The Mandalorian - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS * — Page 40

Did anyone else wonder why Boba Fett seemed to hate stormtroopers so much in this episode? He looked like there was a lot of anger behind it every time he hit a trooper with his gaffi stick.

Rodney-2187 said:

I’m still in shock over the Razor Crest! I mean, we’re pretty certain Grogu is going to get rescued, but the Razor Crest is dust! I thought it was a signature part of the show. I guess nothing is guaranteed. Don’t get too attached to anything!

StarWarsExplained made an interesting observation that blowing up the ship and Din’s home might be meant to show that he has to change and evolve as he moves forward. A lot of the show so far has been about Din learning to let go of the strict views of his creed and learning of other ways. He learned to respect Vanth, evcen though he took is armor in the end, he managed to get along somewhat with Bo-Katan, he quickly trusted Ahsoka, and now he gave over the armor to Boba Fett. Yes, he had an actual claim on the armour, but he’s hardly a follower of “the way” so Din’s softening up a fair bit. He’s also getting more fatherly with Grogu and even daring to slip his helmet off just a little bit. Destroying his ship and only leaving behind the metal-ball and the spear seems like it’ll be an important moment in his growth as a character.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this season ends with Din, Fett and Bo-Katan fighting Gideon together. Or at the very least something very similar will happen in the next season(s). I still feel like Bo-Katan and Mandalore will play into the story in some way later on, and bringing in a Child of the Watch and the son of a foundling would certainly be a unifying moment for the Mandalorians in general.

I also think its interesting that since we in the last episode we saw the magistrate block Ahsoka’s lightsabers with the beskar spear it’s very likely that Din will use it to fight Gideon and the darksaber.

Hey everyone, I was wondering if maybe you could help me with something regarding season 2. I haven’t started it yet but I have a question. I haven’t seen the Clone Wars animated show and I was wondering if it is neccessary or maybe at least recommended to appreciate Ashoka’s appearance in The Mandalorian? Hopefully they give her a good enough standalone introduction so as to not alienate people unfamiliar with Clone Wars.

jidaigekijunkie said:

Hey everyone, I was wondering if maybe you could help me with something regarding season 2. I haven’t started it yet but I have a question. I haven’t seen the Clone Wars animated show and I was wondering if it is neccessary or maybe at least recommended to appreciate Ashoka’s appearance in The Mandalorian? Hopefully they give her a good enough standalone introduction so as to not alienate people unfamiliar with Clone Wars.

Wouldn’t hurt of course, but you really can watch the Ahsoka episode without knowing a single thing about her.

Rodney-2187 said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I also think its interesting that since we in the last episode we saw the magistrate block Ahsoka’s lightsabers with the beskar spear it’s very likely that Din will use it to fight Gideon and the darksaber.

I think he lost his rifle too. I think it was on the Razor Crest.

I was thinking it would be Bo-Katan who would fight Gideon. It would make sense for her to “win” the Darksaber from him, instead of having it given to her, if she is to rule Mandalore. But then again, she seems almost maniacally fanatic about it. Is she the right one to lead Mandalore? Has she changed somewhat? Could she become a villain of sorts? There’s just so many directions they could go with everything.

That reminds me of something else that occurred to me about Bo-Katan: are the “Children of the Watch” somehow connected to Death Watch? They obviously couldn’t be the exact same (since Death Watch members take their helmets off), but it would explain a lot about the way she describes them.

The Empire Strikes Back, eh?

I don’t agree with the criticisms at all, I loved this episode. Probably the heaviest action we’ve got in Star Wars and I think Robert Rodriguez did a great job making it dynamic and intense. For some reason I had a feeling Rodriguez would handle the Boba Fett episode. Boba’s fighting is so brutal, I thought they were setting him up as a villain - but seeing him ally with Mando is something I wanted to see since he was first rumoured to be involved. We’re finally getting to see live-action Boba Fett at full fighting capacity, but also with more humanity, a continuation of that process that started in The Clone Wars. I also appreciated the small instance of backstory, especially about Jango Fett being a Mandalorian foundling.

What they’re doing with Grogu, showing how as a powerful infant he can misuse the Force (like his force choke from chapter 7) I find very compelling. His capture is not only bad news for his fate in general, it may be damaging to his personality.

