The Mandalorian (Spoiler Thread)

[Veltigar]

Just got to see the last episode, and I'm so glad @Toth made his post already as it exactly spells out what I was thinking as well. For some reason I enjoyed this episode more than the others (the storm troopers in the beginning were really fun), but it still falls far short from what it could have been.

To add to @Toth list of nonsensical things in this episode, can we just take a second to appreciate the magical heeling spray which can fix a deadly brain injury within hours? Who even needs the special heeling powers they introduced to cover up RoS tracks in this world.

The way the siege was run was also utterly retarded. They send in one guy with a flamethrower, without any support? What the hell. And then the whole group just casually strolling through the maze of tunnels underneath to find female mandalorian instead of running for their lives. 

I also dislike how they completely wasted Werner Herzog. He's such an imposing presence, what a shame to send him off like they did in the last episode. 

On 12/27/2019 at 8:39 PM, Kalbear said:

Filoni loves that darksaber more than his children. 

I looked it up on Wookiepedia, it really seems lazy imo. Their used to be only three colours of lightsabers and ever since Samuel L. Jackson got his own colour we are now up to 6 different colours at the very least? Sometimes it is good to respect some creative boundaries, this is just lazy worldbuilding. 

[RumHam]

5 hours ago, Toth said:

Also I'm still confused about what the hell Moff Gideon's deal was. If he was trying to get the child alive, he did a terrible job at it. This episode confirmed that he thought the child was inside the cantina,

I don't think he ever thought the kid was in the cantina. He seems to indicate to Herzog that he should check the crib cause it wasn't there. Then this episode they speculate he's not just killing them all because he wants their help tracking down the kid. The timing was pretty unclear though. 

20 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I looked it up on Wookiepedia, it really seems lazy imo. Their used to be only three colours of lightsabers and ever since Samuel L. Jackson got his own colour we are now up to 6 different colours at the very least? Sometimes it is good to respect some creative boundaries, this is just lazy worldbuilding. 

The flat shape of it bothers me more than the color. 

[Toth]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

I don't think he ever thought the kid was in the cantina. He seems to indicate to Herzog that he should check the crib cause it wasn't there. Then this episode they speculate he's not just killing them all because he wants their help tracking down the kid. The timing was pretty unclear though. 

During the siege he was demanding to hand over the child so that he wouldn't have to storm the building. The phrasing at least to me sounded very much like he thought the child was inside. Yeah, I guess he was asking Herzog to check the crib last episode, but opened fire before he could even do so. It's all very confusing and I think the writers of these episodes had conflicting notions about this.

Which, come to think of it, makes IG's brillant notion of protecting the kid by having him strapped to his chest while taking hits from all sides during a firefight all the more ridiculous. Dude should have brought him back to the ship if he truly acted upon his main priority.

8 hours ago, Veltigar said:

To add to @Toth list of nonsensical things in this episode, can we just take a second to appreciate the magical heeling spray which can fix a deadly brain injury within hours?

Well, Bacta at least was always a thing and is often treated as instant-medikit in much of the side material. I at this point was fine with the Mando just being patched up enough to not die, but still being severely injured and just gritting his teeth throughout the rest of the episode. At least he wasn't needed to fight until the TIE attack run.

The Darksaber... well, even back in The Clone Wars I found it being an actual lightsaber exceedingly silly and would have preferred for it to be a cortosis-weaved vibroblade. That would spell out a lot more that it's a blade wielded by a non force user against force users. But even if you accept that it is an ancient lightsaber-ancestor (despite behaving more advanced than all modern ones), it is an absolute disgrace that it is now wielded by one of the most hilariously incompetent antagonists of all time.

[Veltigar]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

The flat shape of it bothers me more than the color. 

Didn't observe it well enough to see that, but I guess we can add that to the list of sins

2 minutes ago, Toth said:

Which, come to think of it, makes IG's brillant notion of protecting the kid by having him strapped to his chest while taking hits from all sides during a firefight all the more ridiculous. Dude should have brought him back to the ship if he truly acted upon his main priority.

Ah yes, I laughed at that as well.

3 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well, Bacta at least was always a thing and is often treated as instant-medikit in much of the side material. I at this point was fine with the Mando just being patched up enough to not die, but still being severely injured and just gritting his teeth throughout the rest of the episode. At least he wasn't needed to fight until the TIE attack run.

