I suspect that the Thrawn mention will come into play next season. Wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t see Ahsoka again until then.
Upon reflection, I was really impressed how this episode felt like every kind of Star Wars coming together in a unified whole and not feeling disjointed. PT (Clone Wars, Corouscant), OT (Yoda, explaining the Force, McQuarrie-ism), ST (the village, the guards), cartoons (Ahsoka, Thrawn), and EU (Thrawn, imperial remnants, Tython): it all felt like it belonged together.
Will be interesting to see how and when they get to Tython, and how that affects the show. It’s a Core World iirc, and this show has been very based in one corner of the Outer Rim. If we assume that S2 will conclude with dark troopers & Gideon, possibly with a kidnapping Grogu cliffhanger, then S3 is set up for traveling to Tython.
How did the village and the guards remind you of the ST exactly? Just outta curiosity.
Fair question. Although we saw some on Tatooine in TPM & AOTC, I feel like average street scenes with townspeople and vendors make me think of the ST. The guards voices reminded me of Kylo Ren’s mask voice, and the way that their uniforms represented a sort of Empire-reimagined (similar insignia & weapons, but localized and altered) gave me ST vibes.
Only three episodes left. Who is the next director? We still haven’t seen episodes from Robert Rodriguez or Rick Famuyiwa. I’m guessing either Filoni or Favreau directs another.
I wonder if they’d ever get George to direct an episode?
ZkinandBonez said:
And this might be a bit of a stretch, but the gas-mask soldiers reminded me a lot of the soldiers from Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards.
Yesss, I totally see this now that you mention it, as well as the Mononoke vibes.
I definitely got Princess Mononoke vibes as well, and it was a good, evocative location.
Agree with RL in that the show is starting to feel disjointed in its desire to set up so many bigger players.
One issue that I have had with Filoni’s work in the past is that the main characters of his shows almost never feel like they are in danger, even when up against superior forces. I hoped that this problem would have been fixed by live action, but it seems to be getting worse. For example, twice in S2E4 the Empire’s ships had target lock on our protagonists yet they never managed to hit them, and in the latest episode there was not tension whatsoever that Mando and Ahsoka would clean house with this random town. I don’t know why Ahsoka hadn’t already dealt with them, honestly. Her final fight with the Magistrate could have ended in two seconds with her two lightsabers, and Mando’s fight with the enforcer could have ended sooner since he has blasterproof Beskar.
Finally, it was a nice change of pace for S1 to take a slower pace with the plot and fill it out with a bunch of side-quests, but in the middle of S2 I’m getting pretty tired of ‘Mando tries to do _ but problems arise and he ends up doing _ for the episode’. Rinse, repeat half a dozen times. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so often ‘Mando goes to a planet seeking someone and has to fix a problem for them before they can regurgitate a new destination.’
I don’t mean to be too harsh on this show, since it has a lot going for it. But these issues are endemic across Filoni’s shows, and it’s becoming too much to ignore.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
I definitely got Princess Mononoke vibes as well, and it was a good, evocative location.
Agree with RL in that the show is starting to feel disjointed in its desire to set up so many bigger players.
One issue that I have had with Filoni’s work in the past is that the main characters of his shows almost never feel like they are in danger, even when up against superior forces. I hoped that this problem would have been fixed by live action, but it seems to be getting worse. For example, twice in S2E4 the Empire’s ships had target lock on our protagonists yet they never managed to hit them, and in the latest episode there was not tension whatsoever that Mando and Ahsoka would clean house with this random town. I don’t know why Ahsoka hadn’t already dealt with them, honestly. Her final fight with the Magistrate could have ended in two seconds with her two lightsabers, and Mando’s fight with the enforcer could have ended sooner since he has blasterproof Beskar.
Finally, it was a nice change of pace for S1 to take a slower pace with the plot and fill it out with a bunch of side-quests, but in the middle of S2 I’m getting pretty tired of ‘Mando tries to do _ but problems arise and he ends up doing _ for the episode’. Rinse, repeat half a dozen times. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so often ‘Mando goes to a planet seeking someone and has to fix a problem for them before they can regurgitate a new destination.’
I don’t mean to be too harsh on this show, since it has a lot going for it. But these issues are endemic across Filoni’s shows, and it’s becoming too much to ignore.
I’d direct most of that criticism down Favreau’s way. He the showrunner and writer.
Peace is a lie
There is only passion…
Finally, it was a nice change of pace for S1 to take a slower pace with the plot and fill it out with a bunch of side-quests, but in the middle of S2 I’m getting pretty tired of ‘Mando tries to do _ but problems arise and he ends up doing _ for the episode’. Rinse, repeat half a dozen times. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so often ‘Mando goes to a planet seeking someone and has to fix a problem for them before they can regurgitate a new destination.’
