Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian: “Making of Season 2” review!

For the first season of The Mandalorian, we got a fantastic docu-series exploring the making of the first ever live-action Star Wars show. Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian had eight incredible episodes that gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the show, and the series returned for season two!

This time around, it was a one-hour special taking a look behind-the-scenes at the making of The Mandalorian‘s second season, walking episode-by-episode through some really fun and interesting footage.

It makes sense that this would be shorter than season one, since so much of the documentary for that season was focused on bringing the show to life. But now that it’s already established, there’s not as great of a need to do episodes on the process of filming or casting people or the technology established or creating the score or things like that. So this time around, an eight-episode series isn’t quite needed, which makes it totally understandable that we just got a one-hour special.

But while the Disney Gallery for season two was much shorter than for season one, it continued the rich legacy that Star Wars has of behind-the-scenes content, and it was a very enjoyable and fun look at how the filmmakers brought things to life with this season.

Much of it focused on Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, as you’d expect, but the special walked through each episode in sequence to look at various aspects of bringing things to life. A few highlights:

• We see the process of developing the Krayt Dragon from the concept artists and the people at ILM, and how the size of the creature kept increasing to fit the scope needed.
• We get to hear from Bryce Dallas Howard quite a bit (she directed Chapter 11), and her excitement and passion for Star Wars and this series is immediately obvious.
• Time is spent exploring bringing Bo-Katan to live-action, with Katee Sackhoff reprising the role!
• We get a look at Carl Weathers as he played both an acting and directing role on Chapter 12.
• The most extensive thing that the episode focused on was bringing Ahsoka Tano to live-action for the first time, played by Rosario Dawson. We see quite a bit of Dave Filoni directing and working with Ahsoka, see what it was like to create the costume and her lightsabers, and much more. And there’s even a brief moment where we get to see George Lucas on-set with Ahsoka!
• Speaking of George Lucas, we see him holding Grogu, which is adorable. Someone from the set exclaims, “that’s your great, great, great grandfather!”
• As Robert Rodriguez tried to visualize the re-introduction of Boba Fett in Chapter 14, he actually dressed up in Halloween costumes with his kids and created it in his backyard, using that footage and action figures (which we see part of!). It’s amazing, and Rodriguez’s passion for Boba Fett is so obvious and jumps out at you. It’s no wonder why he’s attached to The Book of Boba Fett, and it’s cool to have someone running that series who has such a clear affinity for the character.
• And, of course, seeing Temuera Morrison returning to play Boba Fett and seeing him on set was just awesome.
• There’s a part showing us the process of bringing the darksaber to live-action, and how Dave Filoni was quite particular about how it needed to look like it did in animation.
• And speaking of Filoni, he once again steals the show (just like he did in season one). This time, we see conversations between him and Favreau on set (like one about Maclunkey!”), or when Filoni says “Spinning is a good trick!” He’s saturated in Star Wars and has such a deep grasp of the franchise that it’s just fun to watch anything with him in it.
• We also get to see what it was like to bring Jabba’s Palace and Bib Fortuna (played once again by Matthew Wood) to life for the series, in that post-credits scene in Chapter 16. Nothing at all is mentioned of a certain Jedi’s appearance in Chapter 16 (to preserve that secret, I’m sure), but it was cool to still get to see quite a bit from the final episode as well!

All of this and much more is included in the hour-long special, and it was a very fun ride to reminisce on the season but also to see how they were able to bring it to life. We of course get a look at how The Volume expanded on this season, and the first time they actually took the show on the road for on-location filming, and it’s really cool to see how they managed to do all of this.

If you enjoy Star Wars behind-the-scenes content, and if you’ve watched The Mandalorian season two and enjoyed it, I have no doubt that you’ll find this to be a very fun and enjoyable look at the making of the show. I highly recommend it.