It's not because something is stupid in the side material, it is now okay to be stupid in the core story  

6 minutes ago, Toth said:

The Darksaber... well, even back in The Clone Wars I found it being an actual lightsaber exceedingly silly and would have preferred for it to be a cortosis-weaved vibroblade. That would spell out a lot more that it's a blade wielded by a non force user against force users. But even if you accept that it is an ancient lightsaber-ancestor (despite behaving more advanced than all modern ones), it is an absolute disgrace that it is now wielded by one of the most hilariously incompetent antagonists of all time.

This is also a trope that should stop. When in history does this ever happen? The one thing humans always innovate on are weapons.

[Toth]

Ah, also one thing I wanted to say the whole time: As stupid as it was in context to have the Mando blacksmith go on about ancient myths when taking about the Jedi instead of the very real one that just helped destroy the Empire, I think it might be because Filoni was this impatient to make Revan canon again. Because for crying out loud, the story she hinted at basically IS the one of Mandalore the Ultimate who was fighting Revan before he turned to the dark side. So maybe that was the idea here.

Still badly hurt the setting of course. Case in point I'm currently (still...) reading Heir to the Empire which would take place roughly at the same time. There is a funny scene where Luke is picked up after being stranded in deep space by the smuggler Talon Karrde and with Karrde immediately recognizing Luke, Luke is immediately on guard thinking (correctly) that he was sent by Imperials. But Karrde replies pretty drily by pointing to his lightsaber and going "You carry a lightsaber, so you are either obnoxiously confident in your fencing or are the last Jedi Luke Skywalker", making it clear that EVERYBODY knows who Luke Skywalker is, silly.

26 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

It's not because something is stupid in the side material, it is now okay to be stupid in the core story  

Fair point. But I was just saying that Bacta always behaved like this with Empire strikes back and Luke being in a whole tank of the stuff to fight off his hypothermia beingthe sole exception where it had to be used this excessively to take effect.

[GallowKnight]

The bit about Jedi as legends is especially silly when Mr Mando was orphaned during the Clone Wars, which very much featured Jedi in prominent roles and he was rescued by Death Watch Mandalorians, who fought Jedi during the Clone Wars.

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, GallowKnight said:

The bit about Jedi as legends is especially silly when Mr Mando was orphaned during the Clone Wars, which very much featured Jedi in prominent roles and he was rescued by Death Watch Mandalorians, who fought Jedi during the Clone Wars.

Yeah, the nonsense of the gang not even knowing what Jedi were was just that ... utter nonsense.

Also the overall setting which essentially (sort of) supports a right-wing agenda when the German Imperial guy actually has a point when pointing out that the destruction of the Empire actually led to more chaos and injustice that there was with the Empire in power.

And while I liked the ex-rebel shock trooper - she is also supporting that agenda, being not a good/idealistic person but rather somebody with more than checkered past who essentially has to hide because of an existent criminal record. That also makes the rebels not the good guys but pretty grey, using and exploiting every asset they can lay their hands on ... only to discard them once they have won. Which is a shame. And to make the woman from Alderaan of all places is even more ridiculous. The Alderaanians were supposedly not warriors/didn't have any weapons - but more importantly: Alderaan was a fucking core world. They definitely knew about the Jedi.

I'm also not sure how those trackers are supposed to work. Do we now have magical things that can lead you anywhere and find anything?

An Imperial who seems to have played a role in the destruction of Mandalore having the Darksaber sort of makes sense - Maul had it last and he might lose it at the end of the Clone Wars.

Aside from that - I liked the cast, the overall feeling, and especially that episode about the prison ship which featured three alien guys. That's how the main cast should have been. The shock trooper could also have been an alien, as could have been the head bounty hunter. In fact, even the Mando himself could have been non-human considering that the entire point is that they take in orphans.

In general, though, the show was fun to watch.

Not sure, though, about clone Yoda and the point of that. Him being a baby for 50 years also feels sort of weird. I mean, if he is 900 at the time of his death and we translate that to human 90, then a 50-year-old Yoda would have been around, say 4-5. And that should have allowed him to at least speak. Also, does that mean Yoda was a youngling for a hundred years, and a padawan for another century? That just feels weird.

Also - shouldn't a Yoda (especially if he were the kind of clone Palpatine is (going to be)) remember who and what he is - and then be with the good guys in the new movies?

