. Theft on set

During the filming of season one in 2018, it was reported that a major piece of camera equipment went missing at Manhattan Beach Studios where they film the show. There was fear that a memory card containing spoilers would be released. Police were called, and an official investigation began, with Lucasfilm reporting it was a case of grand theft. At the time, a spokeswoman for the company declined to comment, and no more information has been released.

3.  It’s not always Pedro Pascal

One of the many reasons why the show is so fantastic is the performance by the series lead, Pedro Pascal. His ability to tell you exactly what his character, Din Djarin, is thinking and feeling all without actually seeing his face, is incredibly done by Pascal. But because he is a very busy actor, it isn’t actually him under that helmet the whole time.

The character of Mando is also portrayed by stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, with all three people working closely together to develop the character. In fact, Pascal was not in episode 4 at all due to scheduling conflicts, doing voice-over work for this episode at a later date.

4. Big budget

With a new Star Wars franchise, comes newer, and bigger budgets. The entire first season cost around $100 million to make, which is about $13 million per 30-minute episode. With cutting edge filming technology and a cast full of stars, these high numbers are not surprising. Now you know where your $8 a month goes.

5. Cutting-edge technology

Watching a show like The Mandalorian, you would think there would be plenty of massive sets and lots of green screen. When, in fact, the show barely uses either. Instead, the show uses Stagecraft, also known as the Volume, a relatively new filming technique, which uses a big LED screen that immerses the cast inside its surroundings.

Compare this to the traditional green screen, where the actors would only see a blank screen when filming and then everything would get added in post-production. Instead, the background and all the details are already there when filming, looking so realistic that you have a hard time telling it’s not real. This groundbreaking technique allows The Mandalorian to transform into many different sceneries, instead of traveling all around the world to film.

6. Undercover actors

An up-and-coming new Star Wars project was bound to attract many eyes. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen all visited the set during filming. However, two famous actors appeared in the season one finale, and you probably didn’t even realize. Comedy actors Jason Sudeikis and Adam Pally play the two stormtroopers at the beginning of the episode — the ones who cruelly hit Baby Yoda before being killed by IG-11. With the success of this show and the fact that there were many well-known people in the recent Rise of Skywalker, I expect we will see many cameos in the upcoming Mandalorian seasons.

7. Being a fan isn’t a requirement

You would think that with an extremely popular and long franchise like Star Wars that all of the actors on the show would sign because they were all fans just like us. Or, you would think that the cast had at least seen the movies beforehand. But that wasn’t the case with actor Werner Herzog, who plays the Client. Actually, before filming, Herzog had never seen a single Star Wars movie. Now, he applauds the filming and the world The Mandalorian created, saying “it’s cinema at its best.”

8. Character confusion

With a new and unknown world to explore, even the actors were confused as to who they would be playing at first. When Pedro Pascal had his first sit down with Jon Favreau, he came out of the meeting thinking he was going to be playing Boba Fett. A similar instance happened with Gina Carano, who plays the former shock trooper turned mercenary. She originally thought she would be playing a female Wookie, and was surprised to have her face appear in the series.

9. Crossovers

Voice actors and creative members from other well-known Star Wars shows are featured on season one of The Mandalorian 00 he biggest crossover between the shows being the work of Dave Filoni, writer and director on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Filoni makes a cameo as an X-wing pilot in episode six, as well as serving as a writer, director and executive producer on the series.

Matt Lanter, known for playing the infamous Anakin Skywalker on all six seasons of Clone Wars, makes his first live-action appearance in episode six as well, playing the New Republic officer on the ship Mando and his former colleges invade.

10. On-set injury turned method acting

One of the biggest scenes of the show featured a severely injured Mando finally taking off his helmet in the season finale. While in fact, the actor was injured himself while filming this scene. As mentioned by Pascal on the series Disney Gallery, he cut his nose walking out of the makeup trailer when he collided with a piece of plywood, not looking where he was going due to focusing on his script.

He had to go to the hospital and get seven stitches on the bridge of his nose. Pascal came back right after and continued to film the scene with fake blood mixed with his own real injury. It really worked for the scene, as Din Djarin was in pretty bad shape already. Although the injury may not have been caused in a fight scene type of way as I was expecting, it was impressive of Pascal to return to work right after.

The Mandalorian is a compelling show in many ways, from technology advancements to crazy popular new character additions. I’m sure it will continue to impress, and I’m looking forward to the release of season two at the end of this month.

Which fact were you most surprised or intrigued by? Let us know in the comments!