Man, Bryce Dallas has for sure come a long way since her first Mando episode. She already upped her game for her S2 episode and now is giving us a contender for the best episode of BOBF.
It even seems like a high budget episode, while all of the first four episodes of BOBF seemed to have a really low budget, with pour effects and bad action scenes.
I think that has mostly to do with the directing and stylistic choices. Bryce directed Chapter 5 and it shows. The second episode had also solid direction and cinematography. On the other side, Rodriguez’s episodes looked the most simplistic and “cheap” both in choreography and camerawork, they also have the most notorious goofs.
Also this is the first time we left Tatooine in this show. Tatooine has typically been brought to life with enhanced practical effects and sets, while the showrunners likely secured part of their CG/Volume budget to convincingly depict this place.
Seeing Mandalore and the Great Purge onscreen shocked me. Also I can’t believe we saw the destruction of Tipoca City and now Sundari in the span of less than a year. Truly the Empire was no good for fan-favorite cities with weird yet iconic designs. The scene with the KX droids and probes finishing off the survivors of the nuking was shiver-inducing and looked as it if were pulled straight from Terminator (in the good sense).
I had a grin from ear-to-ear the entire time they repaired and flew the N-1 starfighter, one of my favorite ship designs ever. And I fell in love with the BD unit brought into live action.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Mando and Grogu’s reunion, but I also hope Mando’s own arc doesn’t detract too much from Boba’s story, considering there are only two chapters left.