The Mandalorian - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS * — Page 70

Yeah, I guess if you didn’t think seasons 1 or 2 were great I can totally understand why you’d think this season wasn’t very good. Here’s my review of every episode

Episode 1 A fun reintroduction to the characters, and does a good job of setting up the rest of the season. The run-in with the pirates is pretty fun and reiterates what we liked about Din as a character. The IG-11 stuff is kind of weird but doesn’t take up too much time. It also sets up the pirate conflict that comes back into play pretty well later in the season, and the final action scene in the asteroids is really well done. B+
Episode 2 A fantastic episode. We finally get to see Mandalore after 2 seasons of buildup, and they do an excellent job of showing it as dangerous and why everyone was so hesitant to come back. We get some really tense sequences with the creature that traps Din, and we get to see Bo and Grogu come to rescue Din, and we get some great characterization from Bo. The only episode that reaches the heights of seasons 1-2 A
Episode 3, In the grand scheme of things, not much in this episode comes into play for the rest of the season, but the opening action sequence with Bo and Din fighting the imperial remnant and her castle getting blown up is fantastic and the bookend with her getting accepted into the Mandalorian’s rank is good. Then we spend the rest of the episode with Pershing, and it does a good job of showing the flaws of The New Republic. We can quibble all day about whether it should be this way, but that’s what the sequel’s set up and Disney is clearly not interested in erasing them from canon, so the best that they can do is to use this episode to help set that up. We also learn about Moff Gideon’s escape, and the ending to Pershing is pretty Harrowing, even though his research doesn’t really amount to anything. B
Episode 4, yeah this one isn’t good. We get Paz Vizla finally resolving his conflict and rivalry with Din because he saves his son. However that’s already unnecessary as they could have just used the opening scene of the season for that, and it makes the Mandalorians look like a complete joke other than ending the rivalry between Din and Paz and the really cool flashback, the episode is mostly a wash even if the action is pretty well done. C-
Episode 5 pretty much fixes every problem I had with the previous episode. The Mandalorians come back looking strong and it shows why they’re a force to be reckoned with. It also pays’ off the setup from episode one with the pirates and seeing Din convince everyone to come back and help is great. The action is pretty good throughout and we get more setup for the conflict with Gideon again. We also get The Armorer accepting Bo as the leader of the Mandalorians. Another solid B
Episode 6, Some of the heist stuff is fun, and it’s good to see Bo reclaim her forces, but the tone is too light and jokey, the cameos are just distracting, and we get the laziest resolution to the Darksaber conflict between Din and Bo. I’d give it a D
Episode 7, Second best episode of the season We get some really cool world-building with the council and some more setup for Thrawn. We continue to see why they were so reluctant to return to Mandalore with them being attacked by monsters, and we learn more excellent backstory between Bo and Gideon. Then we get the return of Gideon and the Imperial Remnant who are really threatening, and the action is really good and we end on the death of Paz Vizla which is a great cliffhanger. A
Episode 8 is not as good as the previous episode as some of the setups from earlier in the season aren’t paid off, and the destruction of the Dark Saber just makes that whole conflict feel like kind of a waste of time, but they do a mostly good job of resolving plot points. The action is thrilling and the final battle between Din, Bo, Grogu, and Gideon is fantastically shot, and the action is just superbly handled throughout the episode. The space battles are also done fairly well, and The Mandalorians are finally living up to their reputation in this episode. I think the resolution for Din and Grogu was great, and where the entire series was leading. I’d give it a B

All that being said this season’s structure is kind of a mess, and it suffers from Disney+ Syndrome, with less than half the episodes moving the main plot forward, which was fine in seasons 1 and 2 as it was episodic but doesn’t work in a series that’s trying to be one big narrative. I also think the direction and action of this season have been strong throughout. Despite liking the season I do hope that the Ahsoka show won’t suffer through this issue, and I think it is clear that Star Wars needs new leadership at Disney. Season 3 should have been a slam dunk, but it’s starting to suffer from, to a much lesser degree, the flaws that most Disney+ Original programs are having.

StarkillerAG said:

I hated both Discovery and Picard because of how grimdark and edgy they were, so I stopped watching them after Picard season 1. But I heard Strange New World was a sort of return to form for the franchise, so I checked it out, and I ended up really enjoying it.

