The Good, the Bad and the Mandalorian

The Mandalorian is the first live-action TV show in the Star Wars mythos. In the opening scene of the first episode, the tavern door slides open. The Mandalorian strides in confidently to sit at the bar. He is never given a name, although one of the roughnecks in the bar slanders him by calling him “Mando.” A barfight ensues and Mando quickly dispatches a pair of unruly roughnecks.

Mando is a bounty hunter. He projects a hologram of the blue-finned character he has just rescued. Mando makes it clear that his new acquaintance will be leaving the planet with him. “I can bring you in warm,” he warns while touching the gun on his holster, “or I can bring you in cold.” Mando and his bounty travel across a frozen wasteland to get to his ship. There, Mando uses carbonite to freeze his feisty bounty for easy transport.

I guess he’s bringing his bounty in cold.

The Mandalorian is helmed by Jon Favreau, who began the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man, and Dave Filoni, who worked on The Clone Wars, Rebels and Resistance. The live-action TV show they have created is a 1960s spaghetti western set in space.

I thought that right away while watching the opening scenes and listening to the music of The Mandalorian. So I watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the next night.

I was correct.

In the opening scene, we see Clint Eastwood’s bounty hunter character in the desert wasteland. He quickly shoots three roughnecks to save a man they have knocked off his horse. The bounty hunter has no name in the movie, although the other characters refer to him as “Blondie.”

The music in The Mandalorian is created by Ludwig Göransson. It is definitely inspired by the music of Ennio Morricone in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

When George Lucas created A New Hope, it was a western set in space. The good guys of Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were all dressed in white or light colors. It made it easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys – Darth Vader and the Emperor – who were dressed in black.

The original movie was very much a story of good vs. evil, much like the old westerns where it was easy to distinguish John Wayne as the heroic good guy from the myriad of bad guys. Lucas told a story of heroes and villains, where good and evil, right and wrong, were easy to differentiate.

Filoni and Favreau’s show is much darker and grittier. It takes after The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with a morally complex anti-hero who is driven by money and violence. Mando is not a perfect guy who gets everything right or who can accomplish anything. He is not a hero dressed in white who always does right.

I’m sure the subsequent episodes of The Mandalorian will be driven by the theme of moral relativism that are in the first episode.

Moral relativism is the idea that there is no absolute set of moral principles. There is no black and white – only gray. There is no right or wrong – only whatever you feel is right at the time.

Moral relativism is very popular in our current culture. In fact, in a recent poll, 17% of Americans said they don’t believe in absolute truth. They pick and choose what they believe in. They freely admit that their religions is “nothing in particular.”

Watching The Mandalorian and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or living in our current American culture reminds me of the time of the judges in the Old Testament. The setting of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is in the nameless west during the Civil War. There is no law, no central government to keep the peace or punish lawbreakers. The setting of The Mandalorian is a nameless ice planet followed by a desolate desert planet. It is five years after the destruction of the second Death Star and the dissolution of the Empire. The Rebel Alliance has not set up a central government. There is, again, no one to keep the peace or punish lawbreakers.

The setting of the Book of Judges is that there is no king. There is the disintegration of the family, tribes and God’s covenant relationship with his people. There is betrayal, idolatry, theft, hostility, vengeance, adultery, rape, kidnapping and dismemberment. It was a society where might made right. Where there was little protection for the young or old, the frail or feeble, the weak or vulnerable. There was no justice or compassion.

Doesn’t this sound very similar to our current American culture?

The closing line of the Book of Judges is “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did whatever was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). That’s moral relativism.

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The result of moral relativism is extremely dangerous.

It doesn’t matter if it is in spaghetti westerns or space westerns, whether it is in Old Testament culture or current American culture. Whenever humans have the opportunity to do whatever we see fit – we will always choose sin. We will always look out for ourselves first. We will always take advantage of the weak and vulnerable to make ourselves influential and powerful.

That is why the absolutes of God’s truths are so vital.

God teaches us that there are absolutes – his absolutes.

There is definitely right and wrong, black and white, good and evil. “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture: You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well” (James 2:12).

To combat our human nature of moral relativism, God very clearly lays out what we are to do and not do. Jesus taught: “If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony.Honor your father and mother. And, You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:17-19).

It is our natural human tendency to do as we see fit.

We imagine that life is lived with lots of gray. St. Paul reminds us that when we become color-blind and see only gray with morality, God clearly sees black and white. Paul understood:
“I would not have recognized sin except through the law. For example, I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7). If we find ourselves imagining that we don’t know what to do, we need to go to God’s Law.

What will God’s Law tell us?

It will tell us that we have broken God’s laws. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all and over all who believe. In fact, there is no difference, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23). That is an absolute.

Here is another absolute for all of us lawbreakers. “For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

But there is a beautiful absolute to comfort all of us lawbreakers and encourage all of us who are doomed to death. “Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

The Gospel teaches us the good news that God sent Jesus, not as a sheriff in a white hat to corral all the bad guys. He is the Savior who came to die and rise for all of us bad guys and gals. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Jesus saves us from our moral relativity.

Not by laying down the Law, but by laying down his life under the Law (John 1:29). Jesus’ death and resurrection give us the power and motivation to live for him, no longer living for ourselves. We live to keep God’s laws, not out of fear of punishment, but to give God the glory (Colossians 3:17).

In the first episode The Mandalorian, Mando is sent to kill a 50-year-old bounty. I won’t spoil the ending. Go watch it. Then come back to finish reading this. Then you’ll understand why all the Star Wars fans were so excited with this ending.

-Spoiler Alert-

Looking at the ending of The Mandalorian through a Christian perspective, we are excited because there was no gray in this bounty. Mando chose to protect life. This is definitely good and right.

In a world of ever-expanding gray, know what is right. Open your Bible. Reach the Scriptures. Learn about good and evil. Right and wrong. Light and darkness. “Your words are a lamp for my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105).