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Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
Location: Emina Isle
The Mandalorian follows the tales of a nameless Mandalorian (the same race as Boba Fett) in a post-Empire era of Star Wars. Like the famous Boba Fett, this Mandalorian is a bounty hunter, and although quite skilled, he's much younger than Fett and perhaps more open to change.
I'm two episodes in and the show has been solid. It does not exactly "feel" like Star Wars in the sense that there's a lack of free-wheeling camp that defined the original trilogy, but as far as live-action SW properties go, this is the best thing since Return of the Jedi.
I don't want to call it "faithful", because the prequels had the spirit of the originals but were simply bad movies. This looks, sounds, and plays like Star Wars but feels just a tad off. But that still puts it far closer than the Abrams films, Rogue One and Solo.
We'll see where this goes. If the story stays grounded, as part of a side-story, it could be the best SW-related cinematic product in 30 years.
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
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The Path of Now & Forever
I've also been enjoying the series thus far. The western vibe infusion has been pretty good for keeping the series fresh compared to other Star Wars stories. Episode 1 has some sloppy CGI with the weird ice worm walrus. The rest has been pretty good.
I don't like to bring up politics in general, but I do feel like Star Wars mainline has been poisoned by Kathleen Kennedy and her SJW movement to push female empowerment at the cost of proper storytelling. The Mandalorian has been mostly made by Jon Favrou and Dave Filoni and even had input from George Lucas as I've heard, so I think it feels better because we're not having the SJW stuff shoved down our throats. We're just telling a story and it happens to be done well cinematically.
Also, Mandalorian isn't a race, but rather it's a culture. You don't have to be born a Mandalorian to become one. And Jango Fett and Boba Fett were both not seen as true Mandalorians despite his armaments and armor. It's trained and you can be inducted into the culture.
It has only been hinted at thus far, but I think the titular Mandalorian is likely a war orphan from the Clone Wars and he was probably taken in by Mandalorians and accepted into their group. He was likely not born Mandalorian. I think this is why he often gives to foundlings (other orphans).
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It got off to a bad start for me because the first scene I saw was carbonite casings in the Mandalorian's ship. The original carbonite transport was an ad hoc solution Vader came up with using Cloud City's mining facilities. It was not some standardized method of transporting prisoners.
Some other nitpicks are the Mandalorian blacksmith being an obvious woman from the hairstyle (I would have preferred it a surprise), which likely is that Kathleen Kennedy influence. The "bounty droid" somehow making it ahead of the Mandalorian to the slaver's base, despite the Mandalorian needing to ride the two-legged Bantha to get there.
Werner Herzog name-dropping "parsec" and too much in-universe jibberish. Like that metal that the Mandalorian got had an imperceptible name, it could simply be called "Mandalorium" and we the audience would have immediately picked up on the significance of it, instead of needing exposition later to explain it.
Mostly episode I nitpicks. I felt the second episode was a lot more organic about things.
Beskar as the metal for their armor has been around since at least the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon in terms of canon sourced media. It's been around since the late 80s from the Dark Horse Comic series before that although I don't think those are canon anymore.
I personally don't think it was hard to follow. They literally bring it up in the first scene with the Mandalorian (I'll now refer to our hero as Mando since it gets confusing when I also bring up the group) in the bar where the thugs scratch his armor and ask if it's really made of Beskar. Then they followed it up with the Imperial Officer talking to the Mando about how he feels it's important for the Mandalorians get it back. Then the scene immediately after has his pauldron forged. The scenes very easily convey what Beskar Steel is and how it's culturally significant to the Mandalorians.
And if it was called Mandalorium, I would feel like it's lazy world building.
Oh, I guess I missed that. The episode started for me at the carbonite scene. If it was properly introduced/identified then I take that back. It wasn't the only jargon-related confusion, just the only one I specifically remember.
Enjoyable 4th episode. I can't say it was flawless, but I enjoyed it still despite some issues.
Why Mando allowed the baby to walk around is beyond me. At least wrap it up and carry it in your arm so people can't tell what it is on sight. Also, I feel like he shoulda dirtied up his armor a bit. It's so brightly shiny it makes him so easy to spot. I know his armor represents his change from a gruff bounty hunter to now the baby's shining guardian, but when you're on the run, it's probably best if you hid yourself.
Cara Dune got me so confused. Not her character, but rather her name sounds like Caleb Dume, the original name of Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels. Their names were soooo similar. And they had a Loth-Cat too, which added another potential reference to Rebels.
