Yeah. Well, we're starting where...
You get up and he comes, you know, back.
KIM RICHARDS: All right, guys and girls. Good morning!
Welcome to season two of Huckleberry.
-Welcome back! Yes. -(CREW MEMBERS CHEERING)
Welcome back, or welcome for the first time.
I'm Kim. I'm the First AD...
(CROWD CHEERS)
Season two! Yeah!
That's great.
-What's your name? -My name's Kayden.
-Like Hayden? -Of course.
MAN: All right, here we go. Lock it up, please.
(CHUCKLES)
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
JON FAVREAU: Welcome, everybody, back to the show.
We're gonna have a lot of beats of fighting
with a lot of characters running in from different places,
a lot of choreography going on...
Take a couple of steps, and then lean into it.
(WOMAN LAUGHS)
Season two... You're walking into a world.
They're bringing these characters to life.
Feels really exciting, it's electric.
For season two, what everyone is after,
but what is important to me is making people care,
to create new things, and to introduce new characters,
and to go to new planets,
while preserving all of this incredible nostalgia that we have
for every aspect of Star Wars that people wanna see.
I think we all like this aesthetic more for Boba Fett.
FAVREAU: Right. FILONI: That's what we know him as.
In season one, once you've set up, "This is what the show is,"
you're always open to have a little more fun,
and yet still deepen the whole experience for the character and the viewer.
FILONI: That really winds up. ROTH: Winds up really well.
AMY SEDARIS: Maybe I'm in here?
You're just curious about the small tip.
ROY CANCINO: Clear the hole.
Can everybody see me good enough? Okay.
So, the scene starts...
This is coming after a few establishing shots of the spaceship flying around,
so this is at Hangar 35, which is, I think, a few hangars down
from where the Millennium Falcon used to get gassed up.
-(SEDARIS SNICKERS) -It's good.
-(LAUGHS) -That was good.
Of course, as you know, with Amy, we might get off road a little bit.
Let's be prepared for that.
-Encourage creativity. -(LAUGHTER)
For episode one,
I loved working with Jon as a director.
He knows what he wants, he loves working with the actors...
He backs off, you back off, it doesn't jump off at that point.
At that point, you're looking what the hell's going on, and I love...
-So this is where you get the Leone stuff. -Exactly.
Camera pushes in, you see the bombs, you see the head moving around...
This is as close as we can get without him getting able to do it,
so it looks like, if he moved or let go,
it would run off, and the thing would go under.
BRENDAN WAYNE: He knows to tell stories.
He understands bigger picture,
which usually you get people who get caught up in moments
and hope that this thing falls together.
Waiting...
WAYNE: That's the actors' job.
We gotta catch our moments.
He catches the story.
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION)
The first season, I wanted to make sure that I was available
to oversee the whole show as an executive producer,
but I always wanted to sit in the chair and be able to just interface directly,
and try things that may have been too ambitious
for somebody who didn't know the show as well as I did,
so I was able to throw myself a lot of curveballs.
Just gonna... (CHUCKLES)
(ROARING)
The krayt dragon is a great example of Jon
once again taking something from the original films that's obscure,
and then elevating it to be this big centerpiece.
So, taking something we only glimpsed as bones in New Hope,
and fleshing it out, and making it into the big, bad creature of episode one
and then Doug's group did an amazing job of designing the thing
and figuring out what does this thing look like when it's in its prime?
DOUG CHIANG: It was a huge challenge, 'cause Jon raised the bar
in terms of design.
He challenged us to really come up with a spectacle
that would fit within the box of what we were given.
We saw skeletons of it. It was just the head and the neck.
How do we extrapolate that to create our dragon?
And one of the fun design ideas was that,
"Okay, maybe as it evolves, it actually grows limbs,
"and so, the older it gets, the more limbs it has."
That, then, gave us the license to really expand on that.
"Let's push the scale, let's push the drama,
"let's go for the scope in the spectacle of what Jon was writing
"and see where the boundaries were."
The dragon actually came out to be pretty big when Jon approved it.
It was 150 feet.
And then, once Jon got in there and started to look at layout shots,
it grew even bigger.
When we started looking at him in the environment,
he didn't really look that imposing,
so we just started scaling him up,
and he became 600 feet long, and Jon said, "That looks right."
HICKEL: And then, from an animation standpoint,
how is it pushing itself through the earth?
So we came up with a scheme where it's liquefying the sand around it
with some kind of sound wave or something,
so that it can swim through the sand.
It's all, you know, hidden.
It's all sleight of hand because we never see the full dragon,
it's always hidden,
and it's kind of like the shark in Jaws.
The less you reveal of it, the better it is,
the more mysterious, powerful the design is.
We're at the entrance, right now, of the Volume,
and as I write things and we design environments,
I try to think of what we could try different in this space.
We've done exteriors, we've done caverns, we've done ice tunnels...
We've used it for a lot. Here was an opportunity to try something
that was an underground arena that would've been prohibitive to build.
Season two, technically, the Volume changed, it became bigger.
It's about a hundred feet long and 22 feet tall.
We had phenomenal new color management science from ILM
in regards to the way the pixels were being driven to the screen.
MAN: I'm basically moving the entire sky world around
to find a better composition in frame.
We also could shoot much more lower light scenes,
much darker scenes, which was phenomenal.
FAVREAU: Wanna look at the artwork here?
SIMON KASSIANIDES: Absolutely. MAN: Yeah.
I drew that one up there.
My son watched me. My son was in here painting, too. He's 18.
What?
I'm like... (MAKES SWISHING SOUND) He's said, "You've done this before, Dad."
-I'm like... "I don't know." -Oh, yeah.
FAVREAU: I really loved the exterior, because the artist, David Choe,
he started off doing graffiti art,
and he asked me, "How come there's no graffiti?"
There was in animation.
And I said, "There could be,
"and I'm getting ready to direct one, you wanna come down?"
And so, David Choe painted all the exteriors on the set.
FAVREAU: He said that it was about layering, right?
CHOE: Yeah. FAVREAU: Graffiti's about layering.
You don't wanna make it like a mural. You want it to look like...
-generations of graffiti. -CHOE: Right.
I like the level of nerdiness we've put into this.
FAVREAU: Yes.
We left a lot of the low graffiti for the Jawas...
(FAVREAU CHUCKLES)
'cause they can't reach that high.