[Corvinus85]

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And while I liked the ex-rebel shock trooper - she is also supporting that agenda, being not a good/idealistic person but rather somebody with more than checkered past who essentially has to hide because of an existent criminal record. That also makes the rebels not the good guys but pretty grey, using and exploiting every asset they can lay their hands on ... only to discard them once they have won. Which is a shame. And to make the woman from Alderaan of all places is even more ridiculous. The Alderaanians were supposedly not warriors/didn't have any weapons - but more importantly: Alderaan was a fucking core world. They definitely knew about the Jedi.

Kinda like the rebels in Rogue One, no? I don't think this is so bad. Given that she's from Alderaan, I wish they had written her with more fiery anger towards Imperials. Sure, the moment she's told the Mando is going against an Imperial, she joins up, but it's all acted and written really low key.

There were Alderaanians who joined various part of the Imperial military. Most turned against the Empire once Alderaan was destroyed.

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

An Imperial who seems to have played a role in the destruction of Mandalore having the Darksaber sort of makes sense - Maul had it last and he might lose it at the end of the Clone Wars.

The darksaber re-appears in Star Wars Rebels, and the last character to have it is a Mandalorian, who was trying to re-unite Mandalore. So, indeed, it does make sense that a guy who presided over the purge of Mandalore to have it.

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Not sure, though, about clone Yoda and the point of that. Him being a baby for 50 years also feels sort of weird. I mean, if he is 900 at the time of his death and we translate that to human 90, then a 50-year-old Yoda would have been around, say 4-5. And that should have allowed him to at least speak. Also, does that mean Yoda was a youngling for a hundred years, and a padawan for another century? That just feels weird.

Also - shouldn't a Yoda (especially if he were the kind of clone Palpatine is (going to be)) remember who and what he is - and then be with the good guys in the new movies?

When baby Yoda is found, IG-11 mentions that different species can have different growth rates, so we can't necessarily equivalate with human growth. But I don't necessarily disagree with you, even though in this form the cuteness factor is at maximum.

In episode 7, Kuiil says that the child doesn't look engineered, and apparently he had experience with some of that. It is possible the child is a clone, but an unaltered one, like Boba Fett. In that case, it might not have any memory, other than some genetic memory, which is why maybe it is to in tune with the Force. But, interesting that you're calling it a clone. The doctor from the first 2 episodes had an insignia on his uniform indicative of the Kamino cloning facilities. 

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Kinda like the rebels in Rogue One, no? I don't think this is so bad. Given that she's from Alderaan, I wish they had written her with more fiery anger towards Imperials. Sure, the moment she's told the Mando is going against an Imperial, she joins up, but it's all acted and written really low key.

I've no issue with some rebels being darker characters (really like Kyle Katarn, for example), but overall the Rebellion as an organization shouldn't have been this dark - I mean, Rogue One is sort of a joke with Mon Mothma being pretty toothless and the formal leadership not even being willing to start a proper war/uprising even with the Death Star nearing completion. The plan to steal the plans should have been made and lead by actual rebel operatives who knew what they were doing and why - not a bunch of amateurs.

Having some amateurs in the team would have been fine, especially if they knew stuff, but as I recall pretty much none were.

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

There were Alderaanians who joined various part of the Imperial military. Most turned against the Empire once Alderaan was destroyed.

Yeah, but that's old EU, no? Although I think General Rieekan was Alderaanian, too. Tycho Celchu from the X-Wing novels as well.

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

The darksaber re-appears in Star Wars Rebels, and the last character to have it is a Mandalorian, who was trying to re-unite Mandalore. So, indeed, it does make sense that a guy who presided over the purge of Mandalore to have it.

Right, forgot that. Really have to rewatch Rebels these days. The new TCW next year should also cover the fall of Maul's regime on Mandalore - perhaps the Darksaber also shows up then.

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

When baby Yoda is found, IG-11 mentions that different species can have different growth rates, so we can't necessarily equivalate with human growth. But I don't necessarily disagree with you, even though in this form the cuteness factor is at maximum.

Sure, I caught those lines. Just find the setup very weird. I'd have expected Yoda not to be fully grown in the same time as a human but the idea that it might take him centuries to become an adult it makes this thing somewhat ridiculous.

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

In episode 7, Kuiil says that the child doesn't look engineered, and apparently he had experience with some of that. It is possible the child is a clone, but an unaltered one, like Boba Fett. In that case, it might not have any memory, other than some genetic memory, which is why maybe it is to in tune with the Force. But, interesting that you're calling it a clone. The doctor from the first 2 episodes had an insignia on his uniform indicative of the Kamino cloning facilities. 

