The Mandalorian - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS * — Page 42

The thing this episode made me realize about Boba Fett is that - even though he’s already a really famous character whose return was highly anticipated - we don’t actually know much about him as a person. We knew him as a child/young-teenager, but now he’s a 40-year-old played by a 60-year-old (that dang twin-sun radiation is at it again) and the show is kind of just assuming that we already know what he’s all about…

Ed Slushie said:

The thing this episode made me realize about Boba Fett is that - even though he’s already a really famous character whose return was highly anticipated - we don’t actually know much about him as a person. We knew him as a child/young-teenager, but now he’s a 40-year-old played by a 60-year-old (that dang twin-sun radiation is at it again) and the show is kind of just assuming that we already know what he’s all about…

In this case, it’s not just twin-sun radiation, it’s also Sarlaac Juice

I don’t think there was ever anything wrong with Boba Fett being the cool-looking, mysterious side villain, but between The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, there’s a pretty compelling story being pieced together. Boba lost the only person close to him, his father - and instead of the loving family and friends I would hope most of us here would have in a time of grief, he fell in with his dad’s associates, some of the most cruel bounty hunters around. Boba is convinced he must prove himself and honour his father by killing Mace Windu, but comes to realise he is not like Aurra Sing or Cad Bane and forms his own group of more moral bounty hunters. In an unfinished Clone Wars scene, he even stands up to Cad Bane for unnecessary killing (I still want that arc finished!)

Over the years, the period told in the comics, he becomes ruthless, dishonourable and feared, after taking Cad Bane’s place as the galaxy’s top hunter. But after his humiliating dive into the Sarlacc pit and fall from grace - pun unintended - he becomes a better person, the battle-hardened but honourable man we see in Chapter 14.

Why Boba Fett is So Important to The Mandalorian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6VHWKHoLK8 - from the Star Wars Explained YouTube channel (10 mins long).

In addition to a brief summary of Boba Fett’s canon history there’s a lot of interesting speculations (starting at 5:02) about where the character might be headed in the future and how it does and will tie in with Din’s character arc in The Mandalorian.

BTW, someone translated the chaincode that Fett showed Din in the last episode; https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/k6qay9/translation_of_bobas_chain_code_possibly_reveals/

Most of it’s not very surprising, basically listing Jango and his “son” Boba, but it also mentions the planet Concord Dawn and lists “Mentor Jaste-” (the e is partially cut off) which is most certainly a reference to Jaster Mereel who raised Jango after being orphaned in Legends. It was also the original name for Boba Fett before being retconned into a different person.

Here’s a short summary of the character by Star Wars Explained (3 mins long):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQRu4syxP48

Beware Bantha burgers, Big Bad Bobbas Back!

Quality episode can’t beat it

Hal 9000 said:

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.

Thats great thinking and a good way to have both voices work in lore as we can’t lose Jason Wingreen voice 😁👍

Rodney-2187 said:

Could it be just the natural lighting that make everything look less appealing to some?

Thats exactly it, If this was filmed as is during a dark rainy nights backdrop then there would be little complaint, but that doesn’t make it bad that it was shot in daylight, it was all done so very well.

jedi_bendu said:

… 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.

That was my thoughts, I assumed initially they were setting up the lab bodies they grew from Grogus blood as the Dark Troopers, but we know now that they are droids Soooo…

What if they’re only droid bodies, but have brains inside? A sort vat-grown Grievous?

Got a big Wages of Fear/Sorcerer vibe from Chapter 15. Also really cool to get to see things from within the Imperial Remnant. This is episode is very much what I hope Andor will be like; suspense mixed with action, and it’s always fun to have characters within the SW universe discuss the moral grey zones of the Rebellion/New Republic and the Empire. It’s the kind of thing that the movies rarely has time to get into but is perfect for the series.

[SPOILERS]

I really like how Favreau/Filoni has been treating Din’s character development relating to his dogmatic views. Last season touched on it by letting IG-11 take his helmet off, but it was a little bit of a cop-out as he was a droid (which was important for other reasons and made sense at that point), but having Din be forced to take it off again, and keep it off for so long while Mayfeld and several Imperials were watching, that was a great moment. If it had been Cara, Greef or another Mandalorian I don’t think it would have had the same impact. He’s loosening up and realizing that the code is not all that important compared to simply doing what he feels is morally right.

