Countdown to ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3: Revisiting Chapter 5 “The Gunslinger”
As we start to gear up for the release of The Mandalorian season 3 in February 2023, we’re taking a look back at each episode of the show so far through the lens of concept art. This will be a weekly series of reviews taking place each Thursday or Friday until the premiere of season 3 next year. You may find our previous entries in this series here.
While we will be revisiting all of the artwork displayed in the episode’s credits, bear in mind that this is not a fully conceptualized review of the episode. We still have those from when each episode of The Mandalorian came out, and will link to them at the end.
The Gunslinger was arguably my least favorite episode of The Mandalorian season 1 at the time of release, but it has aged surprisingly well over time. Little did we know back then that the episode would introduce two important characters into this miniature shared universe that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are building, and it’s mostly those two characters that make this episode more appealing three years later.
Amy Sedaris’ Peli Motto was incredibly divisive at the time — and perhaps still is — as her chatty and intense personality jarred a little and felt out of place for some Star Wars fans, while others felt Sedaris was pretty funny. This was also the debut of Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand, who has now appeared in three Star Wars series (two live-action, one animated) and will certainly return in future episodes. What once felt like a filler episode flooded with Easter eggs and unnecessary fan service is now a decent installment of The Mandalorian.
This first concept art of the Razor Crest approaching Mos Eisley looks incredibly lifelike. The hills look like they were captured on photograph rather than drawn by hand. Props to artist Anton Grandert. Our first look at Mos Eisley in The Mandalorian is from far away, much similar to our first look at it all the way back in A New Hope, when Luke first surveyed the city through his macro-binoculars.
Interestingly, there’s not a single piece of concept art available illustrating the dogfight in space that begins the episode. This might suggest that Filoni and Favreau had decided they wanted to do an episode set on Tatooine before figuring out why Mando would actually need to go there. A space battle that busted up his ship seems as good a reason as any.
The concept art above illustrates the moment that Mando meets Peli Motto, the repairwoman in charge of the docking bay. Peli was clearly envisioned as a devious, less-than-trustworthy type, as evidenced by her hunched back and shuffling legs. Some of her physical characteristics were dropped when filming came though; while Sedaris wears a brunette wig with plenty of tight curls, she stands tall and walks normally. Her intention to overcharge Mando reveals her duplicitous nature though.
It’s clear Favreau and Filoni had a particular profile in mind when casting the role. Though they went with Sedaris, who certainly matches the height of the character in the concept art, if The Mandalorian took place a few decades earlier, you could imagine them going for someone like Rhea Perlman, of Cheers fame. In fact, Dave Filoni later hired Perlman to voice the devious and not-entirely-trustworthy Trandoshan Cid in The Bad Batch. I wonder if she was ever approached at all to play Peli Motto.
It seems the iconic shot of stormtrooper helmets on spikes was a concept that had been imagined early on. The setting around the spikes changed from the art to the finished product; while here we see Mando looking at them in the middle of a wide open space, in the show he barely acknowledges them as he walks past in the street. We also see the battered helmets from the front too, making for far more striking imagery.
Another piece of concept art shows Mando walking through the streets of Mos Eisley. This doesn’t seem to be the same cantina as the one in A New Hope, which Din visits himself, so perhaps this was written before it was decided to bring him back there.
As we can see from this concept art however, the cantina interior was clearly always meant to reflect the cantina we know and love from A New Hope, if not be the same one. The bartenders are both droids in the concept art too, and I like that Favreau and Filoni had decided early on that there would be some progress in terms of tolerance and inclusion. The cantina has come a long way since the days that “no droids” were allowed. The bartender also reveals the Bounty Hunters’ Guild no longer operates in Mos Eisley, a sign that perhaps the infamous “hive of scum and villainy” is finally starting to clean up its act.
It’s not quite there yet though, as we are introduced to a man named Toro Calican, sitting in the same seat that Han Solo sat in back in A New Hope. Calican is clearly meant to be a darker version of Han, showing us what our beloved smuggler might have been like if he didn’t secretly have a good heart. There is no concept art illustrating this, suggesting this was perhaps a late Easter egg that Filoni included while directing.
Calican has ambitions of joining the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, and is possibly the greenest thing on all of Tatooine. He’s cocky and tries to exude a certain charm, but unlike Han, it never feels real. He drops his bravado a couple of times during the episode, including when he first meets Mando, desperate for his help on a job to take in mercenary Fennec Shand.
Calican doesn’t seem to lack for money either; he frequently states that he doesn’t care about the money he’d get for Shand’s bounty, rents top-of-the-line speeders that should be too expensive for a man his age on his first job, and has a surprising amount of credits on his person when Mando kills him at the end of the episode. He seems like a boy fed by a silver spoon who wanted some fame and excitement, with little regard for the desires of others.
One piece of concept art portrays Calican and Mando riding said speeder bikes through the Tatooine desert. This shot is replicated a couple of times across a montage sequence of them travelling across the sand dunes, with Mando pulling ahead of the younger and inexperienced Calican.
The montage is interrupted when Mando gets them to pull up and survey the land ahead, realizing they are approaching Tusken Raider territory. It felt glorious to see Tuskens once again at the time, a feeling that never goes away on rewatch. While Calican scoffs and dismisses them as savages without realizing that two have approached them from behind, Din treats them with respect and communicates with them via hand signals.
This shot was never quite recreated in the episode, but it illustrates perfectly what Filoni and Favreau wanted to happen. Mando puts in the work and communicates with the Tuskens, with the uninterested Calican taking a backseat. The trivia for this episode on StarWars.com states that the Tuskens asked “Why do you come here?” Mando’s hand signals in response translate to “We’re hunting and ask permission to cross your land.”
After discovering Shand camped along a ridge in a sniping position, they wait until nightfall to make their move. Mando’s plan is a solid one; they fire flash charges in the air to temporarily blind her scope as they move in. Eventually, they both reach the vantage point and take her prisoner.
The concept art captures the visceral feeling of that race to the ridge perfectly. You can almost imagine the painting moving as the speeder bikes race up a dune, closing in at high speed while a flash charge lights up the sky above them.
With Fennec Shand caught, Mando reluctantly leaves to get transportation for the three of them. By the time he returns riding a dewback, Shand is seemingly dead, and Calican is gone.
While we never get a shot of Mando toting his Amban sniper rifle in a badass pose in the episode, it’s still an impressive image regardless. There was clearly a desire early on to get him to ride a dewback, considering how recognizable the creatures are in Star Wars fandom. The art seems inspired by cowboys from the Old West riding horses while casually brandishing their rifle. We know The Mandalorian was inspired by classic Western stories, so this makes sense. It’s a shame the specific shot never made it to live-action.
Mando returns to the docking bay to find Toro Calican holding Peli Motto and Grogu hostage, cementing his legacy as the evil Han Solo. Calican has discovered that he and Grogu are worth far more than Shand, and mocks Mando. His arrogance proves his undoing as Din shoots him dead.
In the concept art here, it looks as though Grogu is in some distress, but in the show he seems in his normal state and appears not to understand the danger he’s in. It’s an interesting change from concept art to the finished product, as Filoni must have decided during his direction that it would be more impactful if the adorable child didn’t even realize the stakes at play here.
With the danger over, Mando pays Peli for her trouble and leaves Tatooine with Grogu unharmed, off on their next adventure.
If you are interested, you can find our original review of Chapter 5 of The Mandalorian, from December 2019, right here.
Our “Countdown to The Mandalorian Season 3” series will continue next week, when we’ll be revisiting Chapter 6. Stay tuned!
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
