The Mandalorian - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS * — Page 67

I haven’t been watching season 3 weekly and given its negative reception on this site I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it, but I just binged the first 6 episodes and found that it was actually pretty good. It’s really a shame to see the pervasive negativity from the fanbase seep into this season as it’s actually pretty good for the most part. The only episodes where I can really understand people’s complaints with it were the most recent episode and episode 4 which weren’t very good for some of the reasons people have been talking about. However, the first 3 episodes were quite solid, especially episode 2 which is probably the best episode of the season and is just as good as most of the episodes in the first 2 seasons of the show. It’s atmospheric and technically not much happens, but it does an excellent job of showing off Mandalore and why everyone is so reluctant to return. The first episode was also pretty good, other than the quest to revive IG-11. Don’t get me wrong I loved that droid but it really takes the emotional weight of that first season finally away to revive him. Episode 3 doesn’t really have much to do with the main plot, and I guess people’s thoughts on how the New Republic is understandable, but it’s well acted and directed and kept my interest throughout.

The first episode where I really started to agree with criticisms was episode 4 which as others have said isn’t all that good. Mostly the Mandalorians just look incompetent, and not much really happens and the stuff that does isn’t very good. The show thankfully rebounds in episode 5 which does an excellent job of bringing together the loose ends that were set up in episode 1 with some great action and the character moments mostly work well. Then episode 6 came out and I’m left conflicted. It was cool seeing Jack Black and all, and Din and Bo continue to have great chemistry together. The episode is undeniably fun and I felt engaged by the storyline the whole way through, but it felt more like an amusement park ride story than an episode of The Mandalorian. The show has gotten lighter as the series has progressed, with the exception of episodes 2 and 3 of this season, but it just feels too tonally dissonant from what came before it. Also, I really dislike how the show resolved all the Dark Saber stuff. That was probably the lamest and most boring way possible to resolve that storyline. I guess I can understand people being slightly worried about the final 2 episodes, given that the weakest episodes were in the second half, but given that out of 6 episodes, only 2 weren’t good that’s still a pretty good track record. Sure I guess that half of the season feels like filler, but this show has always been episodic so I don’t get why it’s suddenly such a big deal. I mean this season has about as many plot-relevant episodes as the previous seasons. The only other thing I’ll say is that I can definitely understand if you don’t like this season due to the tonal shift that the show has gone through. I thought it was a natural shift but I do understand why that change could make someone less interested in the show. I”m actually thinking it’s less that this season is bad but more so that Andor was so excellent, I still need to watch it, that people’s standards have been raised so high that anything less just seems bad by comparison. I also wonder if my binging it has had an effect on my enjoyment, and if watching it weekly the show would seem worse, but anyway I’m looking forward to the final 2 episodes as even though this is the weakest season so far I’ve still been mostly enjoying it

Talk about a whiplash of tone and quality. Dang.

They’re gonna sell so many robot walker toys.

DZ-330 said:

My thoughts on Season 3 after today’s episode:

It looks like things are starting to fall more into place… we’ll see if the finale can stick the landing.

One or two good episodes is just that imo. It doesn’t improve the quality of the rest of the season. It’s for now one good episode, which only highlights the uneven quality of the Mandoverse since TBOBF to be honest. This episode needed a good setup for the pay-offs to really hit home. As it is it feels kind of divorced from the rest of the show much like the Mando episodes in TBOBF. The sudden reappearance of Gideon, who for some reason has lost all interest in Grogu and views the retaking of a wasteland of a planet by a few dozen Mandalorians as a major threat comes out of left field. The show should have spent its time building up to this moment, clearly defining the villain’s motivations, and the secret alliances that are eroding the New Republic’s influence. This episode is a good part of a badly written story in my view.

Someone found another goof like the Jeans Guy

https://twitter.com/peacemakervitus/status/1646121646762147840

I don’t think this episode makes up for the problems with this season overall, but there’s a lot to like with this episode as well.

I really loved the cyberpunk vibes from the initial scenes on Coruscant. There was a great shot of the Imperial probe droid looming over Kane. Haven’t been impressed with the cinematography much this season but I really liked the look and feel of that scene.

