ZkinandBonez

Now that season 2 is over I stand by my prediction that The Mandalorian will be very similar to Rebels in its overall structure. I.e. we’ve now had the simple and mostly self-contained first season, and a cameo-filled second season with more characters and ties to the larger SW galaxy while still sticking to the main arc. Both shows also had a pretty big dramatic finale that shook things up a fair bit and planted the seeds for future plot-points. My guess is that season 3 will be much more story-focused while still being somewhat episodic and that season 4 (the final season) will mostly be one long story arc. Now that Din has the darksaber my guess is that the show will culminate in the retaking of Mandalore and that this will cross over with Ahsoka (who has a history with Mandalore and Bo-Katan) as probably as Rangers of the New Republic as well.

Mocata said:

Actions that serve characterisation, not characters that exist only to serve action.

Luke appearing to train Grogu doesn’t make sense within the story of this show? The appearance of pre-existing characters will technically always be fan-service to some degrees, but so far they’ve all added something to Din and Grogu’s story. Bo-Katan and Boba Fett allowed Din to see that there’s more than one way to be Mandalorian, and Ahsoka and now Luke adds to Grogu’s Jedi training story, while also staying true to canon. Luke was the most logical choice for the Jedi that heard Grogu’s call considering this takes place 5 years post-Endor, and when someone as important and popular as Luke returns you can hardly blame the filmmakers for making it exiting for the fans.

Having rewatched the latest episode I now see what people mean by Luke’s moth moving a little unnaturally, though its still much better than RO Tarkin IMO. You can even see that they’ve tried to work around that shortcoming in the edit. However, now that the surprise of seeing the de-aged Hamill isn’t there anymore and I can simply watch the scene, I actually think they did a pretty good job with the de-aged face. I don’t think the effect is soulless like some have suggested, it’s rather just Luke being very serious in the scene. There’s actually some really nice subtle expressions, like his final little nod to Din before he takes Grogu away. I also think it’s important to keep in mind that this is Jedi Master Luke and he doesn’t know any of the main characters so he’s being (for lack of a better word) “formal”. The effect is a little “soft” around the edges at times, but for the most part I think it looks really good. And now that Jeans Guy has been removed, should they choose to polish the effect a little more in the future, they could always add it to the episode without most people really knowing of caring.

I do wonder how they de-aged the voice though. I know how deepfakes and such work fairly well, but this is the first time I’ve heard a voice de-aged.

Cthulhunicron said:

Yeah but Bo Katan didn’t win the darksaber from someone through combat, yet she had no problem claiming it. Now all of a sudden, she can’t accept it? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Well, that’s kinda my point, if Sabine didn’t have a proper claim on it then why not simply take it. Din on the other hand has a proper claim to it now. There’s also the possibility that she failed to unite Mandalore because she didn’t have a proper claim to it and the Mandalorians rejected her as a leader, hence why it was so important for her that she defeated Gideon. The important thing to me though, is that this adds some interesting drama for the next season and it makes sense for this series. All other lore details can easily be explained away the same way The Children of the Watch explained the helmet rule.

Cthulhunicron said:

Bo Katan can’t take the darksaber from Din, but she could take it from Sabine?

Well, Sabine didn’t win it in combat like Din did, she just found it on Dathomir. Just like it took a full season to explain why Din couldn’t remove his helmet, I’m sure they’ve thought up a good explanation for this as well. The darksaber also made its first appearance in Filoni’s series so I’m absolutely sure Favreau went through it all with him as he wrote this episode.

Cthulhunicron said:

Grogu’s fate is to be killed by kylo? Wonderful.

There’s so many ways this can go so I don’t see why this has to be the case. As mentioned before its quite vague how many were killed by Papatine/Kylo so there could be plenty of them still around somewhere. Also there’s the whole Ahoska world-between-worlds thing, Grogu might still be a Whills, etc. etc. Who knows what they’ll end up going with all of this.

Rodney-2187 said:

Ed Slushie said:

Rodney-2187 said:

idir_hh said:

But damn I got serious rogue one vibes out of that Hallway scene.
Like father, like son. Ey? 😉

Was Grogu at Luke’s school when Ben/Kylo killed a bunch of other students? Is Luke going to take Grogu somewhere else?

Well, that doesn’t happen until 28 aby, while this show starts in 5 aby, and given that Grogu has already had some training, he’ll probably have graduated by then.

The Mandalorian takes place 9 ABY, but still, look at 50 year old Grogu. How much different will he be at 69 years old? I guess none of us can comment with authority regarding the growth of his species but it just seems he has a long way to go before he even reaches what we would consider a teenager.

It seem likely that Yoda’s species have a very long infancy disproportionate to what most species have. So he’ll probably go through adolescence pretty fast, otherwise Yoda at 900 in ROTJ would only be a a young adult.

sade1212 said:

idir_hh said:

But damn I got serious rogue one vibes out of that Hallway scene.
Like father, like son. Ey? 😉

This concerned me a little bit - Luke goes through a fair amount of character growth in ROTJ learning not to become his father. I mean, they’re all droids here so it’s fine, but going forwards I don’t really want to see Luke acting like TCW/ROTS Anakin. I never delved too deeply into the old EU/Legends so I’m not attached to that version of Luke like many are; instead I always imagined he’d be quite diplomatic and spiritual, much like Qui-Gon, rather than just being another prequel-era Jedi General. That’s why I love the force projection in TLJ.

In Legends continuity he would have been at the height of his dark-side exploration at this point post-ROTJ (i.e. Dark Empire comic series), but I highly doubt they’ll go that route in the new canon. I haven’t played Battlefront II, but I know he’s exploring the galaxy searching for Jedi artifacts at least a couple of years post-ROTJ. Other than that I don’t think that period has been explored too much at all. At least not from Luke’s POV. I get the feeling that the next season, plus Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic might explore Luke’s story a bit more going forward, and then the books/comics will fill in the rest over the years.

