The Mandalorian – SPOILERS

I can’t believe it turned out to be Jabba in the suit all along!

I kid, I haven’t watched it yet. I don’t even have Disney+ and im not going to pirate it.

So, being one of the few people that has actual legal access to it, maybe one of you dirty pirates can tell me if its worth it.

I’m looking at you, you dirty pirate. You know who you are

Well I enjoyed that, if not fallen in love with it. It’s an interesting challenge they’ve set themselves with a lead with no face that barely talks but it worked well enough for the first episode.

The ending spurred me on to see what happens next.

That was enjoyable enough, but if Rogue One got a bit too cute with references back to the movies, this was self-consciously declaring itself to be Star Wars for about 30 minutes in case we forgot. There were still elements of it in the back chunk too, but it felt a bit more balanced with actually telling a story. A bit more exploration of the plot, a bit less “hey, look, a Trandoshan! Like Bossk! You remember Bossk, right?” would be appreciated.

The big positives – it looks really good. As much as I was making fun of it for self-consciously reminding us it’s Star Wars, it does look very Star Wars, and the production quality is fantastic. The story is interesting, and that last moment had a genuinely surprising thing happen that leaves me intrigued as to what’s coming next. And the production art over the closing credits was really cool.

I enjoyed it, but I found quite a bit of it really… predictable I guess, right down to the dialogue and characters interactions. Can’t say it “grab me”.

It looked nice, but some parts look clunky (there was a walking scene which I keep feeling something was really off about the Mando’s armor).

36 minutes for the first episode of the new D+ service?? That’s very stingy…
 
There wasn’t a whole lot in there either… it’s okay I guess, but felt like a very underwhelming opening salvo.

Anonymous wrote:

You’re all under arrest.

 
Only if you got some handcuffs…

I’m looking at the online reviews, there are some hipsters making a point about being too cool for it all, but most people think it’s fine and are onboard for the series.
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I do agree with the occasional comment about keeping his face hidden the whole time; why? We’ve seen Mandalorians before. We saw Jango Fett and we saw a young Boba Fett, and since Boba is a clone of Jango, we’ve really seen Boba as an adult too!
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Unless there’s a surprise reveal that he’s not what we expect, the whole “masked species” thing seems like a waste of time, and acting ability. It’s not like Pascal can’t do the job through his voice and body language, but I’m not seeing the benefit here.

Yeah the Spaghetti Western influence is clear and the prototype of Eastwood (and other actors) even clearer, but I think masking the protagonist is excessive and counter productive.
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Clint Eastwood didn’t wear a full face mask.

I didn’t mind the faceless protagonist… I did mind some of the side characters, like the first bounty frog dude… his “humour” was really badly written.

I liked it a lot. I felt less like it was “reminding us it’s Star Wars” and more, “it’s in a universe with a lot of weird stuff, with a lot of it being Star Wars stuff.” I feel like somewhere – not sure if it was EU or NuCanon – it’s been made clear the Fetts are not Mandalorian, and I recall Mandalorians spending a lot of time in their masks if they weren’t clan leader families in both Clone Wars and Rebels, so the masked thing is no bother to me. They’re obviously not going to keep him in the mask for the whole show. And that ending! I’m intrigued. I think it’s the best new onscreen Star Wars thing we’ve gotten since Disney took over, and I’m not someone who’s been crapping all over the previous output.

paul f wrote:

Boba and Jango aren’t Mandalorians; Jango just stole some Mandalorian armour.

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Ok, so I went digging. Now that I’ve got my nerd on I’m primed to get into the details.
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This may be spoilers? If the show is following this biography?
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His history has been retconned multiple times.
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https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jango_Fett
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https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Concord_Dawn/Legends
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https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/87123/why-how-is-boba-fett-considered-a-mandalorian
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Is this show going to try and clear all this up? I’ve removed the quoted “information” from this post in case it’s spoilers?
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Good luck!

The way I see it, if you’re going to join half a man with half a car, why not do it with some style?

They’re clearly building up to him taking his mask off for the big reveal:

Oh wait shit, the first episode was indeed longer… this one was 26 minutes!!! Are you frickin kidding me???

Wow I would’ve felt robbed if I’d paid the D+ service just for this… u_u

Christ that’s a boring episode.
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He’s a moron, with no common sense or tactical skill.
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I feel like I should wait for someone to do a trimmed down cut of the series in the new year. Right now I’d put money on there being about 2 hours of actual story in the whole season.
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As everyone says; the show looks great.
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But it’s got no brains at all so far.

For some reason, it makes me happy when @Jim likes something. He just gets so enthusiastic.

I do find myself wondering if The Mandalorian isn’t using the plot of the abandoned Boba Fett movie.

I could see Fett escaping from the Sarlaac to find Slave I gutted by Jawas, disintegrating a few, and the ensuing chase scene with the Sandcrawler.

Just seemed kind of weird to see Jawas on the planet Mandalorian was on; I was under the impression they were native to Tatooine.

Jason wrote:

Just seemed kind of weird to see Jawas on the planet Mandalorian was on; I was under the impression they were native to Tatooine.

I probably would have assumed the same, but then again, there’s really no reason to. They’re part of a spacefaring civilisation and there’s scrap robots all over the galaxy, I’m sure.

This may be relevant

Almost all the social media on the show is positive. It looks like it’s struck a chord rather than a nerve. Has Disney announced a second season? If not, I expect they will shortly.