FAVREAU: That's a living piece of art.
It's for me to live out all my childhood fantasies,
and just... I mean, it's a win-win,
and Jon stole me in for a second as an alien.
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION)
Did a little bit of a trench
so that you can snip it down below level,
and then when you do your cavel over it, it just...
-So that way, you know? -Yeah.
You're not building on a hump.
-You're building in a valley. -Yes, yes.
One nice, big thing the production did
was they opened up a little room for us,
so that we can actually build a lot of stuff here on site.
Kind of opening up that old ILM creature shop again
to build the Star Wars aliens.
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION)
The director, Dave, and Jon, input comes from all three,
and then we go and we try and interpret that into the best form that we can
for a makeup that might fit a person, or work well as a makeup.
Being one of the departments that deal with practical elements,
we're always kind of making sure that what we do blends in with the background,
especially having the Volume, so we have a visual that we can match,
and making sure that our textures and everything
match with the costumes and all that stuff,
so you get to see that really cool mixture.
You're gonna see. They're about to come in.
They're two Gamorreans.
So, I don't know if you know Star Wars, but they're green pig guys
that are in here fighting to the death. This is, like, deathmatch, all right?
So, all you guys, I know that rehearsal was kind of weird,
'cause you had nothing to act against,
but on the day, there's gonna be two pig guys in here fighting,
so use that to feed off your energy.
And again, this is really about you guys in here all day, today and tomorrow.
So really, really good energy.
First team's gonna come in and shoot this thing, all right?
(CROWD CHEERING)
On this episode, we discussed all styles of fighting from all over the galaxy.
The pig guys have a certain style, they're really, you know,
not the most finessed or beautiful movement,
but they were strong and a little clumsy. (CHUCKLES)
They're a little leaner, the fighting Gamorreans
as opposed to the heftier Gamorrean guards from Jabba's palace.
(BOTH GRUNTING)
We made them a Gamorrean axe.
So this is an aluminum... It's a hollow fighting axe,
and then we added a couple of little details,
so it has electricity, so when they're fighting,
you can see sparks.
(SPECTATORS CHEERING)
FAVREAU: I like the idea of people just watching
a Muay Thai fighter-fight club type thing or a gambling venue,
where he was visiting, like, a mob boss.
Because with Star Wars, you can lean into different genres.
We've had Western, Samurai,
a little bit of heist, a little bit of war movie.
And in this one, I want to feel a little bit more gangster movie.
If I can locate other Mandalorians, they can help guide me.
I'm told you know where to find them.
"You know, it's really uncouth to talk business immediately.
"Just enjoy the entertainment, okay?
"This is one of the best in my stable."
From my stable, on... In my stable.
"In my stable" or "from my stable"?
But I like you being the high status mob boss,
even if you don't do the character of Don Corleone.
JOHN LEGUIZAMO: I'll try it.
The attitude of,
"Hey, hey! Not business first, let's enjoy the meal."
LEGUIZAMO: Okay, all right.
All right. Or let me just... Let me just do...
Let me try something else.
-All right. -All right.
"I am told that you can lead me to others of my kind."
"Hey, hey! It's uncouth to talk business immediately.
"Just enjoy the entertainment.
"This is one of the best in my stable."
Good, reset one more time.
I really like how the episode came out.
I love that we were able to bring part of Star Wars history
to the screen in a new way.
It was fun interacting directly with the actors
in a way that I don't always get the opportunity to,
when other directors are working.
But, honestly, I did miss the collaboration.
And I was very happy to have Sam Hargrave working with me on second unit.
Because I think part of what's fun
about the experience of making The Mandalorian is that it's a team.
It's a team of creative people working together.
So, as much as I enjoy directing, I enjoy just as much, if not more,
when I'm working with other directors.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
FAVREAU: Maclunkey. (MIMICS EXPLOSION)
It's something Greedo says, though. "Maclunkey."
Yeah, but if it's curtains, if it means...
If "Maclunkey" means a lot of things.
-You want the Mando to say "Maclunkey"? -Yes.
Should he? When he shoots the light out.
-He says, "Mando, don't leave me here." -Maclunkey.
-(BOTH LAUGH) -Come on.
When you say it out loud... You can't.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
PEYTON REED: Episode 202.
It is when we really put the Child through a lot of intense situations.
It is maybe the most intense episode of the season,
which I am proud of.
As we walk past sort of a dark room...
REED: Yeah, 'cause actually when we were looking at the footage,
you were saying you wanted a little more shadow
to make it feel like there's only one way out.
-A little more horror movie. -REED: Okay.
Jon wanted to create an ice planet that was distinct, so it wasn't like Hoth.
And we started to figure out, "How do we do that?"
Because the minute you do a snow planet, people are gonna think it's Hoth.
And so, we decided that, "Maybe this is kind of a glacier planet.
"It's a different quality of ice."
Can you technically come lower, or is the...
FAVREAU: The second episode, I think was great to work with Peyton,
because he has so much imagination,
and it was one of those episodes where the script was short,
it allowed for a lot of room for discovery,
and he really embraced it.
And it took a director like him to breathe extra life into this thing
and expand upon what was already on the page.
REED: John first showed me the script, and I read it,
and there was a description, "Ice spiders."
It struck me in a great way, because it felt pulpy.
It felt like a pulp serial.
It really struck me, like,
"Okay, this is tonally the origin of the original Star Wars.
"This is what George Lucas was influenced by."
And it just felt right.
When we started talking about the design,
it keyed off of this design
Ralph McQuarrie had done for Empire Strikes Back.
CHIANG: I grew up enjoying Ralph's designs so much.
And he designed so many creatures that were never really used,
and one of them was specifically the spider that lived on Dagobah.
And it was such a beautiful design, it was white.
To me, it always kind of evoked the idea
that this creature should live in a cold environment.
And so we thought, "Well, maybe we should try to bring that creature
"and put it on this planet as an ice spider."
HICKEL: It's really a fun creature to do,
because we get to see it through its entire life cycle.
We see the egg, and then we see sort of
the small, medium, and large size hatched spiders,
and then, of course, the big boss mama spider at the end.
Peyton has a great sensibility for humor that leavens a sequence like that.
And to me, that's the hallmark of Star Wars action,
is that it's not just grim.
