The Mandalorian— the first live-action Star Wars TV show — has landed on the same day as Disney+, and so far, it’s exactly what we expected: A rich, gritty look at the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars Universe.

Game of ThronesandNarcosactor Pablo Pascal stars as a masked bounty hunter who crosses paths with former Imperial operatives, displaced Rebel soldiers, murderous droids, and all kinds of funky aliens. It’s exciting, it’s packed with action, and it’s full of plot twists. Therealreason why it’s so good, though?

All of that sweet nostalgia — in all the right places.

(Spoilersfor the first two episodes ofThe Mandalorianfollow.)

Digging deep

The folks behindThe Mandalorianknow their Star Wars lore. Series creator Jon Favreau is such a big fan that he wrote the first five scripts forThe Mandalorianbefore he’d even pitched the series to Disney. Co-producer Dave Filoni, who directed the first episode, is the co-creator ofStar Wars: The Clone Warsand the mastermind behindStar Wars Rebels.

That knowledge bears out on screen. Early on inThe Mandalorian’s first episode, Horatio Sanz’s blue alien drops a reference to Life Day, the fictional holiday celebrated in the infamously terribleStar Wars Holiday Special. The Mandalorian’s cattle-prod baton is a callback toThe Faithful Wookiee,theHoliday Specialanimated short that introduced Boba Fett to the world. Given that theStar Wars Holiday Specialhasn’t aired since 1978 (although bootlegs are easy to find), those are pretty deep cuts.

And so far, the entire series is like that. While set after the fall of the Empire inReturn of the Jedi,The Mandalorianevokes the first hour of the very first Star Wars film more than any otherN. That’s intentional.In interviews, Favreau said that he was most inspired byA New Hope’s Tatooine scenes, especially the sequence in the Mos Eisley cantina. That’s when Star Wars was still unexplained and the world felt the most alive, mysterious, and dangerous.

As such,The Mandalorianis full of nods to Star Wars’ forgotten past. Blurrgs, the ugly creatures that the Mandalorian and his Ugnaught companion ride, first appeared in the made-for-TV movieEwoks: The Battle for Endor. A line of dialogue acknowledges the Mythosaur, a vaguely understood creature from the old, now non-canon Star Wars Expanded Universe. Even Favreau’s involvement is kind of a look back: The filmmaker voiced a character onThe Clone Warswho just happened to be — wait for it — a Mandalorian.

Then, of course, there’s that cliffhanger. As we learnedat the end of episode one,The Mandalorian’s latest bounty isn’t a hardened criminal. It’s a baby that looks awfully similar to one green, pointy-eared Jedi Master.

While even Star Wars’ background characters have been given names, elaborate backstories, and action figures, Yoda’s species remains a secret. Even as the character became one of the most popular in the entire series, George Lucas refused to spill the beans about where he came from or what kind of being he was. And yet, fans love answers. Diving into that backstory is the ultimate piece of fanservice.

None of this should come as a surprise, of course. This is Dave Filoni’s M.O. On bothThe Clone WarsandRebels, Filoni delved into the more obscure parts of Star Wars lore and played with our nostalgia to spin intriguing and thought-provoking new stories. He uses the past to make Star Wars feel even bigger, stranger, and more complex.

If Favreau and Filoni can weave the same magic onThe Mandalorian, we’re in for one heck of a treat.

Fistful of Credits

The Mandalorianisn’t just nostalgia porn for Star Wars nerds, though. It also plays on our infatuation with classic Hollywood westerns and Japanese samurai flicks. Not that we’re surprised. The very first plot summary forThe Mandalorianused the language of westerns, talking about a “gunfighter” roaming the “outer reaches” of known civilization where the government has little say. Still, it was surprising to see how heavily the series has leaned into this genre early on.