Now that we’ll get two parallel series with The Mandalorian I’m more and more sure that this series will culminate in the re-taking of Mandalore (the planet) and Din becoming an important uniting figure in their culture, perhaps even becoming the new Mandalore (i.e. the leader) instead of Bo-katan.

Also nice to finally get a proper(-ish) look inside Slave 1. We only saw the cockpit in Episode 2 so I always wondered what would happen to the passenger section when the ship rotated.

This episode was certainly a step up from a writing and directorial perspective, hats off to Rick Fumiyama.

Hoping the finale is at least 1 hour long. A lot of story to fill in one episode.

idir_hh said:

Hoping the finale is at least 1 hour long. A lot of story to fill in one episode.

Either that or we might get a cliff-hanger with a season 3 conclusion.

More episodes like this please! I hated Burr’s character (and that episode) last season, but the crew really brought it this episode; writing, directing, and acting was all a step above the usual shallowness of the show. Longer, substantial dialogue scenes - rather than just pulpy exchanges - go a long way in developing the world and characters. Why they never bothered beforehand is beyond me.

Also, was this the first episode to not include the Child?

HelloGreedo pointed out something fascinating in his review of Chapter 15; https://youtu.be/Z2j2A_an09w?t=313
Mayfeld and all the stormtroopers salute with their left hand instead of the right. Now that could of course just have been the fictionalized SW version of it, but he also points out that the stormtrooper armor is mirrored, which you can tell from looking at the mismatched knee-pads/joints on the costumes. So for whatever reason they’ve mirrored several shots in the episode. Maybe the sense of direction was broken at some point, i.e. Cara and Fennec looked left while standing on the mountain ridge while Mayfeld & Din drove right, thereby causing some disorientation for the viewer or something like that.

ZkinandBonez said:

HelloGreedo pointed out something fascinating in his review of Chapter 15; https://youtu.be/Z2j2A_an09w?t=313
Mayfeld and all the stormtroopers salute with their left hand instead of the right. Now that could of course just have been the fictionalized SW version of it, but he also points out that the stormtrooper armor is mirrored, which you can tell from looking at the mismatched knee-pads/joints on the costumes. So for whatever reason they’ve mirrored several shots in the episode. Maybe the sense of direction was broken at some point, i.e. Cara and Fennec looked left while standing on the mountain ridge while Mayfeld & Din drove right, thereby causing some disorientation for the viewer or something like that.

Y’know… I kinda like the old school feel of doing stuff like mirroring shots like that. It’s part of moviemaking and need not be feared.

Hal 9000 said:

ZkinandBonez said:

HelloGreedo pointed out something fascinating in his review of Chapter 15; https://youtu.be/Z2j2A_an09w?t=313
Mayfeld and all the stormtroopers salute with their left hand instead of the right. Now that could of course just have been the fictionalized SW version of it, but he also points out that the stormtrooper armor is mirrored, which you can tell from looking at the mismatched knee-pads/joints on the costumes. So for whatever reason they’ve mirrored several shots in the episode. Maybe the sense of direction was broken at some point, i.e. Cara and Fennec looked left while standing on the mountain ridge while Mayfeld & Din drove right, thereby causing some disorientation for the viewer or something like that.

Y’know… I kinda like the old school feel of doing stuff like mirroring shots like that. It’s part of moviemaking and need not be feared.

Yeah, sure. Even talented filmmakers like Famuyiwa makes small mistakes every now and then and most viewers wouldn’t have noticed (or really cared) that a few stormtroopers saluted with the “wrong” arm.

I am curious however about why they flipped a few shot shots. Seeing the episode again its clear that it’s just a few shots and not the whole scene as I previously assumed, so I’m guessing Famuyiwa just preferred one shot to be the other direction for the sake of a better sense of direction alongside with the other shots as they drive across the bridge.