Disney Pulls Release Of 'The Mandalorian' Visual Guide
Following in the anticipation of major cinematic projects, Star Wars has always capitalized on the opportunity to enrich the audience experience by releasing accompanying materials such as novels and encyclopedia-like visual guides. The Mandalorian, given its huge success, is no exception. However, the current network of concurrent Star Wars productions has shown that there is difficulty in the release of the upcoming Star Wars: The Mandalorian - The Ultimate Visual Guide, which is reportedly put on halt.
Announcement of the release of The Mandalorian publications dates back to Fall 2020, but such plans have been filled with hurdles. Del Rey's The Mandalorian: An Original Novel endured a delay from December 2020 to November 2021. Arguably more disappointing is a report on The Ultimate Visual Guide being "shut down at the last minute" because of the "multiple, interconnected series" requiring a different strategy. Star Wars News Net passed on the news from Ziro.hu:
"Our source has new information that explains somewhat the cancellation of the book. The Visual Guide was shut down at the last minute because the multiple, interconnected series coming to Disney+ requires a different strategy. Lucasfilm wants to have more control over the books. According to our source The Mandalorian: The Ultimate Visual Guide – or an updated and changed version – will not be released before 2022."
While such reports are most certainly unfortunate if true, it is understandable considering the nature and interrelatedness of the publications and the release of upcoming Star Wars series. Among the many upcoming new projects, a number of shows (aside from The Mandalorian season 3) are expected to tie into each other with the introduced characters and plot development of The Mandalorian. Consider The Book of Boba Fett: the series would likely build on the events following the notorious bounty hunter's takeover of Jabba's palace throne with Fennec Shand, and details of the latter mercenary would also overlap with the post-Clone Wars era Bad Batch animated series, as revealed from the Disney Investor Day trailer.
With that in mind, The Ultimate Visual Guide and other publications of the series would have to be highly constrained in content to avoid potential spoilers or contradiction with the subsequently-released content. Star Wars visual guide reference books have a reputation of providing in-depth, behind-the-scene details on the story content ranging from the characters to weapons and ships, and going forward with the Visual Guide would eventually lead to it being a lackluster picture book way below fans' high expectations.
The decision to cancel The Ultimate Visual Guide (or at least postpone for a more comprehensive version) appears to stem from lessons learned from previous experiences relating to the sequel trilogy. Due to a "pass the baton" continuous approach taken in the film triumvirate, authors of the sequels' visual guides addressed the difficulty by not delving deep into the relevant content, and ironically revealing sparse details that were later contradicted by the films upon release, such as the destruction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi temple and Snoke's origins.
Considering that the storylines started by The Mandalorian would most likely stretch until at least 2027, creating a detailed Visual Guide for the series without spoiling several years' worth of content would be a walk on a minefield. The show's overlap with The Book of Boba Fett, Rangers of the New Republic, and Ahsoka certainly does not make the author's job easy. It should therefore be in the fans' best interest for the guide to be pushed back such that it could contain much more details on fan-favorites like Din Djarin and Ahsoka Tano, rather than merely skimming over them and leaving the bulk on support characters and (sadly) demised protagonists such as Kuiil and IG-11.
While "shutting down" the release of The Ultimate Visual Guide is certainly not ideal, the silver lining is that as long as we remain patient, we could expect the eventual release of a vibrant, substantive Visual Guide covering a broad variety of characters and details, thereby living up to the "ultimate" mantle.
Source(s): The Direct