Star Wars: The Mandalorian

We waited a few episodes to start in this season, so that we'd have a few, but finally just watched the first one. Pretty good! Good effects! Best of all, though, was when they introduced the Marshal, and I heard his voice, and thought, hey, it's Timothy Olyphant, that's hilarious, he's another Marshal! Then he took off his helmet and ... confirmed. And my daughter goes, wait, who is Timothy Olyphant? I rewound a bit and called down my wife, then let her watch the scene. As soon as he spoke she goes "It's Timothy Olyphant!" And my daughter goes, who is Timothy Olyphant?! And my wife says, oh, an actor we like who always plays Marshals.

cool story bro

Carl Weathers directing an action-heavy episode worked well

That canyon bit seemed long but remained tense, good timing on when things failed, etc

The kid was great and more present, good work puppeteers

Carl Weathers directing an action-heavy episode worked well

Extremely good. I never look ahead to see who directs what episode so that why I can be surprised and damn, that was some of the best action-oriented Star Wars in general. Just enough clarification on what The Big Plot is too while still leaving it just unclear enough.

I think the Imperial base design of corridors with doors at each intersection makes it far too easy to imfiltrate. They need to go open plan.

I’ll be in the minority I guess but apart from the set pieces I thought this was a weak episode. Badly written, unbelievable actions from the characters, massive plot holes. I enjoyed the action but the rest was pretty dire. And I’ve loved the rest of the series for the most part.

Yeah, I was a little underwhelmed. Lots of continuity errors too - just felt a bit lazy.

I’m still not sure how a “lava tide” works.

No I agree this was the weakest episode of the season. Dialogue extremely corny. I mean, it's Star Wars, the dialogue is *always* corny, but somehow the mark of a well-directed, well-paced episode is that you don't notice how corny the dialogue is; in this one I did.

So many callbacks to the OG 77 shit, I loved the fuck out of this ep

Yeah, found it very enjoyable. Stormtrooper fodder levels continue to be off the charts, love it.

I enjoyed the episode a lot, but I realllllly wish I wouldn’t have followed it up by looking at Gina Carano’s Twitter feed for the first time... oof.

Four people trying to make a quick escape - one in a full knight suit of armor, one in a whole body rubber fish suit, one is an old man, the last I would describe as quick, but not fast.

Also yeah GC has been hit in the head a lot

Flashy episode. Kinda filler, but if that “reveal” in the middle means what I took it to mean – it’s an awesome tie-in to the last movie.

(The girl with the Rey hairstyle was also a nice touch.)

Suddenly, instead of a random Western set in Star Wars world, the series is feeling like a very deliberate bit of connective tissue for the entire saga.

(By the way – this does not make up for the inexplicable fact that they apparently travel hundreds or thousands of miles to the other side of the planet in a speeder; then Mando later makes the return trip in a jetpack, retrieves his ship and the kid, and flies back... all in around 20 minutes of story time.)

this ep is 100% why i love this show
go to a place, shoot stuff, kill bad guys, force-compel cookies from kids, make some stormtroopers fall to fiery deaths, secret lab full of genetic experiments
what’s not to love?

and the 77 callbacks were sweeeeeeet af

also i like how it’s mostly an “adventure of the week” show w a smattering of overall arc & i am deeply down w that

feel like director Carl Weathers had a word with actor Carl Weathers about toning his performance width down by approx 45%, with good results

I guess maybe ithe episode overall was just a bit flat - but also really cool?

Not much going on in the episode with the snow spiders, but it was still fun (appreciated the nod to Alien), and looked great. I'm pretty impressed by the effects, particularly the way they seem to be designing their green screens/digital backgrounds to look like matte paintings, which is a cool retro application of state of the art FX.

Saw a cool behind the scenes on YouTube about how they do it. They’re not using green screens much but huge LED backdrops with benefits being how they can control the angle of the background and crucially how the light of the screens reflects off his armor (and anything else). It makes it more realistic and adds a quality to it and otherwise the green would be reflecting everywhere.