SteveUK wrote:

Almost all the social media on the show is positive. It looks like it’s struck a chord rather than a nerve. Has Disney announced a second season? If not, I expect they will shortly.

Shortly before or just after episode 1 went up, IIRC

So I didn’t see the latest episodes but baby Yoda is already using the force? That seems to indicate their whole species is just naturally force sensitive, yuck.

Anonymous wrote:

So I didn’t see the latest episodes but baby Yoda is already using the force? That seems to indicate their whole species is just naturally force sensitive, yuck.

He’s also 50 years old. We don’t know anything about him or his background or what training he might have done.

As a non-SW fan… this is… quite mediocre tbh… Costumes are great, but can’t say very much about the rest of it. Feels like a cartoon, but live action, and not in a good way.

Anonymous wrote:

I sort of disagree that it feels like a movie.

 
Doesn’t feel like a movie, it feels like it was a movie script originally, that they turned into a mini-series… with padding, lots of padding… =P

We’re not even half way through the season, so any assessment on the overall structure of the story is still a guess.

But the damaged hero who finds his conscience through protecting a child is a well established premise and it’s been used in more than one film.

And the show is insanely padded, whatever it’s development process was.

But it’s a hit, so the padding is obviously comfortable for many.

SteveUK wrote:

And the show is insanely padded, whatever it’s development process was.

Your face is insanely padded

Jon wrote:

SteveUK wrote:

But it’s a hit, so the padding is obviously comfortable for many.

 
It’s Star Wars… it’s not like it was ever in danger of failing or anything like that… u_u

I think her name was Turncoat McTurnface.

Emilia Clarke is her from Silent Witness isn’t it? I don’t remember her in Solo. Was she a Wookie?

It was such a non-failure that Disney stopped making Star Wars movies to take the time to properly celebrate.

SteveUK wrote:

It did $393m.

We live in a world where that can be a genuine flop. The cost of making and selling movies is ridiculous sometimes.

And it’s estimated budget was $275m. It was a flop.

Dave wrote:

It was such a non-failure that Disney stopped making Star Wars movies to take the time to properly celebrate.

 
Oh yeah they stopped it so much there’s one next month and an Obi Wan Kenobi one next year… =/

Anonymous wrote:

sexy wookie

That’s another tautology.

I may have said too much.

DavidM wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

sexy wookie

That’s another tautology.

I may have said too much.

All this talk about tautology is getting quite repetitive.

Shouldn’t we be talking about tauntauns instead?

With Kevin Feige now onboard I imagine he’ll bring his approach over from Marvel, which includes going back to the published stories and characters.

If they’re going back to the source, everything needs more Bothans.

So… The Magnificent… 2? 2.5?

Christian wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Emilia Clarke was amazing in that movie.

Gah. She was the one thing I didn’t like about it. No real chemistry between the two leads, and Clarke still is a thoroughly average actor.

You shut your damn face

YEAH WELL SHE DIDNT LIKE YOUR STUPID DAMN WEIRD GERMAN FACE IN THAT MOVIE EITHER SO THERE

This show is really not good. They didn’t even bother to try an put a twist on the story. How may times have we seen that training montage?

I did like the At-St walter as T-rex though, that was fun. Otherewise, meh.

I doubt I’ll keep watching past series 1, to be honest.  This week spent like a third of its run time basically yelling HEY REMEMBER STAR WARS, HERE’S SOMETHING FROM STAR WARS!  And when you have Ming-Na Wen in your cast, and her fight scene isn’t even as impressive as a standard setup in Agents of SHIELD despite having a crazy high budget, something is going wrong.

I want to see how the season ends, but I’m fast-forwarding a lot right now.

But I also wont pretend that it’s not cool to re-visit the cool and familiar. I just want the rest to be better too.

Ok, I’m done.

I’ll skim the rest of the episodes. It’s as bad as bad Dr Who and I don’t have the same level of nostalgia for a Star Wars spin-off.

I’m jot a Star Wars fan and I’m the only person in the board that seems too be enj cloying it.

Maybe

That tells you … something …

Not really, I ain’t a SW fan either, and I’m not really enjoying it… I mean, it’s something to watch I guess, but it’s super mediocre. It’s kinda sad this is what D+ came up with, very underwhelming… doesn’t inspire confidence for the MCU shows… =/
 
I do love the helmet desgins though, dunno who’s in charge of those, but every SW movie has some super fuckin neat helmet designs.

Indeed… it’s dull, but it’s the most SW-thing I’ve seen… ever… xD
 
That’s probably why the hardcore fans are so all over this.

That was a joke by the way.

(I know thieves are incapable of remorse and).

I don’t know. My expectations were non existent and I’m enjoying it as a midless romp with good production values. Ill take this over the 10 minutes of 6 Underground I just watched.  Or, lots of things, frankly.

I don’t understand how a show can make people so jaded after six episodes.

I watched the recent one with Steve’s comment about no bones in mind and I’m still baffled. The episode set up a prison heist crew,  heist, double cross, and resolution in 40 minutes. That’s about the same bones you’d see in most other television shows of that length.

I also liked seeing Bill Burr, Clancy Brown,  Natalie Tena and Richard Aayode as the crew.  That’s not a flaw for me.

Look, I’m not head over heels for the show – I’m checking in every week – but, Martin made this comment in another thread “‘Star Wars’ does funny things to people” and I think thats true.  I.dont understand all your hate-i-ness.