Also, I can't take AT-STs seriously as a threat of any kind. Not when Carebears took them down with booby traps. Also, as threatening as the raiders were, there were no villager fatalities that we saw. Not their first raid of the krill farm, not their attack with the AT-ST. They were so comically disorganized, I didn't feel like they were a threat at all after the initial attack. Like if they didn't have the walker, Mando could have just given them all guns and they would have been no threat. A few scenes of a few villagers at least getting shot (not necessarily dying) or getting outmatched in melee combat would have made it more exciting. Like the two idiots villagers losing their fight with the guy I had assumed was the raider boss and then Mando taking him out quickly as he ran to the fallen AT-ST would have made Mando more badass and also give the raiders a bit more credibility as a threat. I don't know if this was some kind of Disney "family friendly" moment. Because we had Manda incinerate Stormtroopers last episode, so this episode felt off-tone.
Also, this is a repeated story Star Wars has used over it's many series. Clone Wars episode Bounty Hunters was pretty much the same plot. Anakin, Obi-wan, and Ahsohka crash land near a farming village. The village is under threat by some pirates with a CIS Battle Tank and originally hired some mercenaries to help fight them off. The Jedi decide to help and they fight off Hondo's pirate crew. And that episode had more threatening bad guys despite being a kid's cartoon! One of the mercenaries appears to die, but he was actually a tiny alien in a human sized battle mech suit (like MIB).
The color design for the costumes though felt very George Lucas. Like everything was so mono-colored with the blue-green tones EVERYWHERE. I get they live in the backwoods of some swamp world, but this feels so lazy. And George always made things very mono. This whole planet is a desert. This whole planet is ice. This whole planet is swamp. This whole planet is temperate. And now this planet is blue-green woods.
Probably consider this a weaker episode in the series, but not one that ruins the show for me.
I also thought it was weird that the baby could walk, but I figured it was more intelligent than people let on. It's only physically restricted by its small size and weakness, so mentally it could be more developed but handicapped.
I didn't care for the female bounty hunter, her actress looked the part but didn't do a good acting job. I kept getting the impression she was an actress or an overdub, such a dissonance from appearance and voice.
The raid was unbelievable but not because of fatalities. My extended family's shrimp farm was raided by the NPA 20 years ago. Raiders don't kill the farmers, they need them alive to parasite off of. They simply walk into the village, point their guns at the farmers and say "We'll take those". What can the farmers do? So the running away and shooting part was over-dramatized, especially if this isn't the first raid.
I also found it unrealistic for the villagers to get trained in one day. In the Marine Corps it takes several days and those are people vested in military training. I get that all they were doing was standing behind barricades but, eh. The AT-ST should have set fire to the entire place simply shooting those barricades.
For the AT-ST itself, I also found that scene ridiculous. Initially I thought it was an AT-AT walker which would have explained Mando's reluctance to battle it. Little known fact, AT-ATs were present on Endor, just not around where the shield generator was located.
The episode was fine until the rookie bounty hunter shot Ming-Na Wen. Up until this point the rookie was portrayed as inexperienced and desperate, but not dumb. He tried to trick Mando and was able to handle the battle with Ming-Na Wen decently enough in spite of his inexperience.
Shooting his quarry then trying to double cross Mando was like. Inexplicably stupid. He could have just knocked her out and still filed in the claim, coming back later to deal with Mando a la Yun from Jedi Knight.
Good episode hurt by a shoddy ending. For a Tatooine episode, they managed to not overfill it with fanservice too.
Ep5:
Same as you. I think this was their worst episode. The antagonist was terrible and stupid through and through. Only the end credit scene was interesting. Maybe a weird setup for later in the show.
Almost like a heist episode. We got the Driver, the Trigger, the Muscle, the Crazy Woman, and the Mando. We see a bit more of the Mando's past based on his interaction with old friends, but I don't think it showed us any more of particular note. I might rewatch it to confirm later.
While I didn't know for sure if they would betray him, but the outcome after was pretty obvious. Even returning the Twi'lek with the tracker attached to him. I was a bit surprised that they weren't all dead though. Especially the muscle. You'd think a bulkhead door should crush anything if it has to be airtight.
This episode had some famous guests. Bill Burr as the former Imperial Marksman. I kind of found it funny that Mando made fun of that and he had to respond with, "I wasn't a Stormtrooper!" In universe I can't imagine they're all bad shots, only the ones we see in the films were. But it's funny nonetheless.
Another cameo was the X-Wing pilot being Dave Filoni taking his first on screen appearance within the Star Wars universe. I'm sure many normies wouldn't notice or care, but most big Star Wars fans probably geeked out as much as I did at this scene.
Overall I found this a much more enjoyable episode compared to the previous two. It had the story by Christopher Yost, who has done a lot of my favorite writers for Marvel comics as well as some of their animated shows. He also did the latter two Thor films. Considering Ragnarok was so great, I think we can forgive him for Dark World lol.
Two episodes left. I'm hoping for something more story driven for the next episodes rather than the meandering story we've had thus far after episode three.
Episode 6 is the best "monster of the week" episode but I had a lot of nitpicks with it, more than the others. Some of the dialogue/logic was dumb, including the justification for why they needed to use Mando's ship.
