Just going to create a separate thread for this, considering it won’t be available legally for a lot of users for five months.
The Mandalorian – SPOILERS
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and not one joke about him polishing his helmet.
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Whoa.
I just imagined a world in which Zack Snyder was picked instead of JJ to do the next Star Wars movies.
You know what? That would have been so awesome. Star Wars would have been right up his alley; so much more so than Superman. And just like I keep saying with Brad Bird, in the Star Wars universe those Randian inclinations of his wouldn’t even matter, because by its nature, Star Wars is all about people who were born special in ways others just aren’t. It’d have been perfect for him.
Just think of what those lightsaber fights would’ve looked like if they’d been shot by Snyder.
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Anyway, the show was okay. It did literally put me to sleep in a couple of episodes but at least it was good to look at. Speaking of which, Gina Carano did a great job. The last episode was a lot of fun, as was the A Team in Space one in which they helped the villagers in need. Not a whole lot to it but pleasant enough.
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Godammit Christian I don’t mistake you for Dave Wallace.
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I wish you would! Dave’s awesome!!!
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I’m sure that anyone expecting Christian would be very disappointed if I turned up instead.
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Well, now you’re talking nonsense so they’ll mistake you for me. I’m only disappointed none of you are turning up.
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Well, now you’re talking nonsense so they’ll mistake you for me. I’m only disappointed none of you are turning up.
Wait, I thought I was you.
One or more of us really should take the time to read the manual, or at least the quick start guide, before using the body-switching machine.
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Speaking of which, Gina Carano did a great job. Don’t let Tim hear that.
Whoops! Sorry, wasn’t you, it was Anders. “Don’t let Anders hear that!”
For a second there, I was not alone in my distaste for her acting.
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Disney Galaxy, episode 2.
I get that shows like this are part of the effort to keep interest and excitement in Star Wars going, but there’s a point at which it slaps you in the face with how unsubtle they are about doing it.
As someone who has watched the movies, and then the Mandalorian, and now this show, they’re preaching to the choir in me, but I was hoping for more “making of” and less group ass-kissing.
It’s not the worst show on Disney+ for that, but it’s up there.
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Mark Hamill is being a professional and supporting Team Star Wars but I do agree with his analysis that the franchise should embrace the opportunity of Disney+ to try things without the same pressure that a $250m movie carries with it.
Just try for good stories and characters!
Obviously I disagree on whether ‘The Mandalorian’ achieved that…
Mark Hamill Says ‘The Mandalorian’ Is the Smartest Way Forward for Star Wars
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By Anthony D’Alessandro
May 12, 2020 1:08pm
Deadline has confirmed that Katee Sackhoff, who voices Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, will be playing the live-action version of her character in season 2 of Disney+’s The Mandalorian.
Bo-Katan made her debut in season 4 of Clone Wars, which just had its series finale. The character has been instrumental in a lingering plotline involving the Darksaber in both the storylines of Clone Wars and Rebels. In the latter series, it’s Sabine Wren who hands over the Darksaber to Bo-Katan so that she can bring the Mandalorians together. The Darksaber is seen at the end of the first season finale of The Mandalorian, now in the hands of villain Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). There’s been heavy speculation, especially with reports that Rosario Dawson is playing the live-action version of former Jedi Ahsoka Tano, that the Darksaber storyline will continue into season 2 of The Mandalorian.
In our interview with Clone Wars boss Dave Filoni last week, he said that a continuation of the Darksaber storyline is “possible. I mean, it’s definitely something that I left hanging at the end and part of that reason is just it’s always nice in my mind when there’s another story.”
Slashfilm broke the news about Sackhoff playing Bo-Katan.
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I’m waiting for the Japanese import Merchandisor variant with the alternative hat.
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I don’t love the new Merchandisor design, it just feels like an unnecessary cash-in, you know?
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Turning the Mandalorian into a sequel to a Star Wars cartoon I didn’t watch in the first place is not exactly making me excited for series 2
Ha, this was my reaction too.