One thing that annoyed me: it was called The Siege and it didn't involve a siege.

also i like how it’s mostly an “adventure of the week” show w a smattering of overall arc & i am deeply down w that

the gum-snapping lava tide line was so 77 OG that its nonsensical content was therefore necessary, because lol 77 OGness

Otoh i want s2e1 and e3 over e2 and e4 every time. 🤔

We're all caught up now. The one with Katie Sackloff was fun, as was "The Siege" (though yeah, why was it called "The Siege"?).

Did I hear a mention of "M Counts?" As in, I assume, whatever those Jedi genes are called? Anyway, I wonder whose idea it was to lean off the mythology pedal and press down on adventure instead, since that's key to this show's success. Yeah, there are callbacks and hints at the big picture, but they seem to be there in service of a good time rather than some portentous soap opera plot line.

You did indeed catch that "M counts" reference. I mean, if this has already been brought into the mythology for better or worse, at least it's a slightly more oblique reference.

By the way, neither of my kids have ever been particularly into Star Wars, but the one I've been watching this with turned to me and said "they should really train better Stormtroopers, these guys can never hit anything." On the money, second child.

i think more stormtroopers died in this one episode than in the original trilogy

who didn't love the motorcycle chase starting with half of them dying off the bat

Wondering if a stormtrooper has ever got on a speeder bike and *not* died in the next couple of minutes or so

Well, at least now we know why not everyone carries a light saber, they'd all be cutting their own limbs off left and right.

xpost really shows you that deregulation killed the Empire. they hadn't the proper license or training to drive those

OG77 lol at "it doesn't even have a guard rail!"

My wife laughed at that, and I didn't even really "get it" at first!

It's pretty (wonderfully) absurd how they have to shimmy around to the dangerous side of that column to reach the control panel, for no reason other than standard Empire blueprints.

I am of the opinion that ‘siege’ refers to what comes next, not the ep itself

Oh no, baby Yoda has a name, and it sucks!

Haha. Great episode tho

any name they gave was going to not live up to expectations at this point

nice echos back to other scenes where it's decided whether a child would be trained

also, nice switch on who Ahsoka was asking the location of

man that was a great ep - this season feels like it has really stepped up using inspired direction/design/atmosphere to compensate for the often insubstantial plotting - I don’t mean that as a diss in any way either, it’s a really compelling arrangement for a show like this

Oh no, baby Yoda has a name, and it sucks!

For a sec I was all "Wait, they named him Roku?"

man that was a great ep

Really was and I wasn't surprised that was a Filoni script/direct effort, talk about tying in things to the animated side pretty thoroughly. And yeah that was an unexpected thing for me when it came to what the big reveal of what's being sought was.

Three left to go for the season, right?

Stupid Mandalorian making me tear up at the end. Gah.

I loved the panpipe Mando Theme as he walks up to sleeping baby Grogu. Lovely scene.

yeah, music really excellent throughout

Gotta love a Yoda theme nod or two.

btw, during the episode I kept thinking.. is that... Michael Biehn? And it was! Double the stunt-casting! Woohoo!

was he sober? the cast of a show I was in once bought a Cameo from Michael Biehn, and he appeared to be in the middle of a bender when he recorded it.

his line readings sounded a little impaired

fuck i love this show so much

Rosario Dawson is a mighty warrior irl so it is v correct that she should be one here

Stoked about Michael Biehn! - dude has been in b-movie purgatory for too long, it was great to finally see him in a big-ticket show like this. I think the last good thing he’d done before that was Planet Terror in 07.

anyway gonna rewatch og 77 bc i am full of great feels for this kickass show

Feels like they’re setting up another big character reveal (for the season finale?), but I can’t imagine who it would be. Well, actually, I have a guess...

(Oh wait, that character’s dead already... never mind, lol)