The nerdy lore-loving part of me really enjoyed the Shadow Council scene. It presents a really intriguing concept, and while the acting from the warlords was a little campy here and there, it fits for Star Wars. I feel like Pellaeon was pulled right out of the pages of the Thrawn Trilogy. Looks just as I imagined him, and I liked the actors performance. He had this slightly dramatic way he moved his hands as he spoke, which I thought played into how Gideon called him out with always speaking with authority. You kind of get this vibe that he is trying to project more authority to persuade the other warlords to listen to him and wait for Thrawn’s return. But you also get a sense that he is trying to alleviate his own concerns with Thrawn’s long absence.

Again, I did say the other warlords were a little campy, but they set them up nicely I thought. They all have interesting looks, different costumes that set them apart. The few lines we get from them gives us a hint at their personalities. And one moment I enjoyed was when Gideon said, “I account for what goes on in my sector, no more, no less. The same can be said for every member of this council.” And the other warlords immediately chime in with, “Yes”, “Of course”. BUT, you can tell, just like Gideon, they all have their own ulterior motives that they’re also hiding. It definitely adds dimension to this concept of a Shadow Council. These warlords have an uneasy alliance with each other. I get the feeling that Brendol Hux and Pallaeon’s factions have more resources than the other warlords, and they use that as leverage to keep them quiet, and fall in line with their plans.

You can definitely argue they are trying to retroactively make the run and gun of the sequel trilogy work better, but I do appreciate the effort. I’m not saying it is brilliant storytelling, I’ve been pretty disappointed in it, but one thing I have liked about this season is that it has given some interesting tidbits of world building for this post-ROTJ era (7 years after the Battle of Endor I think?). The New Republic rangers, the Mandalorian reunification, and the Imperial Shadow Council, all make for interesting concepts that would be fun for a Star Wars tabletop game or something like that.

It’s disappointing how everything, Thrawn included, is going to end up as one big elaborate retcon to explain why the New Republic sucked so bad and how the First Order could exist in the sequels. It’s a rehabilitation project. They think they can get away with it because it worked with so many people with the prequels. Sadly they’re probably right and in 10-15 years we’ll see a bunch of contrarian takes about how underrated they were and how deep the lore is and how all the Disney+ shows “redeem” them.

Not that I trust them to do Thrawn or anything else justice, but it’s extra insulting that that’s what they’re using it all for.

Vladius said:

It’s disappointing how everything, Thrawn included, is going to end up as one big elaborate retcon to explain why the New Republic sucked so bad and how the First Order could exist in the sequels. It’s a rehabilitation project. They think they can get away with it because it worked with so many people with the prequels. Sadly they’re probably right and in 10-15 years we’ll see a bunch of contrarian takes about how underrated they were and how deep the lore is and how all the Disney+ shows “redeem” them.

Not that I trust them to do Thrawn or anything else justice, but it’s extra insulting that that’s what they’re using it all for.

I couldn’t agree more.

You guys liked what they’ve done to IG-11? Turning him into an exo-skeleton to be driven around by Grogu? It’s more than ridiculous, it’s creepy as hell. Imagine the same thing done not to a metal body, but to a flesh and bones one…

Sure. It’s better than them bringing him back and reversing his sacrifice in season one.

I mostly enjoyed this episode, but this whole experience is giving me déjà vu, bringing up memories of Book of Boba Fett. Basically for like 75% of the show’s run time, the show just spins its wheels mostly going nowhere. Seeds are planted that admittedly do pay off later, but these seeds don’t require 75% of the show to feel like fluff. It’s always those last one or two episodes, comprising around 25% of the show, where stuff finally happens. This is exactly what happened with Boba Fett, where the primary villains didn’t do anything until the last scene of the second to last episode. Yet we had like 3 episodes where Boba Fett wanders around town trying to get an appointment with the mayor or whatever. It’s like whoever writes this stuff is incapable of writing with an evenly distributed sense of progression.

