Ever notice how a lot of the music in the 80s was meant to build things up in a way that some ideas could never live up to? The music was great, it pumped a person up, it got their blood flowing and their adrenaline spiking just waiting for something interesting to happen, such as this retro synthwave does, but at the same time it builds up the expectation so much that one goes into whatever it’s fronting expecting it to be nothing less than awesome. Thankfully The Mandalorian’s first season was awesome, but something like this might have been a little TOO much, almost like full-on parade announcing the arrival of one of Clint Eastwood’s famed gunslinger persona’s in advance. It just sounds like way too much and demands that there be an insane amount of payoff once all is said and done. Of course if you go back and watch a lot of 80s movies and even TV shows you’ll find that the intros were sometimes one of the best parts of the entire production since they were fun to listen to and built up a story in the mind of the viewer before the movie or show had even begun. A lot of people have been having fun with The Mandalorian’s intro, as Jake Kleinman of Inverse could tell you more about.
This was the great part about the first season of The Mandalorian though, it didn’t really need and over the top score since people had no idea what to expect, only that it would about a bounty hunter set in the Star Wars universe that may or may not have something to do with the renowned bounty hunter Boba Fett. Of course there’s still plenty of debate on that last part since theoris and gossip have been running amok since November when The Mandalorian released on Disney+, but as of now it’s kind of obvious that the show didn’t need a huge, musical lead-in to produce the kind of results that the showrunners were looking for. From the opening of the first episode to the last seconds of the finale the show was nothing less than great since it managed to satisfy a lot of people all at once with the throwbacks, the twists and turns, and obviously the new characters that were introduced and will hopefully be back in the second season. As far as the musical score though it was just noticeable enough to really make a difference and help to accentuate the action and the main parts of the series, but had it been any flashier or more present it might have been too easy to trample on the show. What I mean is that sometimes the soundtrack to a movie or show can be a little too overbearing and take away from the overall effect, which thankfully didn’t happen here.
Back in the 80s it didn’t seem to either but then things were a bit different back then since, and this is debatable, the idea of ‘go big or go home’ was a slogan that is said to have been taken from this era. While it’s been documented that the saying came from the skiing world it’s easy to see just how such a slogan could have been transferred without hesitation to pretty much any other venue, music being one of them since with music it’s usually best to go all in or continue your hobby at home. When it comes to music being used for TV shows and movies though the bigger and bolder sounds were pretty common in the 80s and even into the 90s since it raised one’s attention and interest but what it couldn’t do was mask a terrible show or movie at the same time. There were a lot of shows back in the day that had a killer soundtrack but couldn’t survive without it since they became just another run of the mill action/adventure show that people lost interest in rather quickly.
So far interest in The Mandalorian isn’t waning largely because of Baby Yoda, aka the Child as the studio wants the little guy to be known as, and of course the story itself since it’s been fun since the get. What the next season has in store for the fans probably won’t even begin to unfold for months at this point since the release date has already been tentatively given for this coming fall. One thing that is almost guaranteed to happen though is that people will be tuning in and Disney will keep flying The Mandalorian as one of their top shows for as long as the story will last since with one season in the books and with the response it received it would be foolish to do anything else. Eventually we will see new shows coming from the MCU to add to the whole experience, but until then The Mandalorian is the one to watch.
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