The Mandalorian: Where Hook Meets Engine
The Mandalorian: Where Hook Meets Engine This week, we’re going to be talking about The Mandalorian and the incredibly important screenwriting concept of hook. And we’re going to relate that idea of hook to another very important idea in TV writing, which is engine. So this is the podcast on where hook meets engine. Let’s start off by talking about hook. What’s the hook of The Mandalorian? Just like in your screenplay or pilot, the hook is the thing that hooks the audience, like hooking a fish. It’s the thing that keeps them coming back again and again. And what does the audience come back for again and again? They come back for a feeling. The feeling is the internal hook, that’s the actual thing that the audience is buying. That’s why we are paying for Disney+. Because we want to watch The Mandalorian, we want to feel that Mandalorian feeling! But you can’t go into a producer’s office and be like, “Let me tell you how this piece is going to make you feel.” So what we use is this concept called hook, which turns into a little pitch for your show, capturing that big, ironic, super-cool element that’s going to deliver that feeling. In The Mandalorian, that hook is so simple, right? The simple hook, the simple premise of The Mandalorian is that the most hardened bounty hunter ever is going to fall in love with little Baby Yoda. A guy who has no moral compass outside of the world of his Mandalorian religion, outside of the world where he doesn’t remove his helmet, a guy who has no ethical compass in relation to the people that he takes prisoner, that he sells for money, whose only value in the whole world is beskar armor—is going to fall in love with a cute little Baby Yoda who is supposed to be his prisoner. So you have this wonderful, ironic hook of the hardened bounty hunter falling in love with the cute little Baby Yoda. And you can see that pretty much everything in The Mandalorian is built around that hook! From the very first episode, by the time we get to the end of the pilot, we already know what’s going to happen. We already know, oh my gosh, it’s little Baby Yoda! And we already know that this particular Mandalorian has a history, that he was a foundling, that he understands what it is to be an orphan, that he was taken in by someone who cared for him when his own parents were killed. And so you take this character on this wonderful A-Z journey, where he is finding his internal compass—a man who has none. That’s the simple hook. All of The Mandalorian is going to grow around that simple hook. It’s all about Baby Yoda. Tough Mandalorian, cute Baby Yoda. That’s all it’s about—tough Mandalorian, cute Baby Yoda! And just think about how much effort went into that? There is not a frickin’ frame where a little Baby Yoda isn’t doing something cute, right? He’s eating something that’s ball-shaped. He’s getting into some kind of trouble. He’s doing some kind of adorable little look. He’s always doing something. Why? Because it’s about little Baby Yoda. You lose little Baby Yoda and The Mandalorian is over. You lose little Baby Yoda, and The Mandalorian is just about a dude in a helmet whose face you can’t even see traveling the world having adventures. It’s little Baby Yoda that gives the piece its feeling: What does it feel like when a hard guy goes soft? What does it feel like when a hard guy starts to find something that he actually cares about? What does it feel like when a rigid man starts to lose his rigidity, because of a little baby that he loves? So that’s The Mandalorian. That’s the hook. If you were going to pitch The Mandalorian, you’re pitching the Bounty Hunter with a little Baby Yoda.