Disney+ launches tomorrow morning, November 12th, and anticipation is building for the platform’s flagship series, The Mandalorian. But despite the excitement for the series, the newest addition to the Star Wars franchise hasn’t received any advance reviews, supposedly to keep quiet major spoiler that happens early on in the series.
In a recent article from Forbes, reporter Paul Tassi explains that television critics are typically provided with screeners for new seasons of television so that they might have advance time to write their reviews, but this wasn’t the case for The Mandalorian. Tassi states that Disney did not want to provide any early access to a full episode, since the series reportedly has a major plot twist early on that the show’s creators don’t want spoiled for the audience. There is some speculation among fans as to what this plot twist might be, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
However, despite there being no early revies, some media members were given an extended preview with about 30 minutes of footage from the Star Wars show. Reactions to the preview were overwhelmingly positive. Entertainment Weekly described the show as “a bit like 1977’s A New Hope, a space-Western throwback to the original trilogy.” Other reporters described the show as “truly incredible” and “intense, surprisingly dark, and very expensive” (below).
The Mandalorian, created by John Favreau, is just one of many Disney properties that will be available at launch on Disney+. In terms of original programing, the platform will also feature high-budget Marvel series like Loki and WandaVision, which will apparently be essential to understanding future Marvel films. Disney+ goes live tomorrow, starting at 3am Pacific Standard Time. A subscription to the platform starts at $6.99/month, or $69.99/year, making it one of the more affordable of the warring streaming companies on the market.