Star Wars: Go home (M)Ando(r), the Zillo Beast Is Back (Again!)

[Corvinus85]

The Darksaber plot is weak from the perspective of Din having never mastered it. It would have been a much stronger moment if Din surrendered the saber to whom he saw as the rightful wielder after he had mastered it himself. Doing it now feels a bit of a cop out.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

That episode was incredibly “meh”.

[mormont]

I think this episode was trying to do a thing and wasn't... unsuccessful? It illustrated some of the themes of the season, for sure. (It was also better directed than some of the past eps: Bryce Dallas Howard is really good.)

The opening, with Romeo Calamari and Quarren Juliet, is obviously alluding to being hidebound by tradition, and the handover of the Darksaber (though it could have been done better) is Din reinterpreting a Mandalorian tradition to do the sensible thing. It follows a ritual battle, again tradition, that doesn't do much to resolve the actual problem at hand and the whole episode follows a situation where the Armourer again decides to update and amend tradition to serve the greater good.

In between, we get a story that calls back to the episode with Pershing by featuring an Imperial convert, and that makes that whole plotline concrete by showing how he literally has reprogrammed Imperial droids. There's an uncomfortable bit of 'we actually sympathise with our oppressors' in there, but the thing I think they were trying to highlight was how the droids are worried about being replaced because they're old fashioned but they have adapted to new ways and serve a useful purpose. Then that's contrasted with Christopher Lloyd's character, who's extremely old school (a Separatist!) but has not adapted: instead he's trying to force the clock back. 

So there's bits in there about tradition, that old things can have value but only if they freely adapt to the new circumstances, and maybe even that the New Republic fails because it's trying to force people into new ways but also that forcing people to stay in the old ways is bad. I think there's a theme emerging there that you can trace to the bits about Din going to Mandalore to bathe in the waters, and maybe a suggestion that the Mandalorians will find that reestablishing themselves on Mandalore is the wrong option and they need to adapt their ways to live together in a new home. Though that's a lot for two episodes to resolve. But I see what they're trying to do, I think.

[sifth]

I'm not going to lie; the middle of this episode reminded me of Scooby Doo for some daft reason. Maybe it was the celebrity cameos, all surrounding a mystery; half of me was expecting the Harlem Globetrotters to show up, at one point. Also what was Christopher Lloyd's goal again? I just could not understand that part of the episode.

[Rhom]

I felt like Lloyds goal was to shake up the status quo where humans didn’t know how to take care of themselves. 

[hauberk]

I was fine with most of the episode. The only real issue I had was the droid morgue. 

[Denvek]

Are droids people? Is it morally right to own them? You know Star Wars is never going to fully engage with that question and each individual Star Wars product is going to position itself in a new place on the sliding scale of droid sentience, but this one was weird. The actions of the super-battle-droid running from the Mandos because it doesn't want to die, and the existence of a droid bar slides it right up towards the "droids are real people with true sentience" end of the scale, but all the humans (and even the droids in the bar) seemed to just accept that droids aren't people and don't have the same rights as organics. Slightly immersion breaking for me.

The ending was obvious from the choices of what they showed in the "previously on" segment, but it was still a fun and enjoyable journey to the obvious destination.

[Kalbear]

The ending very much had the vibe and reaction of the "Padme is actually Queen Amidala" scene from Phantom Menace. I get what they were trying for, but it largely didn't land. 

[Slurktan]

9 hours ago, mormont said:

I think this episode was trying to do a thing and wasn't... unsuccessful? It illustrated some of the themes of the season, for sure. (It was also better directed than some of the past eps: Bryce Dallas Howard is really good.)

 

I mean that chase certainly wasn't directed well.  Unless you think perp and Bo running in  fairly straight line can be caught by Din making two rights and a left as a shortcut. YMMV

Otherwise for once I quite liked the episode.  However its becoming quite clear that they were forced to bring Grogu back early.  There has been no purpose for him in anything other than failing to rescue Din in the Mandalore ep(which could have been done by the droid I might add) and calming a rancor in Boba fett which wasn't needed whatsoever (as Boba should have just got Slave 1).

 

EDIT I laughed quite a bit that Grogu got knighted for helping rich lady by cheating.  Good message for the kiddos Disney!

 

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Denvek said:

Are droids people? Is it morally right to own them? You know Star Wars is never going to fully engage with that question and each individual Star Wars product is going to position itself in a new place on the sliding scale of droid sentience, but this one was weird. The actions of the super-battle-droid running from the Mandos because it doesn't want to die, and the existence of a droid bar slides it right up towards the "droids are real people with true sentience" end of the scale, but all the humans (and even the droids in the bar) seemed to just accept that droids aren't people and don't have the same rights as organics. Slightly immersion breaking for me.

The ending was obvious from the choices of what they showed in the "previously on" segment, but it was still a fun and enjoyable journey to the obvious destination.

I've always thought the answer to this was the Jedi. If the Jedi can discern the connection between living things and the Force, and droids do not exist in the Force, then they are canonically non-sentient and un-selfaware, no matter how anthropomorphised they appear, and everyone has known that for thousands of years.