I'd find it very strange if a baby could control the Force to the degree the Yoda creature does. That seems to indicate that he has some memories about how this is done. Just because you have a great Force potential doesn't necessarily mean you can pull of the kind of thing this creature does as a baby.

I imagine the entire operation has something to do with bringing back Palpatine - who also retained his memory, so chances are not that bad that the real Yoda has been 'resurrected', too, via cloning.

[RumHam]

Yoda says at one point he's been training Jedi for 800 years. So yeah if the baby is fifty it should be a bit more developed. But if it was created 50 years ago and then put in suspended animation or carbon frozen that makes a lot more sense. 

[Corvinus85]

We don't even know yet why the child was in that pirate den. Hopefully, we get some clues next season. I'm wondering whether Mando will search and accidentally stumble in the wrong thing. Based on his discussion with the armorer, he may start looking for Jedi, instead of the child's species and homeworld. And given that Star Wars Rebels left us with some big question as to the fate of some of its main characters, I'm thinking there's a chance we'll get some of those characters in live action.

[RumHam]

18 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

We don't even know yet why the child was in that pirate den. Hopefully, we get some clues next season. I'm wondering whether Mando will search and accidentally stumble in the wrong thing. Based on his discussion with the armorer, he may start looking for Jedi, instead of the child's species and homeworld. And given that Star Wars Rebels left us with some big question as to the fate of some of its main characters, I'm thinking there's a chance we'll get some of those characters in live action.

There's a helmet that looks a lot like Sabine's in that pile.

But hey maybe they just confiscated it from her when they found out she'd been taking it off all the time. 

Or it's just an easter egg. 

[Lord Varys]

30 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Yoda says at one point he's been training Jedi for 800 years. So yeah if the baby is fifty it should be a bit more developed. But if it was created 50 years ago and then put in suspended animation or carbon frozen that makes a lot more sense. 

Yeah, that way it could make more sense. But I'm not sure if they would be able to conclude it was about fifty years old if it had been frozen part of the time.

26 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

We don't even know yet why the child was in that pirate den. Hopefully, we get some clues next season. I'm wondering whether Mando will search and accidentally stumble in the wrong thing. Based on his discussion with the armorer, he may start looking for Jedi, instead of the child's species and homeworld. And given that Star Wars Rebels left us with some big question as to the fate of some of its main characters, I'm thinking there's a chance we'll get some of those characters in live action.

Him actually looking for 'the Jedi' would be a joke. He cannot be as stupid as to not know - or figure out in a couple of minutes - that the order was eradicated by the Emperor. Also, it is utter nonsense that the Mandalorians wouldn't mention things about their history to their own - which does feature the Jedi rather heavily, not to mention our Alderaanian rebel shock trooper. Did she never hear about Luke Skywalker? The guy who blew up the Death Star who destroyed her home world? A fucking rebel hero?

Essentially Mando and the entire gang should have immediately figured out what the Yoda creature may be and what it was using to pull off its stunts. Mando because of Mandalorian talk, the rebel woman because of what she knew about Luke and Leia and the crimes of the Empire in the past, the Ugnaught because of his age, and the droid because of his programming/access to data.

It is, perhaps, believable that people cut off from the rest of the galaxy/unable to leave their (native) planets are somewhat sceptical about what happened elsewhere, but unless they don't have any interaction with the larger galaxy they must have heard some stories about what, say, the Jedi should be.

Having them eventually hook up with Ezra and/or stumbling on Thrawn could be a nice thing. In fact, if this show were to lead into a Thrawn trilogy scenario with returning with a pretty big fleet and a good strategy this could work pretty well.

[Kalbear]

People not knowing shit about what happened in star wars is both one of the most consistent things throughout the entire product and one of the stupidest things about the entire product. 

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

People not knowing shit about what happened in star wars is both one of the most consistent things throughout the entire product and one of the stupidest things about the entire product. 

That's definitely not a part of the PT movies. Even the Tatooinians in TPM know about the Republic and the Jedi, no?

Han mocks the Jedi philosophy in ANH, he never ridicules their abilities or powers - although he likely never met a living Jedi and might have some uninformed doubts about what they actually could do.

Aside from that I only remember such nonsense in the new movies.

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That's definitely not a part of the PT movies. Even the Tatooinians in TPM know about the Republic and the Jedi, no?

