'The Mandalorian' Plot May Answer a Big Question About the First Order

To paraphrase Jedi Master Jerry Seinfeld: What is the deal with the First Order? The fascistic baddies, led by Kylo Ren, dominate the new Star Wars trilogy. Yet so much about them is still unknown. That might change with the first season of the first live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Dave Filoni and producer Jon Favreau opened up about the First Order’s inclusion in The Mandalorian, which could reveal more about the evil organization’s origins as a political and military force that amasses enough power to challenge the New Republic.

The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars series coming to Disney+, follows a rogue bounty hunter (played by Game of Thrones alum Pedro Pascal) who ventures across a post-Empire galaxy as a gunslinger for hire. The series takes place after Return of the Jedi and far before the events of The Force Awakens, where audiences met the First Order.

In short, Favreau and Filoni say that bad things don’t end just because the good guys win one time. There’s always more stories to tell, and in the case of The Mandalorian, it’s about how the limited reach of the New Republic inadvertently plants the seeds for the opposing First Order.

“[W]hat could happen in the 30 years between celebrating the defeat of the Empire and then the First Order?” Favreau rhetorically asked Entertainment Weekly. “You come in on Episode VII, [the First Order are] not just starting out. They’re pretty far along.”

He added, “So somehow, things weren’t necessarily managed as well as they could have been if [the galaxy] ended up in hot water again like that.”

“This doesn’t turn into a good guy universe because you blew up two Death Stars,” said Filoni. “You get that the Rebels won and they’re trying to establish a Republic, but there’s no way that could have set in for everybody all at once. You have in a Western where you’re out on the frontier and there might be Washington and they might have some marshals, but sometimes good luck finding one.”

Meanwhile, other pieces of new Star Wars lore also explore the rise of the First Order. The 2015 book Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig and Claudia Gray’s Star Wars: Bloodline, published in 2016, reveal how remnants of the Imperial escaped to the Outer Rim (where most of The Mandalorian takes place) that signal the formation of the First Order prior to the The Force Awakens.

Anyone who played the campaign for Star Wars: Battlefront II also knows that the First Order pretty much sprung into action as soon as the second Death Star exploded. But for anyone who skipped that widely panned video game, The Mandalorian may offer a better sense of how General Hux and the rest of his group came to be.

The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+ on November 12.