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Since it was announced in March that Iron Mandirector Jon Favreau was developing a live-action Star Wars TV show set after the events of Return of the Jedi984 Archives fans have been speculating as to its subject.

Well, wonder no more. Favreau took to Facebook Wednesday to announce the name of the upcoming series: The Mandalorian. (Unusually for Lucasfilm, the announcement was not immediately posted on StarWars.com -- but the fact that Lucasfilm employees are liking the post on Facebook suggests it's 100% legit.)

Here's what that means for the more casual fan: We're going to get a lot of characters dressed like Boba Fett. The bounty hunter (and his clone father from the prequels, Jango Fett) both wore Mandalorian armor -- but, confusingly, according to official Star Wars canon as it stands right now, neither character was a Mandalorian.

The planet of Mandalore, as seen in the animated series Clone Warsand Rebels, was home to a race of mercenaries that blasted their home world to pieces in a series of civil wars.

Favreau will spin their story forward, into the 30-year period before the rise of the First Order as shown in The Force Awakensand The Last Jedi,and focus on the story of a single gunfighter.

In other words, it sounds like a Space Western.

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There's still no release date announcement for The Mandalorian-- and with Favreau's live-action Lion Kingcoming in summer 2019, we suspect he'll be busy for the foreseeable future.

Still, the announcement is a thrilling one for Star Wars lovers. In particular, a subset of fans known as the Mandalorian Mercs, who construct their own Fett-like armor and gather regularly at most geek-friendly conventions.

Reports of a spin-off Boba Fett movie still have not been confirmed by Lucasfilm; the fact that Solounderperformed expectations at the box office seems to have Disney and its Star Wars subsidiary pumping the brakes on such standalone projects, although they are not cancelled entirely.

Fett, who says a mere 28 words in all of the original Star Wars trilogy and suffers an ignominious end in the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi, never seemed to have much room in his story for spin-off material.

The Mandalorian culture as a whole, however, seems a lot more promising -- as witnessed by the fact that Clone Warsand Rebelsboth returned to the planet for multiple story arcs.

Still unannounced: any details on the trilogy of movies currently being developed by Last Jedi director Rian Johnson; any details on the trilogy being developed by Game of Thronesshowrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss; or any details on a Star Wars project from anyone who is not a white male.

At least those looking for more diverse representation in the galaxy far, far away can take heart from the fact that every on-screen representation of Mandalorians thus far has shown them to be people of color.

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