Funny enough, Picard season 3 seems like a course-correction that largely tosses the first two seasons in the garbage.

Basically, as someone else on here (I don’t remember who) once said, “Star Wars is a buffet. Enjoy the stuff you like, and leave the rest. Seek out stuff like Andor, and avoid stuff like Mando season 3.

Yup - that goes for all franchises. This motto has come in handy for me for most of my media experiences, especially as somebody who has always been more of a TV than movie guy.

I think Picard season 3 is great! I didn’t watch the first two seasons, because of the bad word of mouth.

People have a right to voice their opinions on this forum. You may hear something you don’t like…but it’s unnecessary to talk down to them by telling them to “just don’t watch it” and other childish retorts. Just comment on another forum if you don’t like the tone of this one. It’s simple. Stop acting like a victim and maybe take your own advice on “just don’t comment” maybe.

Fan_edit_fan said:

but it’s unnecessary to talk down to them by telling them to “just don’t watch it” and other childish retorts.

It’s not childish, it’s common sense. Why go back the ones who hurt you? It should be easy, as it’s an inanimate franchise and not an abusive partner. Quitting a franchise puts you in no physical or emotional danger, it’s healthy and often necessary.

G&G-Fan said:

DZ-330 said:

So how about that Mandalorian show guys?

awwwwwww cutie baby

I have joked about recreating the legendary Rainbow Dash jar with a Grogu toy, but I thought that’d be a bit much. There aren’t nearly enough creepy men in the Star Wars fandom for the joke to land as much as it did with Rainbow Dash.

DZ-330 said:

So how about that Mandalorian show guys?

I liked it when they did a closing iris over the Mando household.

I actually liked this episode a lot more than the rest of the season. It had some good action, it was nice that it kept Din as the main character, and it was more straightforward and wasn’t about setting up a bunch of Cinematic Universe tie ins.

StarkillerAG said:

Vladius said:

Why? Why do we have to accept it?

You don’t have to, but I’m sure Disney would like other people to.

Why would it divide the fandom further?

Because there are people out there who actually like the sequels (believe it or not), and Disney suddenly saying “that never happened lol” would majorly piss them off. That’s exactly what happened with TFA going out of its way to shit on the prequels, and I doubt Disney wants to repeat that mistake.

What is wrong with dividing the fandom?

Disney wants money. Fans give Disney money. If Disney pisses fans off, they stop giving Disney money. I could not make this more simple.

Why is it better to salvage something?

Because then the people who still like at least a bit of the sequels will become much more pleased with the franchise as a whole, and the people who unconditionally love the sequels will just be pleased to have that story expanded on. Again, when this strategy was applied to the prequels via the Clone Wars show, it was received much more positively than “just pretend it didn’t happen” was for TFA.

Why is it possible to salvage anything?

Again, it may not be possible for you, but there are plenty of people out there who see at least a few redeeming qualities in the sequels’ story. If Disney can expound on those mostly-liked elements, while rationalizing the bits that pissed fans off, I think the sequels can be redeemed in the fandom’s eyes.

Why are they “the main saga?”

Because Disney branded them as such, and contradicting your own branding is almost never a good idea.

In a nutshell, it feels like you’re seeing this from a subjective, opinion-based point of view, while a corporation like Disney will go with what’s most economically sound. And from what I see, attempting to redeem the sequel trilogy is the most economically sound direction to take the franchise. No matter how you feel about the sequels, they will always be part of Disney’s canon.

I’m genuinely confused. I was talking about your opinion, not Disney’s. Why should we care about whether or not Disney makes money? Why do we care about Disney’s branding?

There aren’t that many people that like the sequels. There are people that liked The Force Awakens when it came out (me), there are people that see them as an opportunity to cut up footage to make something else (faneditors here, so approximately 20-100 people in the entire world, charitably,) and there are many people that like The Last Jedi for political reasons (because many people also hate The Last Jedi for political reasons.) But as a whole, I don’t think that there are a lot of people who like all three. There are good elements that I think everyone likes, like Adam Driver, but that doesn’t mean the whole thing.

