While I agree with the sentiment, they definitely could have chosen a better format than white text on that background.

 

I guess I'm the odd one out then, because I found the Luke scene kinda eh and more disappointing the more it sat with me. They did a great job building up a tense situation with the Dark Troopers, and I was excited for a decent finale to have a great ending... and then the Troopers just up and stopped and we got deus ex Jedi to save the day. It was a lazy story choice that they only pulled off because it's Luke. And even then... I really didn't need to see this from Luke. Like, sure, fully actualized Jedi Master Luke is great to see, but is this really what Jedi Master Luke would be? I shouldn't be getting Vader Hallway scene vibes from something featuring Luke. Peak Luke shouldn't (just) be raw power fantasy, that's the Dark Side/Vader way. I think Peak Luke needs a bit of cleverness to it, that One With The Force aspect, and a certain air of serenity. His fight with the Dark Troopers didn't have any of that. It was just a dude carving through robots with a laser sword and an occasional force power. The final Trooper he force crushed was particularly glaring. Heretical as it may be to say (well, maybe, but I get the vibe that TLJ opinions here are like they are anywhere else on the internet), Luke punking out Kylo with a force phantom at the end of TLJ scratched that itch waaaay better than this did. It feels like they looked at the Hallway Scene and when asking themselves "how do we do this for Luke?" they decided that they mostly just needed to make the lightsaber green, and obviously give it a heroic context rather than a villainous one. Were they afraid to stray too far from a fanservice scene that they knew worked? Or did they just think that this is what Peak Luke should be? I dunno, but it just didn't do it for me.

They also really didn't do much with Boba Fett as a character this season. He mostly just stood around in cool armor, shot stuff, and flew his iconic ship which... well okay I guess that is true to movie-Fett. But they had a chance to do more here and they didn't. Flesh out his character and whatnot. Sure, I'm hoping Book of Boba Fett will be good (maybe this will be the Galaxy's Underbelly show we all thought Mandalorian was gonna be, lol), but aside from generally liking Ming Na-Wen I really have nothing to work off of. Again, they pulled it off because Boba Fett is fan service crack, but he was also very much in this season just to be there because he has a spin-off coming out.

Overall, this season of the Mandalorian fixed last season's problem of having a weak sense of narrative propulsion, but still had some issues. I'm not sold on Dyn deciding to go full helmetless, but I'm totally okay if they do because getting to see more of Pedro Pascal's face can only make the show better. But going forward, my main fear is that the new Disney Star Wars strategy will orient around cameos and fanservice, and they are either going to get lazy with it or just bad with it and it will come at the expense of the new stories and programs. The goal is to have these things when they make sense to show up in the story you're telling (Bo Katan), and have them properly augment and work within your story (Ahsoka). Don't have cameos that are there just to be there (Boba Fett, not that it had to be that way), or cameos that are there just to borrow power from a better story (Luke). There's a good way to do this. I've seen them pull it off in this very show! Hell, I've seen Disney do it with the MCU. I just hope that they don't get lazy with it. After all, you can only play the Luke card once. Doesn't work as well with repeated use.

 

I can't imagine a more dull and pointless goal for media to have than the "reassurance of continuity". Is that image supposed to be sarcastic?

 

Maybe in other media, but star wars isn't normal media. Star Wars is a world. There are certain established characteristics of that world. It's not saying don't do anything new. It's saying that don't trash what's come before. Respect it.

The reason the sequels failed is they were created as if they were in a vaccum, ignoring the culture and love fans had for the Legends verse. While we get Legends needed to be trashed, there is still a way to do that with respecting who those characters became. Reassurance of continuity doesn't mean "be stagnant" it means "respect what happened previously."

 

"You mean it was Ahsoka all along?"

"Always has been"

 

Ahh, I thought I might have messed up the wording.

This is what happens when old people try to meme, apparently.

 

We got done watching this recently and my thoughts are that it was... fine as a TV show. It wasn't anything truly amazing unless you were already pretty deep into Star Wars lore. I was watching it with my gf and the early 'big moments' like the reveal of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, or the mention of Thrawn were pretty much met with a puzzled 'Huh?'. The weight the show gave those moments didn't really feel earned purely within the context of the show itself.

The Skywalker reveal was cool, but was similarly responded to with an 'Eh?' which was then followed up with 'well he just looks weird!' which again was fair. I'd only seen stills of his appearance, and it had looked mostly fine, but like the the attempts to bring back Moff Tarkin and young Leia it just fell apart when in motion, sadly. My gf has watched and enjoyed episodes 1-6, plus a couple of the newer ones, but she doesn't really immerse herself in fandom like I do (though even I don't have that much interest in it beyond the OG movies), so the reaction of 'Oh, so it's Luke, I guess' was probably not really what the showrunners were going for.

Grogu was delightfully shonky as a bit of animatronics. There was clearly no effort whatsoever made to try and conceal the fact that he's a puppet, and honestly this gave us both a good laugh a lot of the time, especially when Grogu was walking over the ground or something, and it looked like he was a doll being 'walked' by a kid who'd been rotoscoped out. A+. If you can't make it look natural, play up to the Star Wars wonky campiness and we'll follow along gladly.