It's leavened here and there with a funny line of dialogue,
or a funny bit of action, or something, and I feel like that was...
That note was hit hard in that sequence.
The bulk of this episode is a guy in a helmet, a puppet, and a frog lady,
who is an actor, Misty Rosas,
and she is in this Legacy frog costume,
and it's a practical costume and a practical mask,
with some CG embellishments, but, you know,
you're going a long time without seeing a human face in this episode,
and that thrilled me. 'Cause that felt really Star Wars.
Can you come even further this way?
Come this way for me, Misty.
When you read it, it's "How are we gonna create sort of
"a dimensional character out of this frog lady?"
And Misty brings this performance level to this character that's unbelievable.
HICKEL: The way that she embodied the creature,just as she did with Kuiil
is just remarkably sensitive.
And immediately, you love this character.
PEDRO PASCAL: Misty is a superstar.
It's absolutely heartbreaking
the way that she creates a compelling little frog lady.
The physical language that she's able to demonstrate,
that kind of performance is exactly what makes
things like that work in the world of Star Wars.
(CROAKING)
That is our digital version of Frog Lady taking over
when she breaks into frog mode and starts leaping.
Number one, we want it to feel credible and real that,
you know, she could leap such a distance.
But also the sloppiness of it.
We needed her sliding around on the ice,
and bumping into things, rather than just being a clean
sort of athletic leaping through frame.
That took a little while to get right.
REED: That character provides these momentsthat are comedic,
and then also some really frightening moments.
But the big, central story
is the story of The Mandalorian and the Child.
Like, that's gotta be the emotional core.
And the fact that that could also include
some other smaller players in the universe,
in this thing is... (CHUCKLES) That's exciting.
It was fulfilling for me.
THE MANDALORIAN: No. No!
(WHIMPERS SOFTLY)
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
MATTHEW JENSEN: Working with Bryce, she's such a positive person.
It's very infectious working with her,
because that kind of energy spreads
not only to the actors, but also to the crew.
And she's very inclusive.
And so, all of us felt a real sense of authorship
in helping make her episode spectacular.
The way that Bryce was able to lead the set,
with so much warmth, and so much specificity,
you really feel that from her.
You feel experience.
Felt like something that she was always meant to do.
-Misty and John, do you guys understand? -ROSAS: Yeah.
Kind of, the spots. So it's... You meet here, you hug,
Misty turns around, you take a beat to look at it.
A lot of my episode takes place on the planet Trask.
That's a largely water-based planet,
where there's lots of Mon Calamari and Quarren.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
MAN: Thank you, everybody. Rehearsal's up.
ROY CANCINO: I think the thing that was very challenging this year
was the Trask boat.
We shot it static, but it had to be a moving ship.
Shot on stage, with water, with wind, all kinds of effects on there.
And we ended up having to build in a 15 by 15 tank.
I usually get with the visual effects team,
plan on seeing what the pre-vis was gonna be like.
And then we see what it needs.
It was interesting to try to figure out
how to shoot it to make it look totally real. Because you can't just say,
"The visual effects will make it look real."
You wanna shoot it in a manner in which
you would actually have to shoot it if it was real.
And then the audience believes that it's real.
And so, for instance, one of the first shots
that we were working with was a crane shot.
And Jon quickly identified,
you wouldn't be able to get a crane out there in the ocean.
You'd have to be shooting on sticks.
Like, we shouldn't do stuff that you couldn't actually do,
if this was a real environment.
That's something that he encourages with all of the filmmakers,
so that the filmmaking stays grounded.
This is Mon Calamari. It's for episode 203.
This is Frank Ippolito inside. He is the craftsman,
and the costumes are authentic wools that we've over dyed
and stained and aged.
And also, it's in a galaxy far, far away. So, for me, everything is vintage.
Which means nothing's futuristic.
Everything is visiting the old world.
With season two, I would say, it's twice as big.
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION)
TRPCIC: We're also shooting two full units at the same time,
with, you know, amazing directors on both units,
so you wanna give everybody 1,000%.
What I do is, I surround myself with an amazing crew,
that any challenge that comes up, we meet. We have to meet.
They trust us.
Jon and Dave trust the people they hired in the different positions.
And we work very closely together with props, and special effects,
and production design, so that we're all on kind of the same page.
I think that that's what helps to not get overwhelmed
by the massivity of everything.
Oh, it's good, isn't it?
It's a great recipe.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Dave Filoni created a character named Bo-Katan.
And Bo-Katan was voiced by Katee Sackhoff
in Clone Wars, in Rebels,
and when I first read my script,
when I saw Bo-Katan, I was like,
"Oh, my gosh, that's Katee Sackhoff. (GASPS) Is it gonna be Katee Sackhoff?"
It was so thrilling to get to bring that character to life with Katee.
Especially because Katee has that expertise,
because she's been playing the character for almost 10 years.
This is her first day as Bo-Katan live action.
We've been animated Mandalorians before.
Never been in the same place at the same time.
Never in the same place.
-But we've done a lot of scenes together. -A ton.
FILONI: Years ago, when she first started, I said,
"You never know. This works out, this could become live action one day."
And she's like, "Okay. Great, Dave. That's great. I'm sure."
And so, when she showed up on set and she's wearing the full outfit,
carrying her helmet, she just looked at me like,
"I can't believe you said this would happen, and it's happening."
I'm like, "I know. Isn't it cool?"
She's so great at playing these type of gunslinger characters
and she just is Bo-Katan to me.
FAVREAU: Mercedes, or she's known as Sasha Banksin her wrestling career,
clearly her persona had a lot of flair,
and I thought it's really good for this show
to have somebody playing a Mandalorian who had all of that fierceness,
and the energy, and also physicality.
Because when you're breaking a new character in,
that doesn't have any roots or history in any of the other Star Wars media,
you wanna make a strong impression.
Because it was an episode about Mando seeing other Mandalorians in action,
it was essential that we delivered on that end.
(LAUGHS)
HOWARD: Mando's here, and you come over to Mando.
Have look at that with the pattern fire in Lucas movement.
And then he's gonna be reaching the classic Star Wars pew-pew battle.
-Then hide. -Okay, let's see it.
-That's my only trying to get away from. -Let's see.
Just an idea that was in my head,
but this might evolve into something cooler.
If you see it and hate it, we'll do it that way.
FAVREAU: All right, good.
SACKHOFF: Fire, fire. Three, four.
PASCAL: Five.
FAVREAU: If he sneaks in and shoots, he's part of the crew.
So, I think...
-When they're shooting, he's not. -Right.
FAVREAU: We should try one that way.
MAN: When he tries to sneak away? FAVREAU: Pattern... He does.
When they go pattern fire, and they rush in.
They all go, at the same time.
If he's with them, he's part of that crew.
MAN: You wanna separate him from the crew?
FAVREAU: He shouldn't be ready.
When they jump out, they're a machine. He's not.
I have so much fun on the set of Mandalorian.
It's just the most incredible group of
creatives, technicians, and performers,
and all of us are obsessed with Star Wars.
We're basically all like six-year-olds in our backyard,
like, playing Star Wars with one another.
Like, the days on set where I was having the most fun
was when it was just me, Jon, and Dave, and it was just so great.
It was so much fun.
And if you can reach into your pocket, and you're gonna leave some.
You're gonna pay the check. Yes, great. Could she pay the check?
MAN: Sure.
'Cause ladies pay in my universe.
(ALL LAUGH)
All right. You guys all prepared for greatness? Let's do it, folks.
WEATHERS: Even though you say "Hi" to her early,
hold your reaction until she's here.
Right? So cameras can see you, and then come back to her.
Let's try it one more time.
Carl Weathers came back to act again as Greef Karga,
but also to direct episode four, which is a rollicking adventure ride.
I think having that first season under our belts gave us a sense of
the flow of the show, and the flow of the stories.
The more I got into it, the more I was able to
sort of wear my actor hat when I'm in the scene
and still be aware of, wherever camera was set, what we were seeing.
PASCAL: It's an incredible episode.
I'm so proud of Carl,
because what I was really struck with was how great the action is.
WATSON: Carl really understands action.
Working with him was awesome. He added another take on it.
For stunt guys, it's great to have a director
that has physicality and knowledge of physicality in film.
WEATHERS: Regarding the action in particular,
that's something I've done in front of the camera forever. (LAUGHS)
And then, of course, I was an athlete before that, a professional athlete.
So I know how it feels to get hit,
and I know how it feels when you're inside a scene,
and it's moving and doing certain things.
Bang. Camera goes here, sees me come in.
Takes me to you guys.
So, you both look off when I say, "No need."
GINA CARANO: Me and Carl speak a special language, I feel.
We've both been action actors for a while,
and I just think that he understands where I come from.
He is an artist to his core.
We're on the streets of Nevarro now, rebuilt from season one.
Season two, we're starting out. I think we're in week three.
As you can see, it's all refreshed.
Cara Dune and Greef Karga have cleaned up the town.
Mando stops back here to get his ship repaired
and helps 'em on a brief adventure.
It was so exciting to step into an episode that gets back into a kind of ensemble
with characters that we've met and actors that I've been with.
It was like being reunited with family.
Your ship's not lookin' too good.
THE MANDALORIAN: I had a run-in with the New Republic.
I love working with Gina.
I think that with this very tough exterior,
there is such a feeling and vulnerable person.
The way that she puts that into Cara Dune's character, her backstory,
I think just makes you not be able to look away.
CARANO: Season one, Cara Dune was very fresh
off of being kind of just out on her own and alone.
She doesn't want anything to do with anybody.
And then, when we pick her up in season two,
we find, all right, now she's establishing herself.
She started stepping up to the plate.
Things have changed a lot around here.
Cara Dune's character is upgraded to a marshal.
And because of that, I wanted her costume to reflect a higher station,
a higher responsibility.
So I upgraded her armor a little bit,
I gave her a new paint job.
It still has some cuts and bruises,
'cause she's a tough dame, and I love it, and I wanted to make sure
I was respecting that as well.
WATSON: She brings a lot to the table in terms of the power.
I wanted to see more of her power last season,
so this season you definitely get it.
She kicks people, headbutts people, she uses more of what she's good at.
(CARA GRUNTS)
WEATHERS: I really love directing.
That's been, you know, a passion for a number of years now.
And the more I do it, it's just the more of it I wanna do.
He'll make some more shots, more shots offstage, right?
Because we can't cover that mountain. Offstage we hear,
"What are you waiting for, an invitation?"
It's just being able to, you know, capture the large strokes,
and then get the actors in there to get some detail.
Whoo!
WEATHERS: I just find Horatio funny, man. He's just funny.
He's so quirky and so out there.
Did a wonderful job.
We're dealing with Star Wars, and there is a level
of expertise, a level of awareness
about an audience that you have to have.
It's another bit of work that I'm really proud of.
You have no idea what's gonna come your way,
when you start out on this journey of being a filmmaker.
But to have it come your way is like, "Oh, thank you. Thank you."
(MYTHROL AND GREEF KARGA SCREAMING)
FILONI: Everything in this episode is in the stage.
It is in the Volume or the stage.
But if you look at the story,
it happens entirely outside.
So, we're doing that for various lighting reasons,
and because the Volume will offer fantastic results.
But we have to get a sense of atmosphere, of particles, to make,
I think, this feel like we truly were in this location.
If you watch any Kurosawa film, and the amount of wind that's blowing,
and the sensibility it's giving the story, that's just something to consider,
that the environment itself should be a big part of playing this story.
Episode five, Dave Filoni took us on a magical journey
into a Kurosawa-esque samurai culture.
If you watch the great sword fights like in Samurai, Toshiro Mifune,
any of them. They're always measuring each other
-because one wrong move and that's deadly. -Yeah.
Dave has got taste, he understands action, performance, drama.
That episode is beautiful.
(MAGISTRATE GRUNTS)
With Dave's episode, we really, really start to get into nuance.
It is something that tonally I found particularly artful.
And also amazing
to see him bring in an animated character of his into live action.
RICHARD BLUFF: It was incredibly important to Dave Filoni in particular
that the audience that has grown up with Ahsoka
felt like that what we did in The Mandalorian
was respecting what had come before.
FILONI: I intentionally did not do anythingwith her in season one,
because I didn't wanna mess it up.
It's a character that George and I created.
She's one of the first things I ever drew for Clone Wars.
We cast Ashley Eckstein to be the voice of the character,
and she brought such a great energy to Ahsoka in the animated series.
People know this character. They've watched her grow up,
and the challenge was to take all of the elements we had
and evolve them into this live action version.
