Countdown to ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3: Revisiting Chapter 9 “The Marshal”
As we start to gear up for the release of The Mandalorian season 3 on March 1, 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 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 came out, and we’ll link to them at the end.
The Marshal is probably one of the most anticipated episodes of any Disney Plus show ever, and The Mandalorian‘s grand return after nearly a year away didn’t disappoint. Not only did we get the return of Boba Fett and his armor, but we got to see Mando face off against a krayt dragon, more Tusken Raider action, and a great performance from Timothy Olyphant as Cobb Vanth.
Din Djarin decides to kick off his mission to find a Jedi by seeking out more Mandalorians, thinking they might have some contacts who can point him in the right direction. We start the journey in one of the darkest settings in Star Wars, down a back alley of an unidentified planet in the Outer Rim. Until the first episode of Andor, I’d have said this is the most dystopian setting we’d seen in Star Wars. The graffiti on the walls make it look like we’re visiting a street in Hackney, London, and the huge skyscrapers in the background help give the atmosphere a bit of a Blade Runner vibe.
Interestingly, the scene where Mando interrogates the crime lord Gor Koresh looks like it was originally set indoors when looking at the concept art, rather than outdoors in the street which we saw in the episode. The concept art looks appropriately dark so you can see the tone that Jon Favreau (who decided to direct this one) was going for. Perhaps they set it outside so that Mando could leave Koresh for the local creatures, which again is arguably the darkest scene we’ve had in The Mandalorian.
Koresh tells him that he’d heard a Mandalorian had been sighted on Tatooine, which seems to surprise Din considering he’d only been there recently, back in The Gunslinger. He flies back to Mos Eisley and speaks with Peli Motto, whose fast-talking nature and light sense of humor gels far better than it did in her previous appearance. She points him in the direction of Mos Pelgo, an abandoned mining settlement that has officially been wiped off the map since the Empire fell.
Mando takes an old speeder bike and journeys there to see what’s left. It’s a long journey, and he stops with Tusken Raiders by a campfire overnight, but he eventually arrives at the tiny settlement.
The layout of Mos Pelgo in the episode remains very similar to the concept art, with the wide main street in the middle separating the two sides of the town and leading out into the desert at either end. You can tell that Favreau really wanted to recreate a Wild West town in a Star Wars setting, and it works.
Din checks out the local watering hole and is almost immediately greeted by Cobb Vanth, the Mos Pelgo marshal who happens to be wearing Boba Fett’s old armor. I was never a huge fan of Cobb in the Aftermath book trilogy that the character debuted in, but I have to say that Timothy Olyphant instantly turned him into a likeable character; he plays the sheriff so well.
Din is incandescent that Vanth is wearing a Mandalorian armor and demands he take it off, leading to a tense standoff. This moment is not captured in the concept art, but instead we get art of Grogu interacting with one of the little womp rats running around the town. In the actual episode of The Mandalorian, this interaction never happens, and Grogu plays with the ceramic pot instead. He soon hides inside it when the krayt dragon runs through the town.
The sight of the krayt dragon stays Din’s hand, and he speaks to Cobb long enough to realize he’s a good man just trying to protect his people. The two strike a bargain; if Mando helps them deal with the dragon, Cobb will return the armor peacefully. The two of them ride out to its location, and sadly we don’t have any concept art of Cobb riding the repurposed engine from Anakin Skywalker’s podracer. That piece of fan service must have been a late decision from Favreau.
While riding, Cobb tells the tale of how he came by the armor and became Mos Pelgo’s marshal. The concept art doesn’t really give us a good look at Vanth wearing the armor, but I suppose we all know what Fett’s armor looks like, so there wasn’t much point. We do get a bit of concept art showing him blowing up the Mining Collective vehicle with Fett’s missile launcher; this scene looks a bit busier than it does in the episode.
Here, it looks like this happens in the middle of town, whereas in the final episode, the vehicle has just left and gets destroyed in the middle of the desert. The concept art looks much cooler than the final product, but considering how expensive it must have been to create the krayt dragon, I wonder if this was an area where they decided to trim the budget a little.
Back in the present day, the pair of them travel through an area that looks suspiciously similar to the Jundland Wastes when they are confronted by Tusken Raiders and their massiffs. Cobb Vanth is ready to attack, but Din steps forward and communicates in the Tusken language, revealing that the Tuskens also want the krayt dragon dead.
The concept art accurately reflects the standoffish confrontation in the episode, though the massiffs definitely look a little more threatening in the final product thanks to a good display of CGI.
The alliance with the Tuskens nearly ends early when Cobb Vanth accidentally offends them by refusing to drink their pungent water, but thankfully Din is able to smooth things over. The concept art captures the setting of this scene rather well; campfire scenes look much better after nightfall, after all. With Cobb on board, they return to Mos Pelgo and secure an alliance between the village and the Raiders.
It seems there was an early idea to have Mando ride a bantha with the Tuskens toting his Amban sniper rifle, which looks badass in the fading glow of the twin suns, but it didn’t make the final product. I guess it wouldn’t make sense for Din to ride a bantha when he had a perfectly good speeder bike already, so that’s probably why that got cut.
In fact, there isn’t just one but two pieces of concept art of Mando riding a bantha, with the second being much more close-up. I imagine this is set during the build up to the krayt dragon fight while they wait for it to appear, but Din is on solid ground while this happens in the episode. That said, even when the Amban sniper rifle is holstered, Din still looks like a badass when riding a bantha.
After much anticipation, the krayt dragon is finally lured out of its lair and the big fight begins. I love the design; it’s completely different to the krayt dragon you can fight in the Knights of the Old Republic video game, and unique from any other dragon in fantasy lore as far as I’m aware. The decision to have it move by burrowing underground, betraying its true size, is genius.
The scale of it is a huge shock when it is finally revealed, and the late reveal that it can spray acid from its mouth is another exciting development that adds additional complications to the battle.
After a spectacular fight with both Din and Cobb Vanth putting their lives on the line, the krayt dragon is finally vanquished, with Din letting himself be swallowed to drop the explosives down its gullet and fly away from harm. This episode is already notable for the live-action debut of Cobb Vanth and the return of Boba Fett’s armor, but it’s this climactic fight that makes it one of the classic episodes of The Mandalorian.
With the krayt dragon dead and Mos Pelgo saved, Din begins to leave Tatooine with Boba Fett’s armor. As he crosses the desert on his speeder bike, we see the back of Temuera Morrison with a gaffi stick and a rifle on his back, watching Mando with interest.
The concept art is almost identical to the shot we get in the episode, so Favreau clearly had specific imagery in mind when it came to revealing Boba’s return. Everything seems to look better with a twin sunset, it seems.
With that Fett reveal, the episode ends and we’re left reeling after another excellent episode of The Mandalorian, a perfect return for the series after a year away.
If you are interested, you can find our original review of Chapter 9 of The Mandalorian, from October 2020, right here.
Our “Countdown to The Mandalorian Season 3” series will continue next week, when we’ll be revisiting Chapter 10. 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.