I hadn’t ever heard of the Darksaber before so that moment at the end of Mandalorian just made me think of the shitty fan-fic that someone sent to AICN years ago claiming it was an Episode III script leak, which detailed how the Emperor would ignite a black lightsaber in Revenge of the Sith. I think it also featured a character called “Grando Calrissian”.
Nice to see that actual Star Wars is now playing at that level.
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Well, before it would have looked worse, linking to a kid’s cartoon some have not watched but now? When all that material is bundled with Disney+? Looks quite different.
Also, Clone Wars / Rebels is a fun watch.
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Yeah, not dissimilar to something like the Apocalypse tease at the end of Days of Future Past. For most of the audience just a “huh?” moment.
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Or the post credits in Thor The Dark World with The Collector which everyone fucking hated and thought the MCU was doomed and then Guardians came along and it was fine
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Yes but you are beautiful and impervious to the usual bullshit
I shouldn’t be in this thread since I haven’t watched The Mandalorian yet. I’m glad I wandered in.
I’m only quoting this because I needed to read it twice.
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Well, before it would have looked worse, linking to a kid’s cartoon some have not watched but now? When all that material is bundled with Disney+? Looks quite different.
Also, Clone Wars / Rebels is a fun watch.
I’m sure it is – a lot of my friends have recommended it to me down through the years and the couple of episodes I’ve seen at random seemed pretty good. But the first two prequels left me with no interest in revisiting that era, and I don’t want to have to watch dozens of episodes of a show to get clued in on the second series of a show I didn’t care much for in the first place.
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We’ll find out later properly but I really don’t think you’ll have to.
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Yeah, I think you’re probably right – any information you really need to understand it will probably be in this show itself rather than forcing viewers to go looking in the cartoons for details.
Then again, that’s not how they handled the return of Darth Maul in Solo, so who knows.
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We’ll find out later properly but I really don’t think you’ll have to.
I would have thought as much, but I get the feeling Disney might be overcompensating for the criticism of the Sequel Trilogy, and trying to appeal to hardcore fans. And most of the hardcore Star Wars fans I know really want what are essentially plot tokens – it doesn’t matter how good the story is so long as it has connections to elsewhere in the saga.
Hopefully I’m reading too much into it.
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Yeah, I think you’re probably right – any information you really need to understand it will probably be in this show itself rather than forcing viewers to go looking in the cartoons for details.
Then again, that’s not how they handled the return of Darth Maul in Solo, so who knows.
Maul in Solo was nothing more than a cameo, a WTF cameo if you hadn’t watched both Clone Wars / Rebels and a rather cool one if you had, but a cameo nonetheless.
It is also one of those ideas that sounds incredibly awful and yet its execution was nothing of the kind.
Now, changing tack, I’ve got quite a bit to cover:
“This is the Way”
Do you have to be a SW fan to enjoy The Mandalorian? No, but it certainly helps.
The other element that became very clear after watching the series as a whole is Disney’s strategy for it. On the face of it episodes that vary in length from 30 to 50 mins looks strange, how can there be any sense of consistency if there is such variance? Yet, the answer is remarkably simple – fit the story to the episode, with little in the way of waste or padding. This leads to the second aspect of their strategy – attention to design and aesthetics. It seems absurd that it has taken until now to get a live-action SW TV series, yet there are reasons for it not being done. The big one is the look and the feel. The viewer expectation is for a film-level quality of visuals and design to be replicated as close as possible on the small screen. TV writing and creative ability has developed much in recent years but this is still a big ask. By having variable episodes that go shorter as needed, Disney can more easily ensure quality consistency to match viewer expectations.
Half the series uses a two-part structure, to open and close it. The four one-shots that comprise the middle build on the starting duo and set up the ending pair. It’s an effective structure.
“I have spoken”
One of the things that Disney did from the start of their acquisition of SW is take a far greater interest in what the civil war depicted in the OT would have looked like. What sides would people find themselves on and why? But due to the mess in where the ST was going, the lack of a clear direction, they were very cautious about exploring the gap between the OT and ST. This is the first real look at the effect the New Republic has on the galaxy, filtered through the lens of character perspectives – and most of these aren’t that complimentary. Mando views the NR as weak, Cara was thrown away by it and, to an Imperial, well, that one’s obvious. But, at the same time, the NR is enforcing some law on what is a very lawless galaxy – the sixth episode is particularly effective at showing this. Similarly, the character of Kuril shows how you can end up on the wrong side, with the decision being nowhere within your ability to influence or affect. It doesn’t abandon the moral framework SW uses, doesn’t grey it up but it does render things more complex, less clear-cut.
For all the criticism that the ST gets for shamelessly playing the nostalgia card, the same line is oddly silent where this series is concerned, despite it doing much the same thing. Maybe the difference is this series does so more subtly, if you don’t see the trick, there is no trick. Yet there are some very, in plain sight callbacks to the OT in this series – no disintegrations? Far from it. Dodgy environments including Tattooine? Oh yes. X-Wings? Get a guest appearance. A battle with a walker in a forest? Check. Prison break? old on, oh yeah that’s in. And then there are other nods to other Disney material that work without you having to follow them to that other material, especially as some of it has only just been revealed with Clone Wars‘ final arc, the Siege of Mandalore. It gives the series a distinctive identity, but also clearly sets it in a wider universe, one you may wish to explore further but don’t have to.
Another quite subtle bit I loved was Kuril’s line that until all the Imperials and the old ways gone, none will truly be free, to be particularly good given that the Empire becomes the First Order, which in turn merges with the Final Order and only at the end of RoS can this be said to have happened. The series is quite smart in how it looks both forward and back.
“Ask no questions”
Well, Mando didn’t listen to that one now, did he? The Child is easily the breakout star of this, but, from a corporate perspective, I can see why Disney might have been ambivalent – this could have easily backfired. As it is, they have one of the cutest new SW characters in ages, perfect design, perfect animation – a Child versus BB-8 cute-off contest would be extremely hard to predict. You don’t like the Child? Clearly, you have no soul. Add in some very carefully selected moments of Force ability, timed to perfection and yeah, there will Child plushes – it is inevitable.
The best character deaths should be both not at all obvious and fair. That is you don’t see them coming, the story doesn’t give the game away until it needs to and yet the move still feels fair and right. The finale of this first series kills off a couple of characters, does each work? Yes. Nor are those its only nasty surprises, but each one it hits the viewer with makes sense in the story it is telling.
Another aspect that stands out is the coordination between all the directors, each contributing to the greater whole, all working as a team. It’s not the only example – Rogue One is another case where many talents contributed to the end product, but in the wake of the directorial punch-up that is the ST, it’s good to see. And if that final episode is an indication of what a Wahiti SW film will look like, bring it on.
Overall? I really enjoyed this. It was an unexpected delight. They could have easily gone darker and nastier, but would that be better? I think not. Given the news of Season 2 suggests it’ll be bringing in characters and plot elements from elsewhere, it’ll be interesting to see how they maintain the balance of informing the viewer with what they need, without overdoing it.
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Do you have to be a SW fan to enjoy The Mandalorian? No, but it certainly helps.
I can’t imagine a non-Star Wars fan giving the Mandalorian more than an episode or two, to be honest.
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Do you have to be a SW fan to enjoy The Mandalorian? No, but it certainly helps.
I can’t imagine a non-Star Wars fan giving the Mandalorian more than an episode or two, to be honest.
I doubt non-fans, even those with more than a passing familiarity with SW, would have made it to the last episode of Season 1. My passion for SW is pretty much dead and it was a real struggle to make it to the end.
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My Sister and her husband (not Star Wars fans) watched it with their two boys (they are kids so, you know) and everyone reportedly enjoyed it.
That’s probably one of the target audiences, being a Disney+ subscription. Families with their pre-teens. As the saying goes, there are other worlds then these.
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It is true.
There may even be people who have only seen The Mandalorian and none of the movies. Crazy, but true. We live in an interesting world.
One time there was this guy and all he could talk about was how Alien: Covenant was the best sci-fi film he had ever seen.
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Do you have to be a SW fan to enjoy The Mandalorian? No, but it certainly helps.
I can’t imagine a non-Star Wars fan giving the Mandalorian more than an episode or two, to be honest.
I think Xena fans would like it.
But they can watch the Witcher which is a lot more fun.
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Do you have to be a SW fan to enjoy The Mandalorian? No, but it certainly helps.
I can’t imagine a non-Star Wars fan giving the Mandalorian more than an episode or two, to be honest.
I think Xena fans would like it.
But they can watch the Witcher which is a lot more fun.
Toss an imperial credit to your Mando, oh hive of scum and villainy
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Saw the last episode. It was fine.
The bit with the two imp scouts at the start was the bit that really felt like Waititi. Rest of the episode was alright. I will probably never like the shootouts in this show; it’s just too much of the characters standing in open ground while twenty guys are shooting at them but somehow never hitting. And I know, yeah, joke about how stormtroopers can’t aim, but still. It just seems lazy to me to put them into this situation.
But I suppose this is where it’s a kid’s show; you have to get past that kind of stuff if you want to enjoy it. And it was pretty enjoyable otherwise. Tie-Fighter action was very well done. The dialogue refering to the realities of the war with the Empire was neat. And overall, the ending to the season with Mando kind of becoming the kid’s dad felt organic enough.
The kid did lose his mind when he saw the Darksaber. He also made me watch a few episodes of Clone Wars afterwards.
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The bit with the two imp scouts at the start was the bit that really felt like Waititi.
Definitely. It made me wonder whether we’ll see more of that kind of tone in his movie.
(Be prepared for fan outrage in about five years about how Disney isn’t taking Star Wars seriously enough.)
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adult SW
so easy to find
Someone’s been dipping into slash fanfic…
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adult SW
so easy to find
Someone’s been dipping into slash fanfic…
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Definitely. It made me wonder whether we’ll see more of that kind of tone in his movie.
That’s what I’d hope for in his Star Wars movie – just fun adventure. I mean, there was always a bit of a dark tone in the OT, as well, but honestly what’s mostly been missing in Star Wars for me both in the prequels and sequels is the sense of fun. (They do try to have it in the prequels, but it doesn’t work because the shadow of tragedy is too large and because Lucas is barely human at that point, and in the sequels it doesn’t because they’re too much in love with grim darkness.) Solo was really the only fun Star Wars movie since the OT for me.
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You’ll have fun with the next season of The Mandalorian, Christian.
I’ve just read they’ve cast Timothy Olyphant.
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That’s what I’d hope for in his Star Wars movie – just fun adventure. I mean, there was always a bit of a dark tone in the OT, as well, but honestly what’s mostly been missing in Star Wars for me both in the prequels and sequels is the sense of fun. (They do try to have it in the prequels, but it doesn’t work because the shadow of tragedy is too large and because Lucas is barely human at that point, and in the sequels it doesn’t because they’re too much in love with grim darkness.) Solo was really the only fun Star Wars movie since the OT for me.
I think this may be why Star Wars is such a tough nut to crack.
That sense of “fun and adventure” is going to be increasingly difficult to recapture the more movies come out. You mention how Solo captured that feeling, but it also bombed at the box office.
Ultimately, I think Star Wars has to serve too many masters, and that’s why fans above the “casual” level get frustrated with it. It’s like everyone wants something different out of it. So some people can look at the Sequel Trilogy (and The Last Jedi in particular) and be pleased that it recaptures the feel of the Original Trilogy, while others (like me) look at it and absolutely despise it because it just recycles plot points from the Original Trilogy and never has its own story to tell.
It’s curious how some people can look at the AT-ST in The Mandalorian and scream “fan service,” and others, like me, see it and think “Of course, after the Empire fell, gangsters and despots were going to be getting their hands on all of that leftover military hardware.”
Personally, I believe that the true appeal of Star Wars is that it instantly created an immersive universe. Even with the original Star Wars in 1977, you got the immediate sense that this was a real and massive place with its own sense of history, mythology, and purpose. On the Lars homestead, you didn’t really know what they were doing out there, but they were doing something. All of the aliens in the Mos Eisley cantina had their own stories to tell. There was all of this incredible mythology with the Jedi Knights that you knew was there after only a couple of lines.
Now, the question becomes: How do they keep on going? Just keep on telling those simple adventure yarns? Or carefully develop the history and mythology of that galaxy? The answer is, they need to do both, and it’s a fine line to walk. The Prequel Trilogy took a dive into the mythology and offered lots of new insights into the the history of the SW universe, but it failed to capture the fun aspect, and when it tried to (Jar-Jar, I’m looking at you), it fell on its face. The Sequel Trilogy attempted to recapture the fun and adventure, but it failed to do right by the greater mythology and just recycled the Empire, Death Star, Rebellion, The Emperor, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and all of that other stuff we loved four decades ago.
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A while back I ran through quickly the various subsets for SW fandom and got to about 30 without much difficulty!
Even the Sequels vary massively. If you go by the films it’s an OT remix, with some attempts to weave in some new stuff, with RoS being a covert Dark Empire homage that, not surprisingly, I’m just fine with – but didn’t expect it to work as well as it did. But if you look at how that era has been depicted elsewhere, it’s a very different portrait and one that people critical of the films may be more receptive to.
I think they are most likely to go back, not forward, as that undermines RoS in effect. No, I think the Old Republic is a strong contender. Also allows for riskier narratives within a safety net too.
I think they’ll also continue the kind of coordination they were doing everywhere but the Sequels. The Darksaber is one example of that, Maul is another – what they haven’t yet cracked is the signposting to render that more effective. The links between Rebels and Rogue One are an older example but it worked well.
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People complain about prequels, but when it comes to epic storytelling like Star Wars, Tolkien, Song of Ice and Fire, and Harry Potter, they really have to go back to tell more stories.
Once you destroy that ring, vanquish Voldemort, kill the White Walkers, and defeat the Empire, those stories are basically over. You really have to work to come up with something new for the characters/world to expand the story after the climax. Again, look at the Sequel Trilogy — they had to strip the OT characters of all of their goals and accomplishments to keep it running. So the Empire is back under a new name, the Rebellion is back fighting them, our heroes failed to rebuild the Republic, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi Order — all so a new cast of characters could refight the same battles for a new generation.
With these kinds of epic stories, there’s really not a lot of places to go with the story. Is Freyda not-a-Baggins going to find another magic ring that she needs to destroy? Are a new batch of monsters going to descend on Westeros from across the Western Sea? Is Voldemort going to have a secret kid that comes back to bedevil the children of Harry, Ron, and Hermione? (Oh, wait…)
These kinds of epic stories are built upon such a large mythological foundation that, once the central conflict concludes, the stuff that leaves you wanting more is all in the past. You want to see the War of Wrath or the Fall of Numenor. You want to see Robert’s Rebellion, the conquest of Westeros, or the The Long Night. You want to see the war against Grindelwald or the First Wizarding War against Voldemort. And you want to see the Founding of the Jedi Order, how the Sith came to be, the old Jedi-Sith Wars, the Jedi Civil War, and the thousands of years that led up to the events of the Skywalker Saga.
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Again, look at the Sequel Trilogy — they had to strip the OT characters of all of their goals and accomplishments to keep it running.
They did not have to do any of that. They could’ve told a story of the Republic and the Jedi being rebuilt; there would have been enough material in that, easily. Trying to recreate the first story again was their first mistake.
I’ve just read they’ve cast Timothy Olyphant.
Hot damn!!!
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It’s curious how some people can look at the AT-ST in The Mandalorian and scream “fan service,” and others, like me, see it and think “Of course, after the Empire fell, gangsters and despots were going to be getting their hands on all of that leftover military hardware.”
These aren’t mutually exclusive though, there can be a cogent in-universe explanation for something and it can still be there to make fans go “cool”
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Google looks like a piece of junk?
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Google looks like a piece of junk?
It’ll get your search results in under 12 parsecs
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Also adept at outrunning GDPR legislation
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You bet, I’m not such a bad coder myself.
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I’ve just read they’ve cast Timothy Olyphant.
I hope he wears a cowboy hat.
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Returning 30 October.
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The new season of #TheMandalorian starts streaming Oct. 30 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/HQK5eGoutg
— The Mandalorian (@themandalorian) September 15, 2020
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Hoo-boy:
Critics calling on Disney to fire Mandalorian actress Gina Carano for ‘transphobic’ Twitter stunt
If anything, they should fire her for her atrocious acting.
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Baby Yoda Gets 1,000-Piece LEGO Set — But Is It Nearly Cute Enough?
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Just don’t get it wet or feed it after midnight.
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Just don’t get it wet or feed it after midnight.
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Well, what time can you feed it at? Is it strictly an afternoon thing, or could it have breakfast at 6am and be okay? And what about after it uses the toilet? The dirty thing can’t wash its hands? What if he eats a jam sandwich and a drop of jam falls on its white fur? Does it go to the dry cleaners?
These questions have plagued me since childhood.
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What about humidity, man?
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Rumours never die, they just keep going.
What I’m looking forward to on this is watching each week and talking it, couldn’t do that last year.
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Mandalorian is enjoyable, but has two massive flaws in my eyes. They’re both subjective opinions rather than objective truths but I can’t shake them nonetheless.
1. Gina Carano can’t act. Sometimes actors give a bad performance. But this isn’t that – this is worse. I don’t use this sentence lightly as I am easily entertained and disregard (or even embrace) a lot of bad stuff going on in whatever content I subject myself to, but this completely breaks my immersion. It is some of the worst acting I’ve seen in a series with this amount of prestige and production value. I’m very tempted to do a “Gina Carano can’t act” compilation video, but that would have me seeing all of it again, and I’m not doing that. Then again… drugs. I might do it at some point.
2. The baby Yoda looks like a cheap toy. Again, it completely breaks my immersion. It’s kinda cute but it totally looks like a toy. Not for its alien looks, I mean OG Yoda looks fly as fuck in comparison. It’s like watching a show about a single parent and its human baby, where the baby features heavily, but it looks like this:
Seriously.
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That’s the UGLIEST Yoda doll I’ve ever seen! Doesn’t even have pointy ears!!
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I don’t get the Gina Carano thing… she seemed okay to me… I mean, as okay as most other actors in the show, by which I mean they were all mostly flat and bland.
I do hope Season 2 will be better than S1, which shouldn’t be too hard to do… but then again…
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I don’t get the Gina Carano thing… she seemed okay to me… I mean, as okay as most other actors in the show, by which I mean they were all mostly flat and bland.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t think anyone in the show is amazing, but I thought she was fine.
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I don’t think anyone in the show is amazing
Pedro Pascal is. And Werner Herzog was, purely for being Werner Herzog. And Taika, as voice talent. And those two stormtrooper scouts in the last episode of S1 were great. (Um, I was kind of kidding there but then I got curious and looked at the imdb, and it seems one of them was Jason Sudeikis…)
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Eh… I didn’t find any of those particularly good… I mean, Pascal was in for a whopping 5 minutes in person, and his voice acting was… well it was =P
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