Now this Mandalorian episode introduces some legitimately cool things, like the Imperial Council. This is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a live-action depiction of Post-ROTJ EU stuff, and a rare instance where the political landscape of the post-ROTJ Galaxy is actually explored. We should have seen this council much earlier, dropping in on their nefarious meetings throughout the run of the series.

And yeah, it sucks that all of this is mostly just setting up the Sequels. There is literally nothing in Star Wars more boring than the First Order. But at least the Thrawn-related stuff has some potential to be interesting, since Thrawn’s story seems mostly orthogonal to any potential proto-First Order story-line. I’m just not remotely convinced that anyone involved with this show has the requisite Zahn-like writing talent to depict Thrawn correctly. Dave Filoni is not physically capable of writing lines like “But it was so artistically done”.

I liked Thrawn in Rebels so I hope it all pans out. But I admit for how expensive this all must be they’ve struggled to get eight episodes out of such a lack of material. Perhaps it’s because this is the first time I bothered watching it weekly. It doesn’t seem to be designed for a real time broadcast format and probably should have just been released all together.

Given that the Filoni-led stuff is going to culminate in the movie and given the stuff in this episode of The Mandalorian I’ve got a theory for where this is going. So my knowledge of this area of the lore is not the strongest, but wasn’t the Star Destroyer on Jakku the result of a battle between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic.? If it is, do we think that this is all leading up to that battle over Jakku? Or did that battle take place shortly after Endor and I’m off base? If I’m right is it possible that The Mandalorian and the Ahsoka Show is going to lead to that battle happening in the movie that’s been greenlit? WHat are everyone’s thoughts?

This episode almost redeemed the season for me. Wish the revelations in it were set up much earlier, during the first half of the season. It’s the same mistake they did with Book of Boba Fett, where the cool story elements such as Cad Bane felt like too little, too late. There’s no reason why the reveal of Gideon having escaped or the Shadow Council scene couldn’t be written in some form as part of an earlier episode (for example Chapter 4, which is the most lacking in the story department).

But moving on to what I loved: I was fist pumping the air when I recognized Gilad Pellaeon and let out an audible gasp when they showed Hux Sr. Part of me wishes they had included Rae Sloane as well, she’s great, but on the other hand it may had been too confusing for a casual audience to have 2 Grand Admirals to keep track of.

The reveal of the IG-12 was a surprisingly good alternative route to sort of bring back IG without undoing his heroic death, and also to give Grogu some much-more needed agency. This is also something that should have happened sooner.

Really liked the worn-down scout Mandalorians including Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad. But I wonder whether they knew anything about the Imperial base, especially as it’s hinted they have been roaming Mandalore since the end of the Purge. Also I’m not very sold on the fan-theories claiming the Armorer or another Mando is a double agent.

The Beskar Troopers were so cool and effective is almost a shame that clearly something’s gonna happen to them as they won’t be the main forces of the future First Order. And Paz Vizsla went out like a badass, I saw his sacrifice coming lightyears away but it still hurt.

I’m not sold on the armourer being a spy, it’s probably one of the guys living on the planet who knew the base existed. Or someone from the the clan like Axe who have been antagonistic and have something to gain.

So, I’ve watched the first 6 episodes of Season 3. I just finished the Lizzo episode. And I have to say…I kind of enjoyed it.

Yes, it was very dumb. Yes, it felt like a parody. And yes, my standards for Star Wars have fallen very, very low. And I’m absolutely not trying to claim that it was a good episode of television. But, I had fun with it. It embraced its corniness. And I had wanted to see a season of Mando where Din and Grogu just toured the galaxy together solving mysteries on fun planets, and this episode felt like the closest thing to that.

After this episode, I strongly suspect that they’re setting up Bo-Katan to be a protagonist on equal footing with Din, just in case Pedro Pascal decides to leave the show. And if that does happen, I don’t think it will work. And on that note, I think it would have been a much more interesting story to see Din become Mandalore, since unlike Bo, he doesn’t crave that power. A reluctant, unlikely leader rising up from obscurity to unite his people sounds like a great story.