Jon Favreau Reveals The Advice George Lucas Gave Him While Shooting 'The Mandalorian'

When the new streaming service Disney+ arrives in November, it will bring the first episode of Lucasfilm's first live-action Star Wars TV series with it. The Mandalorian follows Pedro Pascal (Kingsman: The Golden Circle) as the titular bounty hunter, a lone gunfighter taking on various dangerous missions and assignments in the outer reaches of the galaxy. Since the series takes place after Return of the Jedi, it only makes sense that series creator Jon Favreau got some advice from Star Wars creator George Lucas.

Speaking with GQ Middle East (via Uproxx), Jon Favreau talked about the conversation he had with George Lucas:

"We had a long talk with each other. One thing he said to me was, 'Remember, Jon, the real audience for all stories and all myths is the kids that are coming of age,' because he's really a Joseph Campbell adherent."

Favreau is talking about Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, more specifically his take on The Hero's Journey, a sort of guideline of how a hero's adventure should play out and how they need to change as the story continues. Much of this involves a learning experience or coming of age, and when you're dealing with something like Star Wars, which has appeal to younger audiences, Lucas has always maintained that it's important to keep them in mind when crafting the story. Favreau further elaborated on this idea:

"We enjoy the stories as adults, but really, storytelling is about imparting the wisdom of the previous generations on to the children who are becoming adults, and giving them a context for how to behave and how to learn the lessons of the past without making the mistakes on their own. That's the hope, that you can teach them how to avoid all the hardship but garner all the wisdom."

Indeed, this is why so many parents are eager to pass down movies like Star Wars to their kids. Well, that and the nostalgia factor of going back to a time when you didn't have to worry about paying bills or getting arthritis and only had to dream of what life would be like in a future where there were lightsabers and spaceships.

However, even though Lucas may have told Favreau to keep the kids in mind when crafting The Mandalorian, the teases we've seen of the series out of Star Wars Celebration show that this is a more mature approach to Star Wars. It taps into the lived-in feel of the original Star Wars trilogy and so far seems to avoid the more childish, campy approach of the prequels. But that perception is based on only a couple scenes and a trailer. We'll know better when The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+ on November 12.