Posted in: Disney+, Star Wars, TV | Tagged: disney, star wars, The Mandalorian, werner herzog

Werner Herzog Has High Praise for "The Mandalorian"

Published Thu, 14 Nov 2019 11:45:01 -0600

Werner Herzog doesn't need to blow smoke up anyone's tailpipe. He know cinema, he's been breathing, eating, and directing cinema for well over 50 years. The 76 year old director of Fitzcarraldo could teach a master class on film-craft just from his re-make of Nosferatu. So, when Herzog started singing the praises of The Mandalorian, astute film fans perked up to listen.

Herzog joined the rest of the cast of The Mandalorian, the new Disney + streaming series, on stage after a screening of the pilot at the El Capitan theater in Los Angeles. According to Deadline, Herzog had a lot of praise for the series, as well as show-runner Jon Favreau:

"When you invited me, I knew in less than 60 seconds that this was going to be big. I saw the universe. I saw costumes. I saw the round horizon. I saw the spacecraft. I saw an entire universe. And I knew this was really big. Secondly, when Jon described a little bit about the character — yes, it's a dark, dark sort of figure that shouldn't be trusted at all — I knew it was going to be easy."

The Mandalorian takes place four years after the destruction of the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor, and the galaxy has fallen into turmoil after the apparent death of Emperor Palpatine. I would also assume that the death of Jabba the Hutt, who controlled a major part of the criminal underworld in the outer rim, would contribute to the chaos and destitution we saw in the pilot episode.

Herzog plays The Client in The Mandalorian, who appears to be an Imperial commander or Moff who is holding on to power in whatever way he can. He appears to have considerable resources, and hires the title character to hunt down a character who also happens to be one of the bigger twists in the history of Star Wars.

Herzog was not only happy to appear on the show, he also seems pretty impressed with the new technology that was being utilized to bring the galaxy of The Mandalorian to life:

I enjoyed every single moment of it. And I think it's beyond what we are seeing on the screen. It's cinema back at its best. On the big fantasy films, actors were acting almost like robots in front of green screens, you didn't see the world that you were inhabiting. Now [with The Mandalorian] the actors see the entire universe in which they are operating and the camera does the same. The camera sees it as well so cinema is back to its very life, where it had been. And it becomes very, very lively, it's not robotic. It's got very, very intense life in it.

The next episode of The Mandalorian hits Disney + early on Friday, November 15th, and we'll be back with more in depth coverage of the latest Star Wars hit!

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