The Mandalorian Fight Scene That Took Over 400 Takes To Get Right

Though its second season has only just begun, many Star Wars die-hards have already hailed The Mandalorian as one of the best additions to franchise since the original trilogy. Created by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Elf) and set in the largely unexplored time between Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi and Episode VII: The Force Awakens, the Disney+ streamer is the first live-action Star Wars series. As such, it's broken new ground in the way Star Wars stories are told. 

Wildly serialized narrative aside, that's largely thanks to The Mandalorian so far having nothing to do with Skywalkers, Solos, or Palpatines, instead following the adventures of Pedro Pascal's titular bounty hunter, now tasked with delivering a certain adorable little Force-sensitive foundling to his own people. And while The Mandalorian is perhaps best-known for introducing the Child to the Star Wars galaxy, it's also made quite a name for itself for delivering action-packed set pieces as thrilling as any seen in the big screen stories. 

One of the most thrilling to date came in the season 1 finale of The Mandalorian, and found Mando's favorite weapons outfitter the Armorer (voiced by Supernatural alum Emily Swallow) facing off against a squad of heavily armed Stormtroopers. It also found her laying waste to that crew in brutal fashion, doing so with nothing but a mallet and heavy duty foundry tongs in hand. 

As far as fight scenes go in The Mandalorian, the Armorer's moment may be the most impressive the series has yet delivered. And per stunt performer Lauren Mary Kim, the hardest thing about the scene wasn't that she had to perform it in helmet and armor, but that she had to perform it somewhere between 400 and 500 times. 

Not for nothin', but that number of takes would make even a notorious perfectionist like David Fincher blush. And while the proof is certainly in the pudding for the electrifying fight scene, Kim recently told Screen Rant the "oner" approach employed to shoot it took a serious toll on her, because she had to perform the whole fight start to finish for every single take.

"That was probably one of the most strenuous fights I've ever had to do... [because of the armor] and the helmet, and it's a 'oner.' We never did it as pieces, we did the whole fight from top to bottom. Usually, the stunt coordinator shoots a 'previs' [pre-visual], they have an idea of how it should be edited so they shoot towards the edit. With The Mandalorian, they like to get a lot of different angles, so they can really choose and see which one is the best for each moment. They're very particular with what their look is, so that's why they shoot so many different angles. I think we did like 400, 500 oners, because we shot so many different angles... I died, I died." 

Luckily, the Armorer lived to fight another day on The Mandalorian. While we wait to see if and when the fearsome warrior makes her return to Mando's orbit to once again wield her mallet and tong, we're also hoping Favreau and company are smart enough to ensure Lauren Mary Kim is inside the armor to do it, because she brought some serious fire to the Armorer's big moment. 

The only question is whether or not Kim will be down to shoot another 400 to 500 takes of the Armorer's next breathtaking throw down.