Acbagel said:
Also, Deagan, what did you think of the Shadow Council scene as a first time viewer? That’s the scene with old imperial officers talking about their future plans/needs. Did the placement work for you? I moved it up in the series to give us a better picture of the state of the Empire compared to where it originally was placed.I tend to zone out during these sort of council/politic meetings, even watching the prequels (haha). I’m not too sure what “Pershing” is, or what they were getting at with “cloning” (sorry lul), but I don’t think its placement detracted from the story at all - it’s a good break from the action to check in on Gideon. Perhaps I’m not following the story too well, but this just felt like an introduction to a complex group whose plans would be better explained in time.
If anyone has watched Naruto Shippuden, they do a similar meeting with The Akatsuki to introduce the group’s goals, then they expand on the stories of each antagonist in later episodes.
arabian said:
…with the mention of “I need protection, and we have to get rid of Mandalorians, and Pershing’s research is gone.” I mean, up to the scene prior, all we as the audience knew everyone thought Gideon was dead so WHY would he suddenly need like a ton of continued protection, the covert Mandalorians are all scattered now, and the Pershing message was literally sent 3 days ago where he said ‘I’m still working on it, boss! I’ll do better.’While I agree with @Arabian that at that moment it seems the Mandalorians have dispersed, my impression was that the Shadow Council was getting close to finding them, and the meeting was ultimately for them to agree to get rid of the “pests.” Seeing as in Book 4, our protagonists successfully breach Gideon’s ship, maybe he was right to request protection from the Council?
As long as ACBagel has a plan to flesh out this group in future Books, I think this scene could pretty much fit anywhere as a breather.
Excited to see what you have next, love the films!
Thanks for the feedback on this, very helpful to read. The “Shadow Council” is something that was established in old Star Wars lore, and is something we get another glimpse of in this Mandalorian story. We get to see the goings on of one particular member of the Council, Moff Gideon, while others (for example, Moff Pellaeon and Admiral Thrawn) are going to be covered in future Star Wars shows (the coming Ahsoka show in August). So the main purpose is just to get a view of Moff Gideon’s tie in to the workings of the Council as a whole.
I’m still leaning toward removing Boba from this scene, as I don’t understand why he is in it. If he shoots Din, he should be fully ready to fight and retrieve his armor, but he just retreats. It felt like Boba gave up on retrieving his armor, because he was intimidated by Din’s ability to beat up some little raiders, but he could have sniped him and moved closer to his armor.
I’m not sure what the solution would be, but I was a bit confused as to why he retreated, even after trying to kill Din.
¯_(ツ)_/¯ Just my two cents!
That makes sense. However, on the flip side, the actual show just has Boba watch Din walk away with the armor and never confront him at all. I don’t know what is worse now since we are presented 3 choices:
- Boba watches Din and never engages him (the Disney version)
- Boba snipes at Din but lets him go rather than revealing himself (Acbagel version)
- Cut out all scenes of Boba in this segment (Deagan proposal)
Unfortunately, all 3 have issues. The main problem with #1 is why would Boba peacefully watch Din leave with his armor? The main problem with #2 is similar, but why does Boba not engage Din in battle personally right there on the spot after shooting at him? The main problem with #3 is that we now present a scenario where Boba is completely unaware that Din, another Mandalorian, is on Tatooine at all. Further, Boba is actively searching for his armor, which Din finds before him, but then Boba never discovers that Din found the armor, so how does Boba know how to track him down later in the show to confront him about the armor?
Any other solutions that we’re not thinking of here?