So cool.
Ahsoka is such a defined
prominent character,
and Rosario is so brave, and I know how...
I mean, she's gonna just fill those shoes with aplomb.
I think we'd just have the hood down for this scene and this moment,
and she would've put it down off-screen.
WOMAN: Copy that.
When we do attacks and kills,
-you'll have it up then. It'll be cool. -WOMAN: Okay.
Already coming out with it?
Already coming out with the hood down.
I like losing that business.
This is so strong. Your face is so strong. There you go. (LAUGHS)
There are moments when I just stare at her and I'm just like,
"Wow, she just looks like..."
-She came alive? -"...this thing I've drawn."
Rosario's done all the research, like, she knows the character,
but now she has to become it
in a way that's never happened before.
SIPE: Her character was tricky 'cause it was walking that line
of finding her look between human-realistic
and something that would satisfy the fans for the Clone Wars graphic image.
I loved working with her. You know, because there are nerves.
You wanna make sure you get things right,
and there's a lot of, like, heavy thinking that goes on, and so
she was able to really help me kind of like, you know,
forget what I was doing and just have fun.
We get another scene together.
Yeah, I know, it's great. Yeah!
ROTH: We wanted something slender, something really elegant for her sabers.
Basically, it's a katana and a shoto. We were also trying to work
with the technology that we needed to talk to our lighting console.
So, with the batteries and with the receivers,
all the different wireless gak we had to put inside of it,
the saber kept getting bigger and bigger, and Dave was just,
"No. It can't look like this."
We went through different iterations
where we basically ended up slimming it down
and having to use an external battery
to get to what we needed, so it looked correct.
-Stop. -Yeah. As soon as we get 'em,
-we'll get 'em to you. -Exciting.
-Looks good. -What did you do today?
The big advance that we had with lightsabers over the past few years,
of course, is getting that interactive lighting
on the characters in the shots.
(BOTH GRUNTING)
BLUFF: The DP can now frame based upon
where the light is in the scene coming from the lightsaber,
so all of a sudden we can have a really kind of moody scene,
Ahsoka coming through the trees, and play her in silhouette
until she turns her lightsabers on and it shapes her face.
If you're going low... Yeah! You will go get more...
The lower you are, the more...
WATSON: That's good. LATEEF CROWDER: Beautiful. Beautiful.
Rosario has this charisma and passion
about whatever it is she's doing,
-that she gets really into it. -Up high.
She focuses a lot. She looks at you, she really wants to know,
you're teaching her movements. She's right behind you.
Another step, left foot goes forward. Yeah.
And I come in... Hold it like this, and then coming back up?
CROWDER: In trying to honor the old films,
he has to have that samurai feel, it's based on them.
Slash. Slash.
Flowy movements. Flowing from one move to another. Instead of... (GRUNTING)
You know, it was more flow from the sword, so it was still samurai,
but it wasn't so clean.
-MAN 1: All right, we're gonna go again. -When he says,
"I wished... I prefer if you took him."
-Have Grogu look up at Dad like, "Really?" -MAN 2: Okay.
And then she's there talking, and then have him look back to her.
But this little moment, if my dad said, "I prefer if you took him."
MAN 2: You'd go, "What're you talking about?"
Yeah. Not like shocking, but just like...
-No, but just kind of look... Yeah. -MAN 2: Acknowledging each other.
I don't like bringing characters in unless there's a real value to it.
So when I wrote the episode with her in it this year,
it really was about how can we learn this child's name?
Who would know these things?
AHSOKA TANO: Grogu and I can feel each other's thoughts.
FILONI: What's fascinating is, she's the first character we've met
that really actually knew Yoda.
So, it's bringing back all these memories and things
that aren't unlike what the viewer experienced as well
when they saw the Child for the first time.
I learned so much making that episode, you know,
and I hope to bring that to future episodes.
Never stop learning.
That's the way of the Jedi, never stopped learning.
You wanna hold him? You wanna hold the baby?
-No. You're being mean. -There you go.
-WOMAN: Aw! I'm gonna die! -This is it. Hold on a second.
GEORGE LUCAS: Yeah. Yeah.
WOMAN: That's your great-great-great grandfather.
-It is. -(ALL LAUGHING)
CARANO: Robert Rodriguez, like, blew my mind.
I worked with you for a day
and you changed my perspective on the universe. (LAUGHS)
MING-NA WEN: He's so chill. You know, he brings his guitar, he hangs out.
But you know, in his head, it's non-stop.
PASCAL: What I think is so cool about Robert,
is to bring his danger and grit into an episode
and usher in an iconic character.
There wasn't anybody better than Robert to bring that in.
FILONI: Everybody loves Boba. He's a great character,
and it's about authenticity and at times connectivity
to other parts of Star Wars we know, when it makes sense
and where should that character appear? Probably in this show.
FAVREAU: Do you think they all know it's a prediction,
-are they gonna know it's Boba? -Oh, yeah.
Right... Instantly.
But the debate will be, they'll say, "No, that's..."
-Mando? -"Mando." And then they'll be like,
"No, that's a Boba Fett sound, they're messing with us."
But they already said it's not Boba.
Our guy had spurs, but not like that.
You know, I was nine years old when the first Star Wars came out.
Saw it again and again, all its re-releases,
and I was already a huge Boba Fett fan before Empire Strikes Back even came out.
So Boba was a star before the film ever premiered
and had us kids just so excited to see the movie,
and to see him in it.
And anything called a bounty hunter back then was just cool.
And the fact that you couldn't see his face shrouded him in mystery.
You know, he was the flipside to Han Solo.
He had a jetpack, a cool ship, really cool name.
I just remember that time period very well
of just the mystery of him, and he was just always my favorite character.
TEMUERA MORRISON: I feel real honored tobring back this character
and become the son of Jango.
LANDO: Help!
The last time we see him, you know, after the barge,
he falls into the Sarlacc.
BOBA FETT: What the...
(SCREAMING)
SIPE: For us to think, "Okay, he survived that,the belly of the beast."
You know, with stomach acids and stuff like that.
Jon and Dave wanted something to show that something really happened to him.
The first makeup test that we did was kind of like,
"This is how far we can go."
And then it got refined, so that we can see a little bit more of him.
Save some of the humanity, so that it's still there.
