Spoiler

100 years of puberty. Mother of God.

 

I did not, NOT see that coming. Holy shitfuck, I have so many questions.

Spoiler: Many questions.

• IG-11 has a contract for the asset to only kill it. Did Greef Carga intentionally pit him against Mando, or is this coming from someone else in the guild?

• For that matter, does Werner Herzog know there was another contract to kill it, and that's why he wanted the supposed best in the business? The more I thought about it, the more the "but bounty hunting is a complicated profession" line after he says preferred alive but dead at a lesser fee might point to it.

• Who was Werner Herzog's character in the Empire? I love the feel of it all, that he was obviously some fairly heavy hitter that's now barely holding his old grandeur together - dude's obviously relatively loaded for a guy that lost a war in the worst way possible, but he's still having to scrape by somewhere in the outer rim.

• Which house adopted Mando? I have to hope (over-optimistically, I admit) that this might be the way we tie in the live-action universe with the animated a bit, and Sabine (from Rebels) is going to show up as House Wren's emissary and offer him a place in the house. Total wishful thinking, I would imagine, but still.

• Why are they after this asset, and how the hell have they known about it for so long and nobody went after it? The entire might of the Empire could have been thrown at this, yet here it is in a basic bandit camp at this point. Was it some super-secret ISB project that nobody got word of, and Herzog's character and his pet scientist are the last of? Fuck, why wouldn't the Jedi sent someone after it?

• There is a bit of leeway in this, but if that thing is really 50yo, it was born in the exact same year as Anakin. That is probably a coincidence, but with Filoni and Favreau involved, I refuse to believe that wasn't on purpose until proven otherwise.

Goddamn, I am excited to see where this goes.

 

For all his silence, the Mando is a protagonist I can really get behind.

 

If anyone was as impressed with it as I was, the score for Ep. 1 is up on Spotify.

 

2nd episode is out. On one hand, it is a fairly entertaining example of the "lone warrior faces myriad trials" trope present in every single western.

Spoiler

Murdering jawas with a disintegrator rifle is pretty fucking dark for Disney, I gotta say.

On the other hand, another episode on the rocky desert planet felt a bit like filler. As the season is pretty short, I'm not sure filler is altogether a good idea.

Spoiler

Baby yoda may be adorable as all fuck (and assuredly Disney will sell thousands of stuffed baby yodas because of it... but there wasn't much point to the episode beyond confirmation that the child is a force user.

 

Haven't seen the second episode yet, but Pascal is amazing with his body language in the armor. IG-11 has a great voice actor in my opinion and the set designs depict a very real world. The silent long shots are my favorite so far, as they really allow Pascal to work his body into the acting as opposed to just the "Stoic, solid Mandalorian" that we got from Fett. Even with the low amount of dialogue I already feel a connection with the Mando's past and his present.

Super excited to see where it leads.

 

Episode three is out. Interesting but predictable for the Mando, but the last few minutes make it in my mind. I’ll wait till others have seen it to say more, but I’m feeling like this is one of the best Star Wars things I’ve seen in a long time- and I likes both Solo and the Force Awakens.

 

You know, this is pretty much exactly how I would want a Dredd or Master Chief Centric TV Show to be. Strong Silent protagonist with an actor that's not vane enough to take of the helmet every two seconds.

 

Third episode was great. You knew exactly where it was going to go, but it was still hella fun getting there.

 

The more I watch the more I think that the rifle he is carrying is the closest thing we will see to a T-7 ion disruptor rifle

 

The thing I like the most about this is about how it feels like Star Wars, more than anything since the Original Trilogy or maybe even just The Empire Strikes Back, while still expanding our understanding of parts of the backstory and lore. The setting is gritty and feels like the edge of civilization, the protagonists have a code/morals and they live and die by them.

More than anything, this feels like a space western, which is how Star Wars felt like the first third of A New Hope like Jon Favreau mentioned.

Spoiler

It even ends with a shoot-out in the streets.

In conclusion, this is what I want to see from Disney going forward.

 

Episode 4 is literally just the "gunslinger helps the desperate villagers" trope, but with aliens. Probably the weakest so far, despite B.Y. being cute af.

Dave Filoni is writing and directing episode 5 so I'm hoping for good stuff next week.

 

The show's honestly a pretty solid okay. Nothing more, nothing less. It feels like the kind of show intended for parents to use to introduce their 10-year-old kids to Star Wars. I'm honestly only watching it for B.Y at this point.

 

Yeah, got to agree with that. I've seen it done to death on Stargate and don't really care to see it here. Hopefully it's not a sign that they wasted all their creativity in the first few episodes.

Also, I know he's the Protagonist and he's got to have lines but he's doing an awful lot of talking. Yeah, it develops him as a character but I was kind of looking forward to a more or less silent protagonist.

And what's with him stalemating with a random no-name bounty hunter? Maybe if he had Baby Yoda in his arms and was handicapped then it would be more plausible but the show needs to pick a power level for him and stick with it.

 

Everything else you said I agree with, but this seems weird. Are you talking about the chick? That's the only draw he's had so far, but I'm not sure since she wasn't a bounty hunter at all. She was a former commando/"drop trooper" (I assume that meant "orbital drop") with the Rebellion who turned mercenary after the Empire fell that he had met sometime previously.

And if you did mean that one, then I've gotta disagree. The whole point of that exchange they had outside the bar was to establish her bona fides, that she was actually enough of a badass to hang with him in a fight. And then the pair of them promptly handled a dozen and change random chumps just like he'd handled the bounty hunters back on the first planet. It wasn't that he suddenly got worse or whatever, but that she was just that good.

Though admittedly, their fight wasn't the best choreography I've ever seen.

 

People like nice things. In other breaking news: water is wet.

http://archive.is/q7VjX

(I haven't seen the show, just thought the article was worth snickering at)

 

I did love their handling of the AT-ST though. It's amazing how a bit of lighting and directorial work can the kinda goofy-looking chicken-leg walker into a legitimate threat.

 

I mean, it's a giant blaster-proof tank that can walk/run over unsteady terrain. The OT had the unfortunate problem of making most of the terrifying Imperial weaponry save the Death Star easily overcome. Walkers? Trip em with a cable. Chicken tanks? Throw some Ewok traps at it.

Despite not being super great games, the new Battlefronts did a lot to show how utterly decimating walkers could be when you didn't have specific weapons to counter them readily available.

 

Interesting article. One I disagree with wholeheartedly, but worth thinking about and reading.

https://www.cbr.com/mandalorian-baby-yoda-exposes-fandom-mary-sue-hypocrisy/

What does make BY different than Rey?