Star Wars: The Mandalorian

as with almost everything star wars, this was fine but should have been a lot better. any little bit of originality at all might have been nice too

have 'tracking fobs' been used elsewhere in this universe? i have some questions about that technology

special props to the cara-mando relationship making no sense and giancarlo's entire strategy in town being absurd -- i mean holy shit 'i'll wait until nightfall for your decision' is beyond bond-level

liked that pillboi from the good place was one of the hapless villagers tho

Buggin’s “Youu have something I waaaaaaaant” read had me in stitches

Cara & Mando made perfect sense to me - both disenfranchised former military loners trying to avoid the glare of the Republic and the ex-Empire, bump into each other on a faraway planet and recognise a kindred spirit, bond over a tussle, do a bit of work together, bond over baby Yoda, go separate ways as both still loners, reunite to help out baby Yoda again. Both hate the Empire and feel unwanted by the Republic. That's best friends material in Star Wars.

As for Moff Gideon's absurd monologuing, this is Star Wars and he's a villain.

Yeah, I totally bought the Mando/Caro bonding, but agree that Gideon's "we'll wait until nightfall" was ridiculous, even by SW standards. You have an army surrounding the place, the people inside there have nothing to negotiate with, wtf do you gain by waiting for hours instead of asking them to surrender immediately or be shot to death?

half the time cara is all 'you can't go in there alone!' and 'i won't leave you behind!' and the other half is 'actually i'm going to start a new life with carl weathers' and 'see you when our paths cross'

also it makes no sense for the droid to bring the kid into town, among other bizarre motivations

i mean, i don't care that the ships make noise in the vacuum of space etc etc, i just wanted more internal coherence

i have spoken

Gideon doesn't want to shoot them to death cos he needs baby Yoda and baby Yoda at that point was AWOL cos IG11 had rescued him, so he's sweating them out until they surrender and lead him to baby Yoda.

Cara won't leave him alone in dangerous / combat situations because trained military / leave no man behind instinct. Soon as they're out of that she's happy to go their separate loner ways.

I mean I can't believe I'm defending a Star Wars on the internet but this is not 'Emperor Palpatine grew a bazillion star destroyers undet the ocean with his mind' territory.

Gideon's one of the first genuinely ominous characters from high in the Imperial ranks who's not played by a stuffy british man

have 'tracking fobs' been used elsewhere in this universe? i have some questions about that technology

Boba Fett put some sort of tracker on the falcon in ESB, not exactly the same, but close enough.

why then was gideon's initial move to have his dudes shoot the shit out of the bar (luckily leaving our heroes intact)? anyway if gideon knows everyone's name, and that baby yoda is elsewhere, and there are several dozen tracking fobs that can find him from planets away, i don't think he needs to sweat them out

good point about the territory tho

if you've got them pinned in, better to get them now than to go on some damned fool crusade across the sector if they manage to get out

appreciated that obviously he was the authority over all stormtroopers, but the local squad was not very good compared to his personal troops. no wonder he didn't mind just blasting a bunch of what appeared to be his own men -- they're the scrubs who got posted at the ass end of the region

"If you try to interfere, this becomes a much simpler matter. I will kill Cara. I will kill Greef Karga. I will kill the child."

Me to the 5yo this morning: “if you don’t get dressed right now I’m throwing your toys away”

She didn’t. I didn’t.

it makes no sense for the droid to bring the kid into town

he's there to nurse and protect, but the protection extends beyond the child imo

also we really needed that cool speeder/blaster fight

The only thing I really chuckled at was the lava-river gondola droid, who can apparently only row on the port side, yet the boat goes perfectly straight (as if, say, on a "dark ride" track).

(I did also think -- "How conveeeeeeenient," at the "you have until nightfall" line)

gondola droid should really have been a permanent character, I love that R2 design. is it used elsewhere in the films?

http://static2.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/mandalorian-ep8-r2-2.jpg

The only thing I really chuckled at was the lava-river gondola droid, who can apparently only row on the port side, yet the boat goes perfectly straight

like... a gondola?

over the last 40 years my mind never even conceived of a frankendroid like that existing and it kind of messed with my head to see it

xp A gondolier doesn't switch sides? Then never mind, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Yeah that droid freaked me out a bit. However I lost my shit with delight when the stormtroopers showed up in a troop transport straight out of the 1978 Kenner catalogue.

Omg yes! I’m sure I had that

I lost my shit with delight when the stormtroopers showed up in a troop transport straight out of the 1978 Kenner catalogue

Skies of Risewalker

The deepest confession

https://io9.gizmodo.com/adam-pally-tells-all-about-the-day-he-punched-baby-yoda-1840958370

The circle is now complete.

pic.twitter.com/y121exIBtZ

— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) January 17, 2020

<3

Ned u should go do an intentional bad post now just for fun, you've earned it

Amazing

Was wondering when we'd start seeing these:

https://www.slashfilm.com/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-photos/

impressive how they were able to get nolte so small

he lost height for the role

nice tech!

My daughter asked me if I wanted to start this tonight, so I figured, we have Disney, why not. And hey, the first two episodes were really surprisingly entertaining. Kind of reminded me of the stuff I used to watch on TV in the early '80s, but with better production values. I wonder if they actually sat down, jotted down a list of all the things the nu-Star Wars movies did wrong, and made sure to take a different approach?

I’m pretty sure they must have done just that.

Hopefully Witcher S2 will take some pointers from Mando S1. A few characters, a monster, there you go

We're watching episode 3, and this is like ... space John Wick?

Oof, really didn't like episode 4. So corny, like an episode of Hercules or Xena.

7 Samurai one and the one after are probably the two least good episodes but I kinda liked them both tbh. The corniness and Hercules-adjacentness is part of the draw of this show. I really like how tea-time it all feels.

Yeah, episode 4

... was the seven samurai one. Just kind of clunky and inert and not well acted or directed. Was that Bryce Dallas Howard's directorial debut? Maybe that's why.

The A-Team episode? That was a highlight imo

I wonder if that was the brief actually - do an “A Team” one, do a Xena episode, etc. That’s what Community did, and pretty successfully for the most part.

lol yeah, the ep was totally A Team! Which fits with my first impression that this is like what I watched as a kid in the early 80s.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Whuh, Bill Burr?!

After a few duds that was a really good one, like John Carpenter directing "Star Wars."

don't forget Clancy Brown, baby!