The Mandalorian vs The Spaghetti Western (discussion)

As much as I thoroughly love bringing light to ye old fantasy and science fiction, sometimes it’s worth talking about what’s new or what’s come about in the scene of modern literature. Full disclosure; I don’t even really watch modern movies today (I will make an exception for the new Dune and that’s about it). The quality of writing in Hollywood today is nothing short of indigestible fertilizer—with a few notable exceptions of course.

Now I figured since it’s no longer the new and shiny thing being over two years old and I wouldn’t catch the annoying Disney fanboys (a despicable race of subhumans), it’s time to dissect everyone’s new favorite gunslinging psuedo-western spectacular; The Mandalorian, but more importantly its tribute to Star Wars as a whole.

And as I’ve been watching many spaghetti &/or Westerns as of late, it’s got my noggin joggin about the whole theme. I tip my hat to you partner, because you’re in for a rant.

Because let’s get one thing straight here; Star Wars isn’t just a bunch of movies about laser-swords and funny hairdos. Love it or hate it, the series is the literary manifestation of The Hero With a Thousand Faces — it is mythology. A great video that covers this extensively (albeit the creator’s political contentions with Campbell are childish) is below:

The Mandalorian however is not like the old movies or new movies at all—you’d be wrong to assume so, at least from the get-go. It is not just an anthology series about a gunslinger LARPing as spartan. It is attempting to metabolize and adapt the Western in the galaxy of Jedi and Sith—to completely overturn what you think on the “right and wrong” of the universe and let a out a drama unfold on the Fun Side of the Force; you know that ambiguous gray area where war crimes against the Empire are committed and blaster-pistol Mexican standoffs are the flavor of the day? The show delivered and it disappointed but it brings up an interesting

What Makes a Western?

Violence. That’s it. Next question. Pack it up.

In all reality I’m only half-kidding. No Western is without somebody shooting somebody else. Or, if you are like me and view samurai flicks as the same genre—lopping somebody’s favorite arm and leaving them only one to feed themselves with. Because the cowboy and the samurai are the same person in different clothes (or robes); the judge, jury, and executioner.

Without getting on a complete tangent, the samurai movies or チャンバラ (chanbara, aka sword-movie) inspired the Western genre, post WWII, focused on the warrior-class of professional blademasters who were ronin—samurai without lords (uncannily identical to the Anglo Saxon poem, The Wanderer). What is key to remember here is that the whole theme was underlined by the fact that these warriors were without purpose in a turbulent world. Do you hear that? I hear a Colt being drawn from a sheath somewhere.

300 years of feudal Japan and 50 of the United States mirror each other insomuch that they share the same restlessness, conflict of justice, and a shift in power structures that result in chaotic fighting. The ultimate era for a man with Willpower and to live by the blade/gun (note that Conan is also such a story based in a time thematically identical). Many mistake these periods for lawlessness—utterly false! Both of these periods had ample laws if not too many—it’s that there were conflicting sources of laws that clashed (shoguns feuding / United States vs Indians vs Mexicans vs States). The “Wild West was just shooting all the time and no laws” is historical fabrication that people with pecans for brains think of when debating about gun laws or some other nonsense—what actually happened was that when all these legal/law systems clashed (tribal/federal/religious/etc.) it created a kind of limbo where morality was a “he said she said” and all that really mattered was somebody was king of the hill at the end of the day. The smoking six-shooter became the true law—aka whoever had big enough balls or was too stubborn to lose.

The Western/Samurai theme is that no morality is worth anything if it can’t shoot, slash at, or outthink its opponent to win.

And so I wasn’t just being a hyperbolic jack-ass saying that the Western is violence—in many ways it is. A ronin is an outlaw on one side of the river and a savior on the other, all depending on who is the one watching him cross. A gunfighter sitting in an old shattered Spanish mission might have to duke it out with some marshals over some railway bonds he came across—innocent as he may be, to the marshals, he may as well be the train-robber instead of opportunist...

He’s No Good To Me Dead

What’s so funny about the very concept of this discussion and the fact the Mandalorian TV series was even produced all hinges on a throwaway character who totally upended the Star Wars dramatica; Boba Fett.

I will profess; as a child, teenager, and even into my adult years I still adore the character of Boba Fett. A cold and ruthless bounty hunter — killing or incarcerating everybody and anybody for money, spurs and all. His appearance in Empire Strikes Back was iconic; one, he wasn’t a coloring-book bad guy but a mercenary—one of a handful who even The Bad Guy (Vader) loathed and cut deals to get the dirty deed done, two he operated under the same moral parameters that his quarry and the anti-hero (Han Solo) also worked from (money, greed), and three well…hell how hard was it not to kneejerk and say “Hey this isn’t the Dollar series” with that cape and spurs—telling the audience “there’s another world of Hans and Bobas and it was filmed by those Italians again.”

Because nobody saw Boba and said “huh another cut and paste guy in black clothing, must be a bad dude”—no, they saw the green-armored head-hunter and said “damn Clint Eastwood has a brother who lives in the Outer Rim and he is a bad dude!” You never wondered whether Vader was really the sword-swinging sociopath for using Han and Leia to get to Luke but you did scratch your head because Han did really owe that greasy and autonomous pile of blubber money (George Lucas really did get away with so many racial stereotypes), so was Boba justified in taking the bounty?

Remember what I said about Westerns being stories of violence but of conflicting but equally justifiable morals...

Read the rest of the blog post HERE!