The Mandalorian vs. Story Structure

I’ve been watching THE MANDALORIAN and have come to two conclusions:

1.) I like it better than the STAR WARS sequel trilogy.

2.) Every episode is a good example of story structure.

Like, you can see the structure in every episode. I don’t mean that scornfully, but with high praise. Story structure is harder to do than people realize. But you can see the bones of good structure in each episode:

1.) Mando has a problem.

2.) Mando sets out to resolve his problem.

3.) Unexpected difficulties arise when Mando tries to solve his problem.

4.) Some of Mando’s efforts to resolve his problem backfire and cause additional problems and complications.

5.) Through courage and cleverness, Mando overcomes his problem. Until the next episode, anyway.

It’s really well done. It’s also a nice touch that Mando isn’t a Space Wizard or the Chosen One, but just a guy who had good training and some good equipment. So if you want to see good examples of excellent story structure, you could do much worse than watching THE MANDALORIAN.

-JM