The Mandalorian

Very true. It's when they actually deliver some plot that it really gets good. But yeah...I can easily see the criticism(and well deserved too). 

I'm rewatching since the beginning, and while Season 2 had a lot more action with the fighting off the Krayt dragon in the first episode, if you take that out, it's him out trying to get information and find the Mandalorians and track down the Jedi. Season 3 he's out looking for help in securing his reinstatement with the Watch by heading to Mandalore. While this didn't have much action and they halfheartedly tried to bring people up to speed if they didn't watch Book of Boba Fett, it's still working for me so far.

That was a mistake right there. They should have kept those eps for this show. There really was no reason to include Grogu, Mando, et al....into TBOBF unless somehow TPTB realized they had a clunker of a show in the writing phase and felt they had to shoe-horn Mando into it to attract some viewers. IDK. 

S3 Ep2:Mines of Mandalore

SPOILERS!!!




Random thoughts:
Better ep than last week's but that tells me that that episode was a complete waste of time trying to get the IG unit back online. It didn't lead to anything.

General complaint about scifi/fantasy in the last couple of years: why so damn dark???!!! I couldn't see much of what was going on with the Morlocks. Not that it really mattered much.

I appreciated the first couple of eps in this series in which there really wasn't much talking. There were about 3 scenes in this ep in which they felt the need to regurgitate how Mandalore used to look. We get it!!! Maybe some exposition about how entire cities got glassed over could have been better.

Nice to see Grogu taking action and not play the usual 'damsel in distress' role.

I'm a little confused as to what happened to Dinn in the water. Was he pulled down by something or did the bottom slope down suddenly on him? 'Cause if it's the latter that has to be the dumbest thing to date....aside from IG-11's head and torso surviving.

I noticed that it seems that Bo Katan has no problem wielding the dark saber or did I imagine that?

Mythosaur at the end was unexpected. Very Lovecraftian.

Maybe it’s silly to comment on such things in this day and age, but I thought the visual effects and lighting for the atmospheric entry, cloud and other spaceship landing scenes were some of the best I’ve ever scene. The intercutting of the visuals with the cinematography within the cockpit gave me a sense of genuine flight. I keep forgetting how astounding TV can look these days, taking it for granted, but this seemed a cut above. In an odd way, it reminded me of being a kid and watching the Jupiter II crash in Lost in Space and thinking how real that looked.

S3 EP3: The Convert SPOILERS!!!




So.....is this a bait and switch or a sandwich story? I'm trying to come up with phrase that captures what Mando did to BOBF like "Boba got Mandoed in his own show". Well, Mando now got 'Mandoed' on his own show. While this switch was disappointing it wasn't necessarily unwelcome considering that F+F are attempting to build a bridge to the ST as well as a way to introduce Thrawn as someone who carries the Empire baton before we see the events of the ST.

The other thought I had is that if Pascal and Sackhoff aren't taking off their helmets then they're back to voicing like Katee did prior with Bo Katan. I think they already have body doubles for PP. Could this be a move to reduce costs?

Random thoughts:

-I can't remember how many years post OT this is happening but Coruscant looks fine and dandy. Did any part of the wars affect them?

-Speaking of Coruscant it's nice to see a different environment for a change and a little of what folks call 'world building' I suppose. To me, this works better than the 'world building' people talk about for Andor. For example it was nice to see how Coruscant is build on top of the actual planet by showing the summit of the highest mountain.

-Considering how mundane and clinical life seems to be for these former Empire then I wouldn't be surprised that they may want to return to their former lives. That therapy droid. Yeeeshh.....

-Not sure why they made the former Empire folks go by designations rather than their actual names. Maybe it's a take on having new identities but it feels horrible to be treated as a number.


Dumb moments:

-putting Pershing in such a menial job. Why? I get that the New Alliance wouldn't want him anywhere near a lab but clerk.....? Someone who was doing high level scientific work can't go to a normal office.

-Why would the procedure tech leave the room? You could see that the agent(?) would do something.....but I was surprised that she increased the pain. I thought she was going to reduce it.

That's a good point about wiping his brain further. My assumption is that The Empire wanted him. But maybe they just want to get rid off someone who may have knowledge about what is happening; presumably leading to the Emperor's clones. Can't have loose cannon around. 

And I do agree that it is a significant storyline to be just a 'filler'. They are using this to spring elsewhere. Just the amount of Tie Interceptors and Bombers at the beginning suggests there was a capital ship around like a Star Destroyer or larger. 