Yeah, I agree. At least season 1 had some variation in the structure, with no episodes really having the same plot. But with season 2, every single episode is just that basic plot you described, repeated endlessly. By the time Ahsoka sent Mando to some random Jedi temple, I just groaned and said “Not again.” The show is still fun, don’t get me wrong, but it’s getting really repetitive.
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
I definitely got Princess Mononoke vibes as well, and it was a good, evocative location.
Agree with RL in that the show is starting to feel disjointed in its desire to set up so many bigger players.
One issue that I have had with Filoni’s work in the past is that the main characters of his shows almost never feel like they are in danger, even when up against superior forces. I hoped that this problem would have been fixed by live action, but it seems to be getting worse. For example, twice in S2E4 the Empire’s ships had target lock on our protagonists yet they never managed to hit them, and in the latest episode there was not tension whatsoever that Mando and Ahsoka would clean house with this random town. I don’t know why Ahsoka hadn’t already dealt with them, honestly. Her final fight with the Magistrate could have ended in two seconds with her two lightsabers, and Mando’s fight with the enforcer could have ended sooner since he has blasterproof Beskar.
Finally, it was a nice change of pace for S1 to take a slower pace with the plot and fill it out with a bunch of side-quests, but in the middle of S2 I’m getting pretty tired of ‘Mando tries to do _ but problems arise and he ends up doing _ for the episode’. Rinse, repeat half a dozen times. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so often ‘Mando goes to a planet seeking someone and has to fix a problem for them before they can regurgitate a new destination.’
I don’t mean to be too harsh on this show, since it has a lot going for it. But these issues are endemic across Filoni’s shows, and it’s becoming too much to ignore.
I’d direct most of that criticism down Favreau’s way. He the showrunner and writer.
I agree, but this season has really felt like a Filoni show so far. This is Favreau’s first foray into writing in the action/adventure/fantasy genre so maybe he is leaning into Filoni, with his star wars background, a little too much. Or maybe it is just a lack of experience.
This sounds like I don’t like Filoni’s shows which isn’t the case. I like Rebels and Clone Wars, but the individual episodes are generally more simple in structure and scope and that works for the 20 minute timeslot. This also means if an episode is a dud it’s a only a little bit of your time.
And thats where the problem lies at the moment. These episodes feel like Rebels episodes that are stretched out to fit a longer run time, so the pacing is awful. Oh and the characters just aren’t really much fun compared to Rebels. It’s not really working for me at the moment.
Honestly, I think bringing on another creator who is just a professional writer would help the show a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the show, and I loved the last episode on a visual level. The writing just feels very simplistic, but I believe this show has so much more potential.
I really like the episodic nature of the show, but as I’ve said multiple times in this thread before, I’m fairly old school and not a fan of modern 100 hour movies chopped up in 45 min parts type of narratives that have been so common since GOT. I’d be completely on board with a live action version of the formula used by TCW where each episode tells its own partially connected or completely stand-alone narrative following multiple characters across the SW galaxy. As there is some plot development regarding Grogu in The Mandalorian I don’t mind if most episodes focus on their own little mini narrative on some new planet with new characters (to most viewers anyway). The great thing about the SW galaxy to me is that there’s so many potential small-scale stories to be told and that’s why I’ve loved this season. I like the idea of Din and Grogu being the throughline in all of these mini stories; such as Cobb Vanth teaming up with the Tuskens to kill the Krayt Dragon or Ahsoka freeing the town on Corvus. Ditto on season 1 episodes like Sanctuary and The Prisoner. And so far in season 2 we’ve had two episodes that mostly deal with the main story arc, and we have three episodes left, so I don’t think this season will be too different from season 1. Obviously season 1 introduced the main conflict with Grogu in multiple episodes, so they didn’t have too much time for self-contained stories, but overall I think it’s been quite consistent. And we don’t know what their plans are for the next couple of seasons, so when the show is over we might even have more “plot episodes” than “filler episodes”.
I still suspect that this show is going to be very similar to Rebels in that the first season was fairly self-contained, season two went all over the galaxy and introduced a lot of familiar characters, and then season three became more focused and gradually built up to the last season which was pretty much one long story arc divided into episodes. That might not be to everyone’s taste, but I’m on board with that.
Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.
^^^ 100% agreement! ^^^
Only three episodes left. Who is the next director? We still haven’t seen episodes from Robert Rodriguez or Rick Famuyiwa. I’m guessing either Filoni or Favreau directs another.
Famuyiwa is listed as the writer of Chapter 15 so it’s likely he’ll direct that one as he both wrote and directed Chapter 6 last season). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mandalorian#Season_2_(2020) I wonder if this means they’ll bring back Mayfeld, Xi’an and Burg? Though it seems a bit odd for the second-to-last episode of the season to bring back this particular story-thread, so maybe they’re saving them for another season. Either way though, I’m glad to see Famuyiwa direct at least one episode as his two were among my favourites from the last season.