Ultimately, the conclusion I came to was that The Mandalorian was a pretty great piece of Star Wars fanfiction. Like fanfiction, it probably didn't quite hit home the same way if you weren't already big on the fandom. Like fanfiction, it lent far more weight to shout-outs and mentions than was strictly called for. Like fanfiction, the story was a little bit weak due to a need to tie as much as possible in the character cast and setting to existing popular canon.

Unfortunately, also like fanfiction, it didn't really have much of a thesis. There wasn't really anything that it seemed to be trying to say. Events happened because they were either cool or dramatic, or because they were logical canon extrapolations. Characters changed somewhat over the course of the two series, but there was no real indication that a flaw was identified early, and then addressed later on. I think that's why we didn't quite get into it in the same way we get into some TV shows. Due to the nature of The Mandalorian as a 'Space Western' it didn't really have the character drama needed to hook us on an emotional level, but it also didn't have the same thematic depth often evident in Westerns, and so didn't grab our curiosity like those stories would.

My final thoughts on it were that I enjoyed it, of course I did. I of all people cannot fault something in a fandom I like for feeling like fanfiction. However, my takeaway from it was 'I wish more fanfiction was like this' and not 'I wish more TV was like this', make of that what you will.

 

@Steelbadger Agree with everything you say but at the same time I would suggest that this was all a deliberate stylistic choice. The commercial purpose of the Mandalorian is to win back the hearts of the core SW fans - for once, the typical moviegoer is not the target audience. So the fact that the show is basically a load of fan-service stitched together with a barely-there plot is intentional.

Of course it being intentional doesn't excuse it in critical terms. But it does factor into the discussion of whether Disney has succeeded in what they were trying to achieve.

The impressive visuals and the cuteness of Baby Yoda were the only elements in there which would appeal to viewers who were not pre-established SW fans, I think.

 

Yep, I agree. There's no doubt that it was a deliberate choice, and by all accounts they did a pretty good job of pulling a lot of disillusioned Star Wars fans back into the fold. It was definitely a success for Disney, as the avalanche of mooted spinoffs will attest.

I still feel it could have done a better job, though. The 'fanfic feel' of it speaks to a certain lack of effort when it is the result of world renowned writers and directors, and a multi-million dollar production. Like I said, though, it was fun, and I had a good time watching it. I just thought it was worth mentioning how modern franchises seem to be moving ever closer to simply pulling all the same fanfic levers we've seen in fics for years. It seems they've said all they want to say, and are quite happy to just put out largely empty (if enjoyable) fanservice.

We'll know it's really reaching its endgame when we start to get 'Elseworlds'-style AU fics shows. Oh, wait, we've got Loki coming up soon. Guess we're already there.

 

Disagree. It looked fine tbh.

 

These are masterfully employed though, in a way that will draw new fans in deeper. I have two friends that never gave a fuck about SW and who are now diving in to consume all the animated content. After finishing CW a few weeks ago, they said they watched all of Lego Star Wars the other day and I was just like..... uh yeah sure... that's uh.... canon.... I guess.

 

The Ahsoka/Thrawn thing is a big deal to a lot of people because it's how they're finally going to tie Rebels in with the rest of the canon universe. I have found so far that people's excitement over that part of it was largely dependent on whether they'd seen Rebels or not - the ones that had all freaked out about it (as did I, unashamedly), the ones that hadn't were more or less about as impressed as you.

 

I only just watched this with my cousin and brother-in-law - the latter needed the significance of the 'special appearance' explained to him, lol...

I'm not a huge fan of the Torgruta but Rosario Dawson can probably make me a fan of anything...

I'm probably gonna be in the massive minority and say the Luke reveal was a massive letdown for us. It was handled fine, but we thought it was kind of obvious and were constantly hoping for someone else. My cousin was desperate for it to be Ezra and I was wondering if they might fake us out with Leia given Luke looked kinda svelte under that robe.

Honestly, I'm really looking forward to next season if for no other reason than I was getting over Grogu.

Also, I don't know if this has been known in the community for ages, but is Sabine possibly gonna make an appearance in the 'Mandalore' arc maybe? Is it confirmed? I like Sabine :3

 

I'm not going to sit here and call the show perfect because it's far from that. However, I think a lot of the criticism that boils down to 'It's okay but nothing great' typically sounds something like "I was sitting with X person who's never watched Star Wars, and their reactions were to shrug".

To me that sounds absurd. Guess what? If you're not a Star Wars fan and you still enjoyed the show great, but you're not the target audience. The show wasn't made for you. People not recognizing this or that character, or not recognizing the significance of whatever Star Wars staple is on display at the time is no fault of the show.

This is a Star Wars show made for Star Wars fans. It builds on tons of existing material. Some things you're supposed to get, or already know. That's okay.

 

Loved the show but thought that Grogu being given to the Jedi was done way too quickly. I would have liked another season or two of him and Din roaming the galaxy.

I thought the CGI for Luke's face was horrible. He looked like a video game character and it was especially jarring when they showed the faces of the others. Also, I can't remember, did he even introduce himself before taking Grogu? The fans know who he is, but do the characters?

 

He's a Jedi; that's all they need to know.