I liked it. I think it was a fair representation because I always got the impression that it was supposed to come off as something like the core worlds in Foundation. We are the zenith of tech and culture and we really DO consider ourselves above it all.

Yeah, that's what i thought Pershing's motive was, too.

Ok, the Foundling episode was really well done and a few things surprised me on that one.

And Bo Katan was right about telling people it would seem.

I will only push back on one minor point: if mama has to deliver live food to the babies it stands to reason that she has what amounts to an empty bladder "stomach" that she can swallow the food into.

The rest of it? Spot on.

Also, I wouldn't have wanted to see Jar-jar again, in part because he doesn't want to do it again because "fans" caused him such psychological torment over it that he contemplated suicide for years afterwards.

He was a bit stilted, but I'm really glad he got to return and be the absolute hero and do some cool Jedi stuff.

He deserved it.

S3 Ep5: The Pirate

Random Thoughts:

-Meh....but I'm glad the pirate died(I hope). Not a character or storyline I cared about. I just hope he didn't 'survive'.

-Colour me disappointed that the title of the show was about Jabba The Salad and not the pirate I really want to see.

-I see a problem(?) in wanting to expand the storyline. It feels like there are at least 2 shows under the same heading. Now with TBOBF, I thought it was fine to shoehorn Mando, Grogu, Luke, and Ahsoka because by that time that show didn't have a good storyline. That they wasted the character of Boba Fett is another issue altogether. But here in Mando there is an engaging story to tell. They're just not telling it. How many more times do we have to declare that Mandalorians should already be heading back to Mandalore? Please advance that story there.

Now, I do like the Coruscant/New Republic story as well. I see how both of those will merge but I feel that deserved its own series...if even just one season. I like that they're telling us how the Empire survived and is slowly making a comeback. It's showing us the degree of bureaucracy in this new government and how Outer Rims people were on their own. They are both huge to be insulated from what's happening and small that they don't have enough security/military(whatever you wanna call it) to defend its space.

The unfortunate part of this is that it doesn't paint The New Republic as the good guys. Worse, if it keeps showing us how uncaring they seem, we could end up rooting for The Empire.

-I was a bit surprised that Karga didn't have some type of police force(at least) given his background. Anywhere you're gonna build something new you're gonna need security.

-I was glad to see some follow up to the only scene that mattered in the previous episode between Bo and The Armourer. I just wished they would have fleshed out more as to why The Armourer asked Bo to remove her helmet. I get the idea about bridging two worlds but it would have been nice to hear more dialog about this.

-I could not stand the amount of expository dialog. "The ship is comprised of this many this", "My ship's name is this and it holds this many people", and "We need to go here and do that". Not of that mattered. Just do it. What's next? "We're gonna walk over here and point at this". Ugh....

-Btw....don't Mandalorians know about the high ground???!!!

What's the Ytuber's theory?

I don't think I have the actual energy to review this last ep. I just hear words to the effect of "I'll help you with that but first...." and my eyes just roll out of their sockets. I'm tired of that formula. This show has content to spare for a compelling story and yet they waste their time on these side quests.

I also don't understand so many cameos. Is this to endear Star Wars with different folks. I mean, I can see Jack Black given his age would be a Star Wars fan and want to be involved(terrible performance btw). But Lizzo? Christopher Lloyd? It's great to see him but I wish he had something more important than throwaway villain in an ep.

Since when could those battle droids run like that? Dang. If they ran like that in the prequel movies there would be no need for the clone army and the Jedis would have been overrun real quickly.

Droids need bars. Oooookaaaayyyyy.... The more Star Wars explores the sentient aspects of droids in this universe the more uncomfortable it makes me feel. Even when I was a kid it made me uncomfortable to see that one branding scene in ROTJ in Jabba's palace. People laughed and it was played for laughs....but no. I suppose the way to look at it is that they are sentient and people treat them well or mistreat them. But.....bars? What's next? Droid clubs?

And we get to where many of us got to several eps ago about the dark saber. Honestly, I was shocked to see this come up. I feel the show is dumb enough to not have used that reasoning. But here we are.....the same place we were in Rebels. I guess this legitimizes it more with the whole 'it must be won in a duel' addition.

Droid bars aren't new to the Mandalorian though. They had a droid bar in Clone Wars, a droid spa, and there was some other kind of droid specific thing that I dont' remember.