Again,The Mandalorianisn’t subtle about its influences. Pascal watchedClint Eastwood and Sergio Leone’sMan With No Nametrilogyto prepare for his turn as a taciturn warrior. Kuiil, Nick Nolte’s wise Ugnaugh guide, plays the same role inThe Mandalorianas Native American spiritualists did in countless cowboy movies. Many ofThe Mandalorian’s shots — the Mandalorian learning to ride the Blurrg, the long ride across the sun-drenched Arvala-7 desert, and his grand entrance into an outer-space saloon — are simply western tropes drenched in a Star Wars aesthetic. Ludwig Göransson’s score is a techno-spin on Ennio Morricone’s twangy soundtracks, with a hint of John Williams thrown in for good measure.

Westerns and samurai films come from the same tradition. Both genres deal with warriors who operate on the fringes of society, traveling alone while fighting injustice. In fact, many samurai movies — especially Akira Kurosawa’s — have been remade as westerns.The Magnificent Sevenis a well-known remake ofThe Seven Samurai. Clint Eastwood’s first Leone flick,A Fistful of Dollars, is a straight-up rip-off of Kurosawa’sYojimbo(Kurosawa actually sued Leonefor plagiarism and won a hefty settlement).

Similarly,The Mandalorianis clearly inspired byLone Wolf and Cub, a manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima that eventually spawned six feature films, a TV show, and four stage plays in Japan. InLone Wolf and Cub, a disgraced soldier travels the Japanese countryside while working as an assassin, towing his infant son behind him in a cart.

IfThe Mandalorianreally is going to be about ol’ Mando traveling the galaxy and getting into trouble while protecting the Yoda-esque baby — andepisode twoindicates that it is — it’s hard not to draw those parallels.

That’s by design. And at its core, it’s all very Star Wars.

Nostalgia for westerns and samurai movies is a core part of the sci-fi franchise.George Lucas’ original treatmentforStar Warsis a beat-for-beat remake of Kurosawa’sThe Hidden Fortress, and whileA New Hopechanged a lot before making it to the screen, Lucas re-used many ofThe Hidden Fortress’ plot twists inThe Phantom Menace. Lucas originally wanted to cast Kurosawa’s frequent collaborator,Toshiro Mifune, as Obi-Wan Kenobi. He asked production designer Ralph McQuarrie to make Darth Vader’s helmet look like a samurai warrior’s.

In the same vein, Han Solo’s sneak attack on Greedo — back when Harrison Ford’s smugglerreally did shoot first— looks a lot like a similar scene inThe Good,the Bad, and the Ugly. Before shootingStar Wars, Lucas screenedOnce Upon a Time in the Westfor his crew. Sound designer Brett Burt added the sound of spurs to Boba Fett’s footsteps, while the animators behind Fett’s debut inThe Faithful Wookieelooked to Leone’s films to create the short’s signature style.

Star Wars has always been a nostalgic property. In addition to samurais and cowboys, it draws heavily on pulp serials likeFlash Gordon(reports suggest Lucas only madeStar Warsafter theGordonrights slipped through his fingers) and classic mythology. By playing with older traditions,The Mandalorianisn’t just providing fanservice. It’s honoring the Star Wars legacy.

Looking back to move forward

The best part ofThe Mandalorian’s devotion to revitalizing older genres isn’t what it means forThe Mandalorian, but what it means forDisney+’s other Star Wars shows.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and announced that there’d be a new Star Wars film every year, it sounded like we were going to get a bunch of fresh and different takes on the franchise at the multiplex. So far, that hasn’t actually happened. Disney’s Star Wars movies — evenRogue One, which onlykind offeels like a war movie – fit a pre-defined style. They’re fun, but they’re all pretty similar.

On Disney+, it looks like Disney is willing to experiment. We already know thatDiego Luna’sRogue Oneprequel is supposed to be a spy thriller. If that show embraces its genre in the same way thatThe Mandaloriancelebrates westerns while exploring the hitherto unknown regions of the Star Wars Universe, we could have multiple new dimensions of Star Wars waiting for us.

Embracing nostalgia for both its own weird legacy and also cinematic history is the road map Disney needs to follow to keep Star Wars fresh. It’s worked so far forThe Mandalorian, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for other projects as well. As the series’big-screen hiatusproves, cranking out the same thing over and over leads to fatigue.

By looking to the past to shake things up, Disney+’s new series can help secure Star Wars’ future.