I could maybe see an argument that the sequels’ existence appeals to the kind of people who put together wiki articles and timeline videos just because it’s satisfying to connect dots and fill in blanks. I think that’s where the breadcrumbs in Mando season 3 come in. “That guy’s last name is Hux!”
But I don’t think that that is very many people, and they’re more enjoying it because of the stories’ weight than what is actually in the stories.

Vladius said:
There aren’t that many people that like the sequels.

You seem confident about this, but this actually isn’t obvious to me. I know I hate the Sequels. But it’s really hard to quantify public sentiment about something like this. It’s easy to find thousands of people online who hate the Sequels. But perceptions about this topic are heavily influenced by selection bias, and online communities are pretty much designed around selection bias. Also, it’s much easier to inaccurately conclude a majority hates something than it is to inaccurately conclude a majority likes something, because people that hate something tend to be more vocal about it.

This is another reason why aggregate movie review scores (like Rottentomatoes) aren’t a reliable indicator of general public sentiment. I don’t believe negative reviews are bot-generated (at least not a significant percentage of them). But the The Last Jedi’s 44% audience score doesn’t mean 56% of humans are likely to dislike this movie. It means 56% of humans inclined to write movie reviews online and/or with strong pre-existing feelings about Star Wars, are likely to dislike this movie. And of course, these review scores cause a feedback loop because the scores themselves influence public opinion. (And the same goes for the professional critic scores obviously.)

Box office return is another signal, but again box office performance is not a reliable proxy for a random sample of public sentiment. There’s just way too many unpredictable variables that influence box office returns. Everyone always points out how the Sequel Trilogy generated diminishing returns with each subsequent movie. But the Original Trilogy experienced the same pattern with the worldwide box office (with ANH making the most and ROTJ making the least). The drop in worldwide box office from TLJ to TROS (19.4% decrease) is steeper than the drop from ESB to ROTJ (13.2% decrease), but not significantly. In general, every Star Wars trilogy follows a broadly similar pattern: the first movie makes a ton of money, then the following two make much less. The Prequels were a bit unique because the 3rd movie (ROTS) made more than the second (AOTC). We can come up with lots of seemingly obvious reasons to explain these patterns. (Obviously ROTS made more $$ cause Vader). But looking at the big picture, it certainly isn’t obvious to me that diminishing box office returns for the Sequels is a clear signal of widespread dislike of these movies.

That said, I’m not saying you’re wrong necessarily. I want you to be right, because I don’t like the Sequels either. I’m just not sure. My own intuition about this kind of thing is not reliable - I NEVER would have predicted the Prequels would ever be so adored as they seem to be today. But when people claim “most people don’t like the Sequels” I have to ask: how do you know? Unless you’ve polled a uniformly distributed random sample of people that saw all 3 movies, how can you be confident about this?

I mean, there are people that really like the Sequels. They do exist, somehow. I have no clue how numerous they are. I can even understand why people like TLJ. I get it. It’s different. It’s beautiful. It at least seems to be trying to convey something meaningful. I get why people like it. The problem is that it’s also a blasphemous abomination from hell designed to shred the semantic fabric of our collective folklore. Also it’s stupid because Porgs are dumb and I didn’t see any B-wings.

If you had asked me a few years ago whether people would look more fondly on the Sequels in the future, I would’ve said “no.” But, after seeing the drastic turnaround for the Prequels’ perception, I’d say that anything is possible. It’s probably not going to happen to the same degree as the Prequels, but it will likely happen.

Most casual viewers just watched the ST, enjoyed it in a casual way, then moved on. They’re the silent majority of Star Wars viewers. Then you have the fans who are a little more enthusiastic and invested, so they can go either way but usually lean toward the positive side. Then you have the hardcore fans who feel very strongly one way or the other.

Part of the reason why I’m still involved with Star Wars is simply that I’m reading through the EU, so that keeps Star Wars on my mind. Also, my sister really wanted to watch Mando, so we binged it together and had a lot of thoughts on it, both positive and negative, and discussed and theorized a lot.

And Star Wars is just fascinating to me, both because it’s a great potential fantasy setting and because it’s a case study in franchise mismanagement. (I’m not just talking about post-2012 Star Wars. The problems started in 1997.)