I think some of the novels did dwell on that as an idea, but the shows so far have not.

[felice]

4 hours ago, Denvek said:

all the humans (and even the droids in the bar) seemed to just accept that droids aren't people and don't have the same rights as organics.

They do seem to have the same rights as Ugnaughts...

[Maltaran]

 

[Toth]

I said before that the Ahsoka show should just scrap all pretensions and just be a pragmatic adaptation of the Thrawn trilogy, but that "as heir to the Empire" line still made me cringe so hard.

Andor was just a fluke, wasn't it?

[Werthead]

Ray Winstone as a Joruus C'boath analogue character is an interesting idea.

Cool to see Sabine in live action, she works, but I'm not sure on Hera so far.

Seeing Lothal in live action is fun.

This is going to very heavily rely on who is playing Thrawn.

I think the World Between Worlds is a very iffy idea to bring into Star Wars (which I don't think should even be thinking about time travel) and I'm not in love with them bringing it into the live action part of the story.

[Toth]

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think the World Between Worlds is a very iffy idea to bring into Star Wars (which I don't think should even be thinking about time travel) and I'm not in love with them bringing it into the live action part of the story.

If it's used as an excuse to undo the sequel trilogy, I'm sure there are a lot of people who wouldn't be too concerned about that...

Also if this is Joruus C'Baoth, I'm missing the pulpy shirtless scenes. XD

[Relic]

42 minutes ago, Werthead said:

.

I think the World Between Worlds is a very iffy idea to bring into Star Wars (which I don't think should even be thinking about time travel) and I'm not in love with them bringing it into the live action part of the story.

What is the WbW? 

[Corvinus85]

51 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Ray Winstone as a Joruus C'boath analogue character is an interesting idea.

Cool to see Sabine in live action, she works, but I'm not sure on Hera so far.

Seeing Lothal in live action is fun.

This is going to very heavily rely on who is playing Thrawn.

I think the World Between Worlds is a very iffy idea to bring into Star Wars (which I don't think should even be thinking about time travel) and I'm not in love with them bringing it into the live action part of the story.

Ray Winstone is in this? Or were you talking about Stevenson?

The trailer looked interesting and I agree that it's great to see live action Lothal.

the WbW is definitely risky. Based on the trailer I'm going to predict Stevenson plays an old Sith who got stuck in the WbW and Ahsoka accidentally releases.

[Toth]

4 minutes ago, Relic said:

What is the WbW? 

Some Force voodoo place introduced in the final episodes of Rebels as a place where you can travel to different places in time. It's implied Ahsoka had been initially killed when left behind dueling Vader, but Ezra used it to snatch her away. Don't think too hard about it...

[Werthead]

Obviously we have Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka and she is joined from Rebels by Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, an unrecognisable Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger (who only appears as a hologram in the story) and (probably) Dave Filoni as the Voice of Chopper. The Ghost itself also probably reappears (yaaaay), although we only see the detachable fighter bit of it in this trailer. After his appearance in The Mandalorian, I would say an appearance by Zeb (Steve Blum) is also very likely.

Ray Stevenson is playing someone called Baylan. The blonde-haired pilot and lightsaber-wielder's characters is unnamed, but she is played by Ivanna Sakhno, a Ukrainian actress who previously appeared in Pacific Rim as one of the mech pilots. They both have orange lightsabres, so are probably evil-ish.

Genevieve O'Reilly is back as Mon Mothma, who aging regime is looking lit (this is 14 years after her appearances in Andor and 28 years after her appearance in Revenge of the Sith). This is also her first appearance in the timeline after Caroline Blakiston's portrayal of the character in Return of the Jedi (hopefully we don't get someone trying to replace her in Return of the Jedi with O'Reilly via CGI; many more Bothans would die from shock).

David Tennant is playing Huyang, the droid in the trailer who was previously in The Clone Wars as a lightsaber-crafting droid.

No word on whom is playing Thrawn yet, although I see zero reason why it wouldn't be Lars Mikkelsen, unless he's unavailable or allergic to blue paint (he has said recently that he was not offered the chance to return, but that could be BS).

14 minutes ago, Relic said:

What is the WbW? 

It's a dimensional interchange located under an ancient Jedi Temple on Lothal. It allows people to pass through moments in time.

It's iffy on how it works, but in Rebels Darth Vader seems to have originally killed Ahsoka Tano in combat, but later on Ezra Bridger used the WbW to pluck Ahsoka out of that timeline and into his. She then laid low for years to make sure she didn't do anything to disrupt the timeline, only re-emerging after Vader's death at Endor.

I really dislike Star Wars fucking around with time travel, that's really something most SF shows handle badly and it's much more Star Trek's wheelhouse. Star Wars completely avoided it up until the WbW was introduced, and whilst it was a very minor element in an animated show only part of the fanbase watched, it could kind of be downplayed. Not any more, by the look o fit.

[Werthead]