I think whatever it is, it should be evocative
of whatever people's memory is.
-Take the one from Jabba's. -MAN: The other way you held it.
It's stock under arm, right?
Try the stock under arm to see.
-Yeah, like that feels like Boba to me. -Like that.
With that tilted down.
Let's look it up.
TRPCIC: What really makes it Star Wars, and I've heard this from every actor
that we've fit.
When they put on the costume, they're like, "This is it."
Especially Tem, who plays Boba Fett.
When he put on his costume, his posture changed.
You see the difference? You see the perspective?
(ALL LAUGHING)
MORRISON: It's quite a dynamic feeling to be in that armor.
He's the kingpin.
He's the kingpin of the galaxy. You don't wanna mess with this guy.
It's like when you walk into those cowboy bars
and the saloon doors open.
The first thing you're gonna find out is,
who's the number one gunslinger around here.
Otherwise, you're dead, so...
So, I'm that guy.
(LAUGHS)
I ended up turning a three-page battle scene
into a nine-minute battle scene
because I was just that excited to be bringing Boba back,
and I had an idea, right away I told Jon.
I've been waiting to see this version of Boba Fett
since I was a kid. Boba has to be different,
he can't just seem like another Mando, you know?
He has to move differently, feel different,
occupy completely different space,
and have a weight and gravitas to him that shows why he's such a legend.
I wanted him to live up to his name that we would whisper since we were kids.
Be that mysterious character with a past that makes you wanna knowmore about him.
If Mando is a gunslinger, Boba needs to be a barbarian.
So, to illustrate what I was talking about,
I took my Boba Fett and stormtrooper Halloween costumes
and put them on my sons and went into the backyard
and filmed Boba's arrival.
And since I didn't have stuntmen at my disposal,
I used my Star Wars action figures
'cause a picture's worth a thousand words and helped me just communicate
what I was going for with a crew.
And when I first showed it to Jon and Dave Filoni, Dave said,
"Wait a minute. Were those just action figures I saw?"
And I said, "Well, yeah, I didn't have anything else on hand."
And he said, "No, you don't understand. That makes it the coolest animatic ever."
And I just thought, "These are my people!"
Another thing about this character, Boba, you know, the actual fight,
and the way he fights,
I'm actually drawing a lot on my Māori traditional side.
Thing called the Haka. "Ha" is the breath. "Ka" is fire. "Fire breath."
Temuera happened to show Jon his traditional Māori dance,
which is a lot of spinning of the stick, stomping, the tongue out and everything.
And Jon saw that, and he asked me
if we could do anything with that style and make it fit.
After we talked about it, we told Josh to start making this Māori weapon.
ROTH: Temuera specifically requested his own gaffi stick.
He wanted one that was longer and one that was more slender.
If you look at the other ones from the earlier films,
it's much more... The shaft if just thicker and wider.
It didn't lend itself to the choreography that he wanted for his fight.
We wanted to make sure we had something specific
that he could have the action. The action's pretty brutal.
He's gonna go after some stormtroopers.
I'm pretty excited about that. (CHUCKLES)
We had to take the show to location for the first time
because of its scope, really.
You know, the Volume's incredible, but it has limitations.
ANDREW L. JONES: Direct sunlight over a large area,
that's difficult to do, that particular lighting condition in the Volume.
KLEIN: Whenever we're going to do direct sun,we usually go to the back lot.
And the back lot wasn't big enough for this.
So we ended up in Simi Valley.
The terrain was so difficult.
Everything we wanted to take up onto those rocks, we had to hand carry.
It's dry up there in Simi Valley. We couldn't have any fire.
You know, no explosions.
Except for when Fennec's running on the rock.
Those were practical. Those were practical explosions,
and I think it's because they were far enough away
from everything that was combustible.
And the fire department's there when you do that sort of thing.
The special effects guys, they all have fire extinguishers all over the place.
And it's very safe, but obviously,
the bigger explosions, those were all visual effects.
(ALL GRUNTING)
MING-NA WEN: I love doing physical stuff.
Every day we're running, jumping, we're...
We were parkouring up these Rocky Mountain peaks.
There was one point when we were really high up in the rocks,
and I'm watching the cameraman carrying these 50 pound, I'm trying to traverse,
and we're trying to avoid poison oaks,
and we're trying to avoid rattlesnakes and divots and stuff.
I was like, "Okay, let's go back to the Volume."
RODRIGUEZ: My approach was to pretend that this is the only other time
or episode we'll even see Boba Fett.
And it needs to satisfy.
I don't wanna take for granted
that he'll show up again later in other episodes.
He needs to be all things right here, right now.
That's what Boba Fett is all about.
This episode needed to say,
"Boba is back," and that was my main personal mission.
(SINGING) And with Rodriguez, yeah
Making season two of The Mandalorian
(EXCLAIMS)
Oh, yeah
We got The Mandalorian blues happening right here
On the sands of Tatooine
It's an interesting process that happens on the show
because Jon is a writer and does a lot of the writing
and Dave and I, I think, are the only ones
other than Chris Yost, who've written on the show.
Part of the process was the refining of the script
as different ideas came together and different things started to gel.
BILL BURR: Rick has it all in his head. He's so cool and laid-back.
You know what I mean? If you watch the episodes that he's done,
you think that he'd be like this guy on his toes and really like that.
He's just totally chill. He's like, "Now we're gonna do this.
"Now we're gonna do that." And then he just puts...
The way he puts it together, yeah, is amazing.
WOMAN 1: Moving on, you guys. Let's clean it up.
CARANO: Where are we now?
I really appreciated and I love working with Rick.
He's my...
I'd work with Rick any day of the week.
Let's go! I've got a job for you.
If you wanted to try something as a character he'd be like,
"All right, yeah. Well, you can try it."
And a lot of directors like to take control and just, like,
"Be what I want you to be."
And Rick is like, "All right. What you got in there?"
FAMUYIWA: He comes right after with the "Weren't you two the transport..."
He would notice where you were discovering things
and, in recognizing that, he would lean towards it.
And that was cool. 'Cause Rick's episode is the first time
that Mando takes his helmet off.
It's the first time we see his face in season two.
And then I think the very first... No, I'm sure.
The very first time another human being sees his face
since he first put on the mask.
You the tank troopers who delivered the shipment of rhydonium?
-Yes, sir. -Yes, sir.