They know vaguely of them, but only a couple know who they are. The trade federation fears them tremendously and stupidly. But at the same time, they dont know who syfo-dyas is, they are confused about Sidious, they barely question about the origin of the clones, they dont know about Kamino and have to ask some random dude about it, they dont understand the prophecy, they dont bother asking about where anakin came from...

Theres a lot of uncurious motherfucker syndrome. 

12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Han mocks the Jedi philosophy in ANH, he never ridicules their abilities or powers - although he likely never met a living Jedi and might have some uninformed doubts about what they actually could do.

He literally says "I call it luck" - how is that not ridiculing the power? And the empire officers call it a dead religion and joke about it openly in front of vader!

 

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They know vaguely of them, but only a couple know who they are.

Which I think makes sense considering the remoteness of Tatooine.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The trade federation fears them tremendously and stupidly.

They do deal with galactic affairs on a much larger level.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

But at the same time, they dont know who syfo-dyas is, they are confused about Sidious, they barely question about the origin of the clones, they dont know about Kamino and have to ask some random dude about it, they dont understand the prophecy, they dont bother asking about where anakin came from...

Kamino is not part of the Republic, in fact, it is not even in the same galaxy as the Republic: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kamino

The Jedi did know about it, but Dooku or Sifo-Dyas or some guy erased it from the Jedi Archives. It being as remote as it is definitely explains why the Jedi have to investigate things. Random dude is very poorly introduced but actually happened to be a guy who had expertise on the worlds at the very fringe of the galaxy. And it is hardly surprising that Obi-Wan would turn to such a guy once he had no other leads.

Prophecies are always stupid plot devices, them not making sense is not that surprising. The problem there is that the thing is not really properly set up or discussed.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He literally says "I call it luck" - how is that not ridiculing the power? And the empire officers call it a dead religion and joke about it openly in front of vader!

One can interpret that as Han merely not buying that the Force gives a damn about what you do or is going to shape your destiny/help you make the right decisions. Not to mention the whole bantering context of the entire exchange. If Obi-Wan or Luke suddenly threw people around with the Force Han would not just say that didn't happen or was some strange luck.

The Imperial officers seem to be just ignorant - but then, we don't know how open Vader is with his entire Sith allegiance or how often he does pull Force stunts at the conference table. From what I know the fact that the Emperor was both a Force user and a Sith was never public knowledge. And Vader, too, is never addreased as a Sith Lord in the movies - he is merely 'Lord Vader', which could just as well be noble title or honorific.

The first time when everybody seems to know what the Sith are - and there being Sith cultists, a Sith language, a secret Sith planet, and other such nonsense - is the TROS. And that's written by people who are basically ripping off Star Wars EU themes.

Having TROS rehash that stupid conference scene from ANH was also utter nonsense, now that I recall that scene. The Empire was run by two Sith with enormous Force powers in the OT, the First Order was later run by two quasi-Sith with enormous Force powers who also had a number of Force sensitives 'knights of Ren' goons, and then the leader of the Empire is revealed to have returned from fucking death and there is still a moron who tries to paint such stunts as, well, pointless religion.

[karaddin]

Honestly one of the biggest "this makes no sense" things about the SW Galaxy is why there are so many people trying to live on planets like Tatooine, Jakku and ice planets similar to Hoth when there are so many fertile planets with negligible population density. You can argue it from a "they're stuck on the planet with no way to go somewhere better" but why would they go there in the first place?

Because it's Star Wars so I shrug and go with it. But if I were picking nits that would be a big one.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Honestly one of the biggest "this makes no sense" things about the SW Galaxy is why there are so many people trying to live on planets like Tatooine, Jakku and ice planets similar to Hoth when there are so many fertile planets with negligible population density. You can argue it from a "they're stuck on the planet with no way to go somewhere better" but why would they go there in the first place?

Because it's Star Wars so I shrug and go with it. But if I were picking nits that would be a big one.

Why do people stay in California where the cost of living is double other parts of the country?  Why do people stay in dying coal towns in Appalachia when there are jobs to be had elsewhere?

People live where they live.  

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Why do people stay in California where the cost of living is double other parts of the country?  Why do people stay in dying coal towns in Appalachia when there are jobs to be had elsewhere?

People live where they live.  

I agree with you. I made some major life decisions choosing not to live in places I couldnt handle, and I lost a lot in each case.

Specific to Star Wars movies, they definitely show hostile environment planets far more than say a simple luscious temperate idyllic planet of happy Star Warsians. Deserts and violent ocean worlds are just way cooler.