The Mandalorian head writer and Executive Producer Jon Favreau recently rejected rumors and fan theories about studio interference playing a role in why The Book of Boba Fett appeared to take The Mandalorian in a completely different direction with the return of Grogu to Din Djarin.
Favreau spoke to Esquire Middle East where he was asked about whether the ending of The Book of Boba Fett was always the plan or if came about due to other reasons or conversations with Lucasfilm.
He answered, “No, no, I take full responsibility for everything people like or don’t like in this show. There’s no outside pressure on me from the studio, Lucasfilm, Disney, anyone.”
“There’s pressure from within on whether or not something feels right. We challenge each other on whether something feels like it’s authentic to Star Wars, if it feels like it’s consistent with things that came before,” he explained.
Favreau then detailed, “A lot of what you’re seeing is us embracing the complications that come with the choices that we make in our storytelling.”
When asked to elaborate on this, Favreau said, “For example, we established in this show that that Mandalorians, don’t remove their helmets, and then, but then in Clone Wars, everybody’s helmets are coming off all the time. Instead of running from that, or sweeping that under the rug, it became inspiration for storylines, and character interactions.”
“And as you start to set those things up and play them out, there are certain inevitable things that start to happen. Also having The Mandalorian as the caretaker for a Jedi with their checkered past as cultures,” he continued
“All of these are leading to these situations and obstacles that have to be overcome and give us a lot of dramatic inspiration,” Favreau asserted.
He then returned to The Book of Boba Fett featuring episodes considered The Mandalorian Season 2.5, “As far as your point about Mando 2.5, I think that’s a fair assessment. Maybe I took a page out of my experience with Marvel. But it seems that audiences are really savvy now. And they communicate with one another.”
“And there’s lots of ways to get background, if there’s any confusion, and also the fact that everything sits side by side on Disney Plus, you could just reference episodes if you want to. And we’ll do recaps as well,” he explained.
“Telling the story there allowed us to break like a novel would, to get away and check in on characters. And so now they’ve spent years apart, and now as we rejoin them, we get all of the character development that comes from that separation, but yet, we don’t have to spend all the screen time watching each of them pining over feeling somehow unsatisfied in their lives, and we see them being restored by their reunification,” he said.
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Rumors and theories about Favreau being influenced by Lucasfilm have been going on for years with many believing Favreau was biding his time waiting for Kathleen Kennedy to exit the company, but according to Favreau the buck stops with him and he “takes full responsibility for everything people like or don’t like in this show.”
The series currently has a subpar 7.9 average score from IMDb users for Season 3 through five episodes so far. Season 2 had an average score of 8.8 from IMDb users. The first season had an average score of 8.4.
Not only has the average score of IMDb users declined, but the numbers of reviews given for each episode this season has significantly decreased every single episode leading one to believe people are tuning out of this show and doing it in large numbers.
The first episode has 14,425 reviews. The second episode declined to 12,504. Episode three has 12,054 reviews. The fourth episode declined to 8,772 reviews, and the most recent episode only has 6,821 reviews.
What do you make of Favreau saying all the responsibility of The Mandalorian’s successes and failures stops with him?