Sad to see the Razor Crest go. I liked that ship.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m playing Dark Forces for the first time at the minute and was very excited to see the Dark Troopers in full force! They’re clearly battle droids, so those bodies in the tanks from chapter 12 may well be something else, like experiments on Snoke. I’m also glad that the concept artists have followed on from the design of the Imperial Sentry droid from Rebels, which was based on the Darktroopers anyway. They’re very sinister.

Staring into the eyes of death… and baby yoda kidnappers!

Didn’t like the directing style of this episode. Apparently James Mangold was originally supposed to direct this one, but had to drop out at the last minute to focus on writing for Indiana Jones 5 (lol!). So Robert Rodriguez replaced him at the last minute, and it shows. Directing felt very haphazard. Writing was good tho! Still looking forward to the next episode.

The episode just looked really weird to me. The camera work and colour grading looked very subpar. I would like to see a regrade version of this episode though

You hire the man who made Spy Kids, you get what you paid for. While last season’s AT-ST vs farmers episode resembled Hercules & Xena in plot, this was the closest we’ve come to that in production quality. Everything before the stormtroopers showed up was pretty good, although getting to Tython was way too rushed, but once the action started, it was pretty bad.

It didn’t seem like they added any voice modulation or distortion to Fett’s voice while wearing his helmet. I interpreted it as that he was not speaking through the helmet’s electronics. Which… make me smile in what I perceived as a deliberately ambiguous non-address of the two voices of Fett in different versions of ESB.

darth-gary said:

Overall I liked the episode, but…
I lol’d when Fennec showed her hydraulic mid-section that Boba apparently made for her. Reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYpkz8fjfc

The first thing that popped into my mind was this scene from Star Trek TOS (especially the CG “remastered” version, but couldn’t find a clip of that); https://youtu.be/zLR2CD8zWtk?t=118

rocknroll41 said:

So Robert Rodriguez replaced him at the last minute, and it shows. Directing felt very haphazard.

I’m curious, could you elaborate on this? Do you mean inconsistent, was it the shot types or the acting, and were there any particular moments that stood out to you?

In my opinion the whole visual aesthetic felt off compared to the rest of the show. The CG especially looked really bad at times, while the show as a whole has done pretty well so far.

Rodrigues exaggerated style also felt a litt odd for SW, though this isn’t a quality issue, just a potential tonal one.

Totally agree. I think some of the CG issues may have been related to having an action scene take place in a sunny, open area - I feel like I remember that being a hard situation to get looking right?

But also just the way it was shot. I kept waiting for Kevin Sorbo to appear.

I like that they let directors bring their own visual style to the show. The way the combat scenes are shot are much more visceral than we’re used to - I wouldn’t go for canted angles and slow motion moments every episode, but I thought it worked beautifully in this one. It’s just a one-off.

This is the great thing about having a live action show like this - one week we get slow pacing, atmospheric build-up, and Samurai film style scenes, the next we get exaggerated gunfight action. I see lots of people online losing their minds at how much they enjoyed Chapter 14, and some who say it wasn’t for them, and that’s fine. There’s something for everyone. It’ll never get dull.

I still think that Temuera Morrison swooping in with Boba Fett armour and defeating all the Imperial forces is one of the best moments in the show. Right now I’m wondering, would it have been even better if Mando had had his jetpack when Grogu was captured, and his impulsive reaction was to try and rescue him? He could have got beaten away like a fly by the Darktroopers, THEN Boba would have flown after them. But maybe that would have made it too drawn-out.

Thanks for the input on this, sometimes it can be time consuming to dive into the Wiki rabbit hole in order to find out what to watch (or even research in the first place).

jedi_bendu said:

I like that they let directors bring their own visual style to the show. The way the combat scenes are shot are much more visceral than we’re used to - I wouldn’t go for canted angles and slow motion moments every episode, but I thought it worked beautifully in this one. It’s just a one-off.

This is the great thing about having a live action show like this - one week we get slow pacing, atmospheric build-up, and Samurai film style scenes, the next we get exaggerated gunfight action. I see lots of people online losing their minds at how much they enjoyed Chapter 14, and some who say it wasn’t for them, and that’s fine. There’s something for everyone. It’ll never get dull.

I agree, but to me this episode felt like it deviated from the established norm and overall quality of the previous episodes too much. But that’s just a minor nitpick. My biggest complaint really is the cheap looking CG. The Fett fighting choreography was great, but the scene as a whole just felt rushed to me.

It might sound odd, but the whole episode seemed to jump back and forth from being too stylized and not having a style at all. If Rodrigues had had more prep time I think it could have been a much more visually impressive episode.