How an animatic starring his action figures and his kids was just the final step toward a role the director prepared for his entire life.
In his book Rebel Without A Crew, writer/director/editor/one-man-studio Robert Rodriguez recounts building his film-making chops shooting movies with his nine (!) siblings all through his adolescence, culminating in his festival-award-winning short film, Bedhead (1991):
After donating his body to science to self-finance his first indie feature film, El Mariachi (1992) launched a decades-long career in which Rodriguez has alternated between commercially successful family movies and R-rated, B-grade meta (?) action-horror-grindhouse flicks. The common thread is his DIY ethos, on full display in his 15 Minute Flic School for Sin City (2005):
Cut to 2020: Rodriguez directs an episode of Disney / Star Wars series The Mandalorian, in which fan favourite Boba Fett makes his return. Boba Fett’s reputation seems to have been earned more on his look than on his actual screentime in the original trilogy of Star Wars movies (when tallied, the character’s presence is less ninja and more Inspector Gadget), so the lethal, domineering “barbarian” who appears in The Mandalorian is essentially a different character entirely. So this entirely undue wish fulfilment of a portrayal clearly needed to be directed by a fan who revels gleefully and unreservedly in unabashed action warrior cinema – and in that regard, Robert Rodriguez the man for this job.
What makes his glee weapons-grade infectious, however, is Rodriguez’s preparation for the directing gig: creating a live-action animatic starring his kids and his Star Wars action figures, of which we see excerpts during his recounting of the story in Disney Gallery / Star Wars: The Mandalorian (season 2, episode 1). You don’t need to be a Star Wars fan, or even nostalgic in general, to appreciate the full-circle moment when a grown man who has retained his childhood creativity and momentum gets the dream gig to which everything he has done has logically led him:
Further Viewing
We look at The Mandalorian seasons 1 & 2:
A look at the revolutionary technology behind The Mandalorian: