Star Wars: The Mandalorian

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!

That was the worst one - you’re a madman, Josh !

(But you’re kewl for endorsing my “Hercules or Xena” observation from upthread, undoubtedly without having read it.)

Don’t listen to them! Prison break was my second-favorite one!

Hated the prison break episode, though not for Bill Burr. But the Seven Samurai ep was even worse. Remarkable those episodes were in the same season as the first few and last two

Why did you all hate the prison break episode? I thought it was a stylish action caper. Though I think I missed why Mando was even doing such a sketchy job in the first place. Or, for that matter, what his endgame is at all. He's just compulsively traveling the universe doing odd jobs with baby yoda locked in the bathroom? Anyway, a couple of episodes have been dull, Seven Samurai/A-Team sucked, a couple have been solid. At least these geniuses have figured out that it's smart to make the first few episodes of a new series strong, rather than drop one of those "it takes 5 episodes to get going" turds.

The general charm of the show carried me through the three filler episodes. What show is wall to wall gold anyway?

xp It was full of corny, half-baked cliches and bad acting. (And please don’t “Welcome to Star Wars!” me; I know the difference!)

My favorite detail was how those sliding doors apparently don’t have sensors, and will f up a lifeform if it’s standing in the doorway when it closes.

Ha, I actually liked that. It felt like a riff on a familiar SW trope (those fast sliding space doors) that no one's ever toyed with before. I mean, this is a show/world where apparently you can't set your phasers to stun, so it totally makes sense that they haven't invented the garage door opener safety space tech yet.

As for "corny, half-baked cliches and bad acting" (besides, well, yeah), this show is innately corny, so far, but the cliches and bad acting in this one were nowhere near as bad as the Seven Samurai episode, which will be my baseline going forward. And I thought the direction of this one (unlike that one) was super sharp.

I've noticed so far that there have been relatively few shots of Mando running, no doubt because it would highlight the cheapness of the costume, lol. Better to have him just move with purpose to control the illusion that all that cardboard and plastic has real heft and weight. (See also: "RoboCop".)

They can set blasters to stun!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYelmcVoZg8

no one ever uses blasters on stun unless it's an important plot point

one of the funnier star wars things

IIRC the only other time we've seen the stun setting used on-screen is when Leia stuns Poe in TLJ. (With the same pistol she used in ANH, no less.)

Here's another article similar to the one I posted above, but much more interesting and detailed, about the new hi-def LED screen technology allowing them to do on-set/in-camera effects: http://www.icgmagazine.com/web/a-new-hope/ . It's really fascinating, like a Cyclorama thrust into the future.

xp Well, it's rare that anyone wants to stun (rather than kill), these are nasty wars!

In the jailbreak episode there is a standoff with everyone pointing guns at one another, and Mando is all "it doesn't have to be like this ..." No, because you could just set phasers to stun! (Ironically enough, the one dude is killed with a knife, though, so ... )

Last couple of episodes were solid! It's kind of wild how well this show both expands on the universe we know and introduces new stuff. I didn't see "Solo" or the most recent one, but without a doubt this is better than those other three. Good characters, good set-up and storytelling, and if I'm being honest I could probably watch a show just about his ship landing and taking off.

Well get ready for spinoffs.

Bill Burr's Galactic Masshole

xpost Ugh, no! Don't lean on the movies, bounce *off* the movies! Young this, young that ... who the fuck cares about whoever the fuck that guy is in Rogue One? Who cares about Young Obi? No one needs a Young Wicket prequel. They've spent all this time developing a world, it's time to play in it a bit, like this show does. Introduce new quests and questions, don't answer questions that no one really has. "It turns out Ben was a big fan of the rapper *Obie* Trice from D12 ... "

I'm actually looking forward to the Cassian Andor show, because I love the idea of his Rebel secret agent character who had to do a lot of morally-compromised wet work. Plus I love Diego Luna.

Anyway, premium nerd collectibles company Sideshow Collectibles (I have a bunch of their stuff) just revealed a life-sized Baby Yoda that will be selling for $350 to the Star Wars collector with refined taste.

https://www.sideshow.com/collectibles/star-wars-the-child-sideshow-collectibles-400369

https://www.sideshow.com/storage/product-images/400369/the-child_star-wars_silo.png

Has the show confirmed it to be Yoda, or just, er, *a* Yoda? Because good luck un-naming it, show.

how do yodae reproduce

Budding iirc

Curious to me that Jon Favreau wrote almost every episode of this (including the bad ones) but didn't direct any.

when you're showrunner these days those credits can be half-formality

I'm torn between "ugh this entertaining television show really only exists to create merchandising opportunities" and "I must protect him"

I'm halfway through this. Distracted at times by how much Mando's voice & dialogue sounds like a Tom Cruise soundboard.

I thought he sounded like Clint Eastwood, by design.

Yoda is the exemplar of a species only known as Yoda's species.

Perhaps its just a child of Viridihomine yodalensis.

Josh otm about exploring the world not dragging out the same tired characters - it’s exactly why this worked. And Rogue One despite the shoehorned cameos.

Has the show confirmed it to be Yoda, or just, er, *a* Yoda? Because good luck un-naming it, show.

The show takes place after the fall of the Empire in RotJ, i.e. after Yoda's death, so the kid is merely a member Yoda's species. There's some speculation whether it's related to Yoda tho, mostly because his species is so mysterious and rare that previously we've only seen two members of it onscreen (Yoda himself and the female Jedi in the prequel trilogy).

that's fucking YADDLE u savage, put some respect on her name

One of my friends has a young daughter (she's 6, I think) who drew this beautiful portrait.

https://i.imgur.com/ldaKUMF.jpg

A 6 year old drew that!? It's great!

looks like a Sun Ra cover

if you find Luke boring, just the same old Force thing

finally catching up to this - just watched the seven samurai vs the at-st episode and it was GRATE, the haters itt are nuts

the scary-monster at-st and the terrifying unstoppable darth vader at the end of rogue one are both great examples of how treating star wars as a place rather than as endless extensions of the skywalker saga can refresh and revitalise the extremely over-familiar

Ha i’m 6 mins into ep 1 is the mask reveal that he’s ancient clint eastwood

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/star-wars-series-leslye-headland-disney-plus-1234587493/

A new “Star Wars” series is in the works at Disney Plus, Variety has learned from sources. The series hails from Leslye Headland, the co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer of the critically-acclaimed Netflix series “Russian Doll.”

Details of the exact plot of the series are being kept under wraps, but sources say it will be a female-centric series that takes place in a different part of the “Star Wars” timeline than other projects. Headland is said to be attached to write and serve as showrunner on the series, with the show currently staffing.

yaddle please

Finally, the Young Maz Kanata spinoff we've all been waiting for!

I had been hearing conflicting reports, but noticed this line in a NYT article about the state of the Disney empire in general:

The production shutdown will almost certainly delay Marvel shows like “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” which was supposed to arrive in August. But the service’s big hit, “The Mandalorian,” finished shooting its second season before the pandemic spread to the United States and will arrive in the fall on schedule. Mr. Nathanson estimates that Disney Plus will lose $2 billion this year, with programming a major expense.