The Mandalorian’s Insane Body Count
By: Jay Sizemore
Tags: Criticism, Mandalorian, Gun Violence, Star Wars, Society

One of the key things I noticed while viewing The Mandalorian season 2, besides how great I thought it was overall, was the astounding ambivalence it holds toward its onscreen depictions of gun violence. Virtually scene upon scene of this show involves characters walking into rooms and just mowing down literal crowds of people like they’re nothing. There’s never even a hint of moral taxation to be found on the characters doing this rampant killing. The bodies of stormtroopers and empire officers pile up in the various rooms and halls, shot mercilessly by Mando and his compatriots with pistols and rifles. This is a lot of death. And underneath each of those stormtrooper helmets, we know, is a human being.

After the original trilogy, George Lucas went to great efforts to lower the amount of violence he portrayed through his characters to the children he intended his audience to be. In the prequels, as terrible as they are, much of the violence is directed toward non-human beings, such as droids, or later on, clones (which still could be debatable as to its morality). But let’s give that the benefit of the doubt. For the most part, the human violence is mitigated on-screen through alternative means.

This mentality was taken a step further in the sequel trilogy, where J.J. Abrams and his team went to considerable lengths to humanize the enemy, even making a stormtrooper, Finn, a main character. Along the way, we meet other stormtroopers who have also defected from the empire and are fighting with the alliance. There’s still a great deal of violence and death in the sequel trilogy, but again, much of this is mitigated through explosions, and there is a very clear distinction between good and evil. The Star WARS aspect of this story is doubled down upon, with more clear parallels drawn between the First Order and the Nazi party of World War II. So, even while we understand the human aspect of the enemy in the sequels, the audience understands the morality of the situation, that the First Order are literally Nazis trying to commit mass genocide, and if they won’t defect, they must be stopped.

This morality is certainly less obvious in The Mandalorian. The main character of this series is a bounty hunter with no clear allegiances to any just cause. All of his motivations are self-centered on his own pursuits, be they currency or upgrades to his armor and transport. These pursuits do come to take on a kind of righteousness when he takes on the role of protecting THE CHILD, but this still leaves quite a bit of gray area to work around. Any way you slice it, everywhere Mando goes, he leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

Boba Fett kills a stormtrooper

The argument is bound to be made that children surely will understand this to be fantasy, that it takes place in space, with laser blasters and laser swords. But, The Mandalorian is modeled to be more like a modern western than even the original trilogy. The showdowns and standoffs often feature the quickdraw motifs made iconic by Sergio Leone in the “man with no name” films starring Clint Eastwood. As such, we often get to see enemy characters shot at point-blank range and killed. There’s a scene in the season 2 finale in which two characters are shot point-blank, one in the back by his companion, and then another in the forehead by one of Mando’s. Bam, bam, two humans shot dead in less than thirty seconds, and no one even bats an eye.

Even though these futuristic weapons utilize lasers rather than traditional ammunition, the obvious parallels between laser guns to ordinary firearms are more than apparent. When you think of it that way, the amount of carnage wreaked in this series becomes sort of appalling. It becomes more appalling the more you consider the utter lack of physical or mental cost paid by the character creating all the havoc. Mando never really gets hurt. He never really loses any of his friends. He never really has to deal with the outcomes of any of his shootouts. He and his friends just shoot row upon row of individuals and walk past their corpses nonchalantly to the next violent scenario. Imagine how much blood and guts would be everywhere if instead of lasers, they fired bullets? It would be shocking.

The people being murdered by Mando and his crew in this series are apparently hapless incompetents, incapable of presenting any real threat to them. Like the classic Star Wars cliche, they have the worst aim imaginable. It makes the possibility of any real threat to the main characters from the enemies laughable. The rows of people being mowed down by the Mandalorian entourage are therefore nothing but target practice, pure bullet fodder. Their assassinations are nothing but levels in a video game. You can practically hear the numbers chiming with each death, leading to the next scene and the next level of the game to be completed.