"It's the only ship off the grid"
"We need it close enough to scramble the code"
This sounds stupid. Just say that they don't want to use their in-house ships. It's not that hard. I would put a company car in danger over using my own car, since it doesn't belong to me and it's not my burden to bear if it gets damaged.
I also disliked how this is the second episode in a row that is trying to backstab Mando. By the discipline of constant dealings, this universe can't support itself if people are constantly trying to kill or backstab one another. There was no reason for The Dude to backstab Mando at the end there, even if he was mad the rest of his crew got captured. He should have expected that or put in a stipulation that everyone gets out safe.
I also don't like how the other characters survived but they had pretty good charisma so it would have been a shame to kill them off after such bit parts. Especially Clancey Brown.
Yooooooooooooooooooooooo, wtf?!
I mean that in a good way.
Yeah, possibly the best episode of the season. One episode left.
It was also the first time in a very long time where animals posed a terrifying threat to the main characters. In the prequels and even new movies, wild animals are an annoyance because everyone has super powers.
TheKnightsFury
Volcano Badge
That episode was amazing, the opening scene had me in stitches and the final scene had me super excited about what's to come!
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I've waited for good Star Wars watching since the old days at The Coruscant Skyline ezBoard, 19 years ago. This feels like a home-coming.
The setting is roughly contemporaneous with the first Jedi Knight, which also featured live action cutscenes. Although with a different tone, this feels spiritually similar to that.
McSweeney
Soul Badge
Location: Saskatoon, Canada
Originally Posted by Doppleganger
I thought The Force Awakens was finally going to be the beginning of stormtroopers not being a joke. But that phase passed quickly.
Movies in general need to do a better job of reminding people that trained soldiers tend to be a lot better at fighting than random teenagers who picked up a gun for the first time a couple days ago.
Smoking Gary sez:
"Stay in school kidz"
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Izicomics
Pokemon Trainer
I am a big fan of the Star Wars saga and this series certainly did its job, from start to finish I really liked it
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mandalorian is a classic
DamienLee
I would love to watch the second part when the release comes out.
I've heard some negative rumours about The Mandalorian S2, including:
-Pedro Pascal is out as Mando
-The new season is introducing Asoka Tahno (sp?) and trying to integrate Clone Wars more closely
-It's more MoTW stuff
This is disappointing, as it sounds like rather than take bold new steps, The Mandalorian's production is following the typical Disney & LucasFilm playbook of retreating to what is safe.
The worst part is referencing the Clone Wars show. I don't have to restate my utter disdain for it, existentially, since I consider the Jedi/Sith and Force to be the biggest cancer of the SW franchise.
Mando S1 did it great by completely avoiding the landmine that is the Force, Jedi etc. and making only poetic references to them outside of the final episode. I don't want to see this break down.
Pedro Pascal is only out as the actual person in the suit. 90% of season one, the Mandalorian was played by various stunt actors. They only had Pedro Pascal for a handful of scenes and his voice over. He is still contracted to stay as the voice of the Mandalorian, he just won't be on set as an actor anymore.
Still, that's quite egregious.
I've heard that people who watch Darth Vader in films like Rogue One can tell that it's a different actor from David Prowse due to how he conducts himself. For someone that has to emote through behavior and action like the Mandalorian it's a detriment to not have him physically perform as well.
Pedro Pascal was apparently angry that he didn't get more scenes with his helmet off. I think the show could easily have gone the Goblin Slayer route with shots of him in private with his helmet off, just not showing his face.
Pedro Pascal hasn't been the actor in the bulk of the original season anyway. They already had a scene where he did take off his helmet when he was on the planet with the blue shrimp, except obviously he was alone in the dark.
And the whole reason he's complaining is because he doesn't get any credit due to his lack of face time on screen. He's jealous of Gena Carano and Baby Yoda's popularity while few people credit Pedro as the Mandalorian. He wants face time to gain more fame for his role as a character he barely plays as.
He knew what the role was based on the script. Right from the first episodes, we know that the Mandalorians of this era don't remove their helmets. It's stated time and time again that once he removes the helmet, he won't be a Mandalorian anymore. Pedro Pascal knew this and still complained about it. He knew what he was getting into and he's being petty for complaining that the shows writers are keeping to the character they've written.
First he complained to the writers. Then he complained to the show runner. Then apparently George Lucas showed up on set and complained to him. Everyone was against Pedro's suggestion. Everyone knew it would betray the character they've developed and so everyone said no. After that, they asked him to leave the set and now he's only obligated to give his vocal performance.
It does seem immature to me, but then again most of the shows I watch involve voice work and I'm familiar with how cults can grow around voice actors. Perhaps he doesn't know that...a good sit-down with Mark Hamill would do wonders for him.
I hope he cools off and comes back to portraying Mando physically.
Couldn't stand S2 EP001. It was everything I disliked about The Mandalorian in one episode.
Here's hoping for better.
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