StarkillerAG’s comments hit the nail on the head. The Mandalorian and the wider Mandoverse feels like cosplay Star Wars.
I was surprised how cheap some of the costumes and creature effects looked. It reminded me of much older shows with far more limited budgets, such as Farscape. I think the Volume is partly to blame for this.
The leaden & cliched dialogue only adds to the amateurish feel.
The story structure is poor to non-existent. As many have said, it’s like watching a video game. There is no logical narrative flow.
I think Mando also suffers from airing at the same time as The Last of Us, which is it ironic, given its origins as a game. I’m certainly not suggesting TLOU is peak HBO drama but it shows you what Pedro Pascal can do with better material.
Grogu should have stayed with Luke.
Mando should have rejected the Children of the Watch’s ideology. (Shouldn’t he have come to that realisation at the end of Season 2?) That should a turning point in his story & his relationship with other Mandalorians.
Dead characters, whether droids or infamous bounty hunters, should stay dead. Otherwise there are no stakes.
Parts of the episode might be fun to watch as clips on YouTube.
But the whole episode was not greater than the sum of its parts.
Apparently, next week’s episode is stronger. I hope so but that still won’t make up for this subpar episode.
Also, let’s have aliens speaking alien languages.
StarkillerAG said:
Well, I finally watched the episode. And unfortunately, I’m not impressed, which is a feat considering how low my expectations were.
The main problem with Mando as a whole has already been identified by several people: the universe doesn’t feel “lived in”. The characters don’t have any nuance, no life beyond what’s on screen, they’re just machines designed to spew lame one-liners and repetitive exposition. I didn’t used to be bothered by this, but after Andor showed how convincingly “real” a Star Wars story can be, Mando just feels like a vaudeville show by comparison.
But even disregarding the lack of believability, this episode just felt… bland. Not a single moment in the entire episode really stood out to me. Every scene just felt like I’ve seen it before, and that’s because I have: almost every moment in this episode was an imitation of a much more memorable moment from the previous seasons. The Mando writers have begun to eat their own tail, so to speak, and the new season just feels forgettable as a result.
I hope this episode was just a fluke, and the next few episodes will be able to pull their act together: the critical reactions to an advance preview of Chapter 18 sound very promising. But if the new season doesn’t turn out good by at least episode 3, I’m done with Mando forever.