I’d completely forgotten that Rodriguez was confirmed to direct an episode so now I’m really curious too. Chapter 14 & 16 are both written by Favreau, so it could be either of them. Just a guess really, but Waititi was the “biggest” director in season 1 so maybe they’ve similarly saved the season 2 finale for Rodriguez?
Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.
I love the variant on the main theme that is playing near the end while Grogu is sleeping. Goransson consistently knocking it out of the par at every turn, even briefly referencing John Williams at appropriate times. I really with these soundtracks were available on disc.
I sure wouldn’t mind if they stopped in to Maz’s castle at some point, but I doubt they will.
I’m still waiting for a stop off at Black Spire outpost. =P
I’d completely forgotten that Rodriguez was confirmed to direct an episode so now I’m really curious too. Chapter 14 & 16 are both written by Favreau, so it could be either of them. Just a guess really, but Waititi was the “biggest” director in season 1 so maybe they’ve similarly saved the season 2 finale for Rodriguez?
I was hoping Michael Biehn would be in the Robert Rodfiguez episode and they’d have something more significant for him in mind, but still looking forward to seeing what RR does. I like having different directors to bring a little variety to the series. Still wondering if they will eventually surprise us with a George Lucas episode. I wouldn’t mind a Rian Johnson episode either. I wonder if they’d be interested in some really big names taking a turn.
If there was a BTS footage of Rosario becoming Ahsoka Tano and the timelapse of it, I wanted to see different BTS photos of her transformation.
Maz’s Castle would totally work as a place to visit on the way to Tython or wherever
If there was a BTS footage of Rosario becoming Ahsoka Tano and the timelapse of it, I wanted to see different BTS photos of her transformation.
It’s confirmed we’ll be getting another season of The Gallery once this season of Mando is over. I imagine they’ll definitely cover that there.
The clone trooper helmet and the Fulcrum logo is a nice touch. I think this is the first character poster to include little easter eggs.
https://www.starwars.com/news/mando-download-chapter-13-the-jedi
Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.
This Vanity Fair interview with Rosario Dawson and Dave Filoni pretty much covers everything I would have wanted it to! From how Dave feels about the transition to live action, to why he chose a burnt-out, bleak forest over the lush Endor-like planet I was expecting (basically: he lives in Northern California, alongside forest fires), to how he views Ahsoka at this point in the timeline. It even covers the allegations of a transphobic attack made against Rosario and her family. I’d still prefer definitive answers to that, but we might have to be satisfied with Rosario’s vague explanation and insistence that it never took place.
I’ve been waiting to hear from Dave and this article is it. For those like SandMTV wondering about Rosario’s makeup process, it covers that too.
“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”
The first two episodes were nice and cozy for some reason. It was just nice to get back to these guys. The volcano lair was fun but left me wondering why those characters aren’t used more. The last two… are fine. But like everyone already said it’s getting bogged down in spin-off teasers that lead nowhere right now. I don’t care about these Clone Wars characters and devoting so much time to them doing flips etc. feels like a mistake. I also feel like the reveal of Beskar being blaster and sabre proof is a bad idea. Why ever take cover from the troopers? If they follow the S1 formula though the next one will be a filler episode, and the last two will be the good stuff.
Din isn’t completely covered by beskar; he could still be shot in various soft areas, or beheaded, or otherwise dismembered, or stabbed in the side etc.
Sure and he also nearly died in the siege from S1. But the scene where he just takes a bomb and dives head first into all the blaster fire was really dumb, and it drains the suspense from any quick draw duel scenes.
so , do you think we will finally get to see Thrawn in live action in this series ? If so , who would be the best choice to play him ? I always picture James Bond era Pierce Brosnan in the role when I read the original Thrawn trilogy from the early 90s . Whoever should play him , I hope those arches on his forehead from the animated Rebels show are not incorporated into his look . No McThrawn please .
so , do you think we will finally get to see Thrawn in live action in this series ? If so , who would be the best choice to play him ? I always picture James Bond era Pierce Brosnan in the role when I read the original Thrawn trilogy from the early 90s.
This may be common knowledge, but Jason Palmer - in his 2019 SW Celebration mural - would agree…
I don’t think we’ll see live-action Thrawn in The Mandalorian, because it would ruin the opportunity for the Star Wars Rebels sequel story that’s been set up (same goes for live-action Ezra Bridger - I can’t see it happening), but if any show could pull off a good live-action version of the character, this is it. My vote is for Lars Mikkelsen because he provided such a chilling and iconic voice in Rebels; a few prosthetics maybe on a sharper chin, and he’s there.
“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”