PASCAL: It's very economical and subtle storytelling
and all about risking it all,
the value system, the Creed, and everything to save the Child.
"Do we end this, you know, sort of recon mission right here,
"or am I going to do the thing I said I'd never do?"
But I think, for him at this point, he is deciding
what his code really means for him and protecting
this child is at the center of it.
I like the idea that inside of Star Wars,
which is gonna be filled with a lot of big action,
that you could have this quiet, tense scene
between these people who have competing agendas,
who are trying to figure each other out.
All heroes of the Empire.
A fun and different break to take within the world of Star Wars and Mando.
Nobody's ever seen what goes on inside that ship when it rotates.
-Reorients. -We've only seen the outside.
-Yeah. -So that's...
That was one of the inspirations for doing it on this stage.
Taking advantage of what this stage could do.
Spinning's a good trick.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
The ship has this condition where it rotates when it takes off.
It starts off flat, and then it goes like that.
So, the pilot sits on his back, when it takes off, it rotates,
now he's sitting upright. But down below is the navigation room,
and as the ship takes off and it rotates into its flying condition,
that part of the ship stays level.
BLUFF: Instantly I knew that was something we'd try in the Volume.
And it got me incredibly excited because I think it's something
that kids back in the day would've played with that ship
and wondered what it would be like on the inside when it rotates through.
JONES: It was a bit of a challenge to see if this would work on screens.
But to do that with traditional special effects,
you can imagine.
It would be this huge, complicated rig.
So we built an elevated deck with some seats on it,
and there's a console as well. But that's the set.
All of the rest of the vehicle is on the content.
MAN: Action.
BLUFF: We got to ultimately shoot it on the stage against the LEDs.
And boy, oh, boy, was everybody excited.
I think that was the moment on season two
that mimicked the hyperspace being turned on in season one.
It got everybody excited, everybody knew where we were,
and everybody felt like a child again. It was wonderful.
Never gets old.
BLUFF: One of the exciting things that we did on season two
is we built a five-foot long light cruiser miniature model.
GOODSON: This part slides out, and that will access the front rod mount.
But what's inside this is this little TIE fighter bay.
And this is where the TIE fighter bay fits.
It's right back in here.
BLUFF: John Knoll used his motion-control rig
to shoot a number of miniature shots for that.
It's a classic sort of Star Destroyer-ish ship,
but in a unique design with interior lighting. It's just gorgeous.
We were all giddy as school children when we saw the first takes come through.
It looks like we're transported right back to the late '70s or early '80s,
doing exactly the same George did, and we have that characteristic.
It takes me back to when I was a kid, when I wanted it. I want that model.
It's pretty spectacular.
JONES: Also, we've been using miniatures in a little bit different way.
We make the miniature, and instead of filming on it,
it gets scanned, and then put up on the screens.
In episode seven, the miniature model maker
built 12, 15 TIE fighter balls and this wonderful table top set
to be visualized on the screen.
That's an example of taking the practical models
and bringing it into today's technology.
There's something about the hand. You know, actually physically making it.
It gives it a look that is uniquely Star Wars.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
At the heart of what I wanted to do with this episode was that, you know,
I think where we see Star Wars sometimes in stark ways.
You know, there's the lightand the dark,
and there's the Rebels or the Empire.
What I really wanted to do was just kind of have this conversation about that,
and that these things aren't always as black and white,
and that there's so much gray,
and especially when we're talking about power,
and the use of power, and the transfer of power.
For me, I felt like, let's see how far we can keep pushing things
and how much bigger we can tell these stories.
To the Empire.
Bang against the floor, and then looking at it,
and then almost surprising yourself. (EXCLAIMS) I think I got it.
(GRUNTS)
(CHUCKLING)
REED: Let's cut it.
-Cut. -(ALL LAUGHING)
As an almost lifelong Star Wars fan,
I don't think I could have lived with myself
if I turned down doing that finale.
That was an exciting thing, to have Mando at the center of this rescue mission.
And then to have Bo-Katan and to have Koska,
and then to have Fennec and Cara making their way
through this Imperial ship. That was fantastic.
When I read the script, I was like, I'm dying to do this.
Pivot into that position here.
And then I'll cue, ding! Door will open and...
CARANO: Okay.
REED: When you do an episode of Mandalorian you're like, "Which characters
"are gonna be in my episode?
"What are the sequences like?"
And in 208, Moff Gideon has the Darksaber,
and now Mando has this beskar staff.
And what happens if those two weapons go up against each other?
That's not gonna be just another lightsaber duel.
It's gonna be something different entirely.
What does it look like?
HICKEL: The Darksaber was enormously difficultto get right.
Because this is something that Dave and George came up with together.
Dave has a real sense of propriety over that object
and what it should look like, feel like
to audiences on screen.
I commissioned this.
It's silver.
Yeah. That's the new change. Yeah, it can be silver.
-Why not? He can paint it. -Stop it.
There was a lot of time put into getting the energy effect just right
that you see along the blade.
REED: I think we landed on a look that's really spectacular
and feels different,
and yet still feels like a Star Wars movie.
This is where it's going.
This season we do a lot of fighting with the Darksaber.
We had to re-engineer and re-design how we did it.
This is a full aluminum machine hilt to give us more structural integrity.
It's intense, man. It's feeling good.
Moff Gideon is not a master swordsman. He feels more like a bureaucrat.
But what he does have is he has the Darksaber in his possession,
and he also has this rage.
And we almost got into trouble
by running through too many prop Darksabers. (LAUGHS)
Josh, the prop master, was... He wasn't thrilled, but he was there.
He was totally prepared.
But Giancarlo just had this fury as he came in there,
and it shows in the finished episode.
-(EXCLAIMS) -Oh, my God!
Giancarlo brings the greatest energy ever.
MAN: Yeah. Hell yeah!
Yeah. Keep it going. Keep moving.
-(MEN GRUNTING) -Yeah.
CROWDER: It actually brings up my skill set as well.
If he's coming with a lot of energy and heart,
I have to really be on point, too,
and everything is gonna look strong and on point.
So, you know, we're literally fighting.
(IMITATES LIGHTSABERS)
CROWDER: It's gonna add to the scene,
and people are gonna be blown away by that.
REED: Your attitude's right, too.
-Thank you. -Yeah, man.
REED: Still, still, still.
Okay, front two, we're getting ready to do the arm raise in three, two, one.
Lock it.
One of the exciting parts about the Dark Trooper designs
was that Jon,
as always, wants to photograph something.
Not do it as a full CG version.
He would have us, very specifically,
look at the way that the surfaces on Darth Vader would reflect the light.
You look at the shoulder pads or the helmet,
it's not a perfect surface. With a 3D model,
you'll get a perfect surface unless it's engineered and modeled in
from the artist to not be perfect.
And so what was important to Jon was that we photographed actors in-camera.
For the live-action version, we knew
that they had to be performed by stunt actors.
And that demanded that we couldn't modify the portions too much,
and yet we still had to make sure that it looked like the original inspiration.
To really highlight the fact that there isn't a human inside the droid,
what we're doing in visual effects
is adding in all the pistons around the neck
or the jointing around the elbows or the knees,
the ankles or the shoulders,
and they have to be seamless.
REED: Tweezers.
No, he always had two. It's weird.
You don't see it, but he has one wrapped around this way
-and the other through the back. Yeah. -REED: The bottom as well.
MATTHEW WOOD: Those are so gross. These little things. And they're ticklish.
(ALL LAUGHING)
They're ticklish.
BLUFF: Jabba's palace, we were desperate to put that on the Volume.
The challenge with Jabba's palace is we simply couldn't find a good seam
for where we could go from practical to the digital walls.
It had to match exactly from the blueprints
of the original movie, the Return of the Jedi.
The intention is to just get that feel back
you got when you first saw it.
(SPEAKS HUTTESE AND THEN ENGLISH) ...my Lord.
JONES: There's a lot of little nooks and cranniesaround the back of that one.
It wasn't a shape that suited breaking down into a Volume set.
So we built that physically. And got it very accurate.
So cool. And this is like, we look through here with pictures.
Crack for crack, a re-creation of Jabba's palace.
You go on, and it's like, "Oh, wow. We're in the palace,
"and there's that weird mobile hanging down the stairs
"where Carrie Fisher hits her head."
Every detail is...
Because everybody has a personal relationship
with every frame of those movies.
And you walk on the set, and that thing's there.
It's exactly the same.
FILONI: When we do recreate things, like Jabba's palace,
we show it the proper respect,
and not just the respect for making it look like the place,
like when we did the cantina,
but for the people that worked on it.
For the people that were a part of the legacy at Lucasfilm
that are the reason we have jobs.
Living up to that expectation and living up to that creativity.
AMANDA SERINO: From Return of the Jedi to where we are today,
we knew it was years after that Bib Fortuna took over.
So we tried to figure out, "Okay, what would have changed?
"What would've been the same?"
We obviously put the throne in there, where I think in the original,
they had the band and they were mid-partying.
It was just a different, little more lighthearted.
We took it a bit darker,
a bit seedier, that kind of feel in there.
(LAUGHING)
-Jabba the Hutt, I get that that's him. -Yeah.
But whenever they say there's other Hutts...
-Yeah... -They're all fat, big too.
-Yeah, yeah. -But there is something that you become...
Gluttonous. It's the gluttony.
It changes. It's like with the... How the ring makes you gaunt.
Is there some... It's a metaphor for, like, gluttony.
CHIANG: You know, what if he has the big fat.
To where he, like, he gets that second embellishment.
FAVREAU: Yeah. Yes.
FILONI: I think if you accent that under there that would really help.
FAVREAU: Underneath, that's what happens.
CHIANG: Okay. Got it. Okay. So you wanna pursue this?
Inside Bib Fortuna costume is Matt Wood.
He comes from the sound department,
and we were working with him on season one.
And Dave has worked with him on Clone Wars for a long time.
Big staple at Lucasfilm.
But the real thing here is that you played him...
WOOD: I did, yeah. For Phantom Menace and the prequels.
You were born to do this.
Yes, right. Yeah, I know. George had me do it in '97.
Never thought I'd do it again. It's great.
SIPE: Matt Wood. Looking back. DMITRIEW: Matt Wood.
He was trooper, he was way into it, which was really cool.
It was two big tentacles, a cowl, a big face piece.
He wore contacts, he wore the teeth,
he had all of the big finger cups and wore a big fat suit.
-Another cool thing is this staff. -I love the staff.
This is something that was not in the films, but actually was...
Could you talk about the backstory?
Well, yeah. As a kid, I even had the Bib Fortuna action figurine
that Michael Carter played, and to have the staff
that was part of the action figure that was never seen in the movies.
-And here it is. -(LAUGHS)
I don't know if I've ever seen anybody happier
while wearing such an enormous costume.
But to be standing there in Jabba's palace...
It's one of those moments where you just sort of pinch yourself,
and you're thinking about the fact that you're there on a set
that's recreated from almost 40 years ago.
Not only do people want to see it in the story,
it almost demands and it deserves being revisited.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATION)
REED: By the time you get to the end of season two,
you could see on the page the potential for this extreme emotion.
And that was really the challenge,
is to kind of like bring all these elements together,
and I felt an extreme sense of responsibility
to get this episode right.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
HOWARD: Getting to be a part of The Mandalorian
in general is amazing.
You know, 'cause we didn't know whether or not it was gonna work.
PASCAL: For it to materialize in such a specific way,
in such visually familiar ways,
it continues to have this very surreal relationship
to the actual child that you were
and these movies that you saw in the movie theater.
FILONI: It's not just about the recreation of a set location
or characters that we've seen before.
It's what we're doing with them, how we're executing them.
That's all part of the magic.
FAMUYIWA: It is this mix of incredible talent
that come from so many different places, but everyone just bringing it
week after week.
CARANO: When you get a call to be on Star Wars,
you're like, "I believe. I believe. I'm in.
"I'm gonna give everything I have."
And every department gives everything they have.
WEATHERS: It's a true team.
And every one of them contributes something.
(ALL CHEERING)
I think why it's resonated so deeply with the audience
is that it's just the level of surprise that comes.
It's all the tropes put together in a completely new way
that's very George Lucas. I think it feels just very true
because Jon and Dave really had that in mind. They wanted to make something
that felt true to the roots of what George was doing.
FAVREAU: It's all there. And hopefully, this is an opportunity
to bring all the different groups of fans together for one experience.
MANDALORIAN: This is the Way.