As for his “hallway” moment, I didn’t get too much of a dark-side feel from it personally, that is apart from how he crushed that one droid at the very end. Apart from the obvious fan-service, and building up suspense for both the audience ad the characters on the bridge, I see it as being very similar to when f.ex. Yoda or Obi-Wan fought droids in TCW. It seems brutal, but they are just imperial droids after all. And he seemed quite calm and proper Jedi-like at the end of the scene, so I trust they’ll handle the character well going forward.

I really enjoyed this episode. I tend to prefer the standalone adventures, but as a season finale I thought it did a really good job. Solid action, CG was generally quite good (a few rough moments, but not as bad as we’ve seen previously), some interesting set-ups for the next season(s), and I personally though the reveal at the end was handled quite well.

[SPOILERS]

I thought the de-aged Mark Hamill looked reasonably good (especially considering this is a TV series and not a movie). He looked a little soft around the edges, which makes me believe it was a deepfake rather than a full CG recreation like they did with Tarkin & Leia in RO. I wouldn’t have been against a recasting with a very similar-looking actor either, but Luke is such an important and recognizable character that I don’t think it would have had the same impact for most people if it was someone else. It wasn’t Tron Legacy bad or uncanny valley like in Rogue One, so I really didn’t mind it at all. I get that some people had a strong reaction to it as deaging effects still look a little off, but comparing it to films like the Scorpion King is IMO very hyperbolic. This is leagues ahead of that, and like I’ve already said, probably not a CG face at all, but a deepfake made from OT footage (mostly ROTJ I’d imagine).
Overall, I’m just glad to see Luke back as the Jedi.

What I’m more curious about is what going to happen next season now. I can’t imagine Grogu not being a part of it, so I imagine Thrawn or someone else will do something to bring Din back. I also really like the idea that he now has a claim to the throne of Mandalore as he unknowingly took the darksaber. I suggested earlier that he could become the new Mandalore, and it now seems like that might actually happen at the end of the series.

Post-credits scene was fun, though I’m a little confused as to what it’s about. What is “The Book of Boba Fett”? is it an actual book or is this another series they haven’t announced yet? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

screams in the void said:

did anyone catch what looks like an Echo base interior wall behind the Falcon when they show footage of the arrival at cloud city in the previous video around 4:22 ? …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yix_9g_Ob74

The full size Falcon was built into the Echo Base set and it was probably difficult and costly to move so it probably made sense to re-use it for this shot. So I suppose the Cloud City landing platform and Echo Base hangar were built on the same sound stage?

Six Characters We NEED to See in The Bad Batch Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjWkFaPwNI - from the Star Wars Explained YouTube channel (5 mins long).

BTW, the Dryden Vos scene from TCW season 7 has a Falleen present, so maybe Xizor being properly recanonized isn’t too unlikely. I agree that Maul might be a bit overkill a this point, though I wouldn’t mind, but having the Bad Batch get involved with Crimson Dawn at some point seems like a really obvious thing to do.

Five Characters We NEED to See in the Cassian Andor Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDs-nVWgXmQ - from the Star Wars Explained YouTube channel (4:30 mins long).

Five Characters We NEED to See in the Kenobi Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KoOlvnQmZQ - from the Star Wars Explained YouTube channel (5 mins long).

Some fairly obvious suggestions, but also a few interesting ideas about how Liam Neeson could come back as a Force Ghost and how that could tie in to Obi-Wan going on a big of a Force vision exploration similar to what Yoda did in TCW season 6.

I just noticed that this shot of Luke in the X-Wing cockpit isn’t widescreen like most of the other shots.
https://youtu.be/yix_9g_Ob74?t=101
Ditto on this shot in the Falcon cockpit.
https://youtu.be/yix_9g_Ob74?t=130
Does anyone know why these weren’t shot in anamorphic? I’m guessing it has something to do with the blue-screens needing to be removed, or just with them being VFX shots in general.

A New Practical Miniature in The Mandalorian!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRSPfAkz5Bs&t - from the EC Henry YouTube channel (2:45 mins long).

Now that it has been pointed out it really does seem like Gideon’s cruiser might be a miniature like the Razor Crest (some shots anyway). So it’ll be interesting to see if the next season of Disney Gallery confirms this or if this is a CG model made to look like a “retro” miniature just like the Star Destroyers in RO.

Perturbator said:

I’d be more worried if this mini series promised something less than epic. I’m all for another Obi-Wan vs Vader duel and more onscreen insights into Vader’s mission, but what excites me more is the possibility of smaller duels and skirmishes with a posse Vader’s Jedi Hunters (the knights of ren we never got). I just hope they give each of these hunters enough development and characteristics to be both menacing and memorable.

Considering the time period in which the series will be set it’s very likely that we’ll get to see some of the Inquisitors which has now appeared in Rebels, Fallen Order and various comic book stories. We might get to see familiar characters like the Grand Inquistor in live-action, though probably some new ones that can be killed off by Obi-Wan and/or whoever he ends up allying himself with. We might even get to see some live-action Purge Troopers.

daveinthecave said:

My only real question is: who will have the high ground this time?

Since this series predates Christensen’s casting in AOTC I’d almost believe the Obi-Wan line was a reference to it, but its probably just a really ironic coincidence.

Poster for Chapter 15: The Believer.

I kinda expected a Bill Burr poster for Chapter 15, especially since we got Cobb Vanth and even a Frog-Lady poster earlier, though this does makes more sense for season 2 overall. However, since we already got a Gideon poster I’m now really curious about who we’ll get a poster for after this week’s episode.

Rodney-2187 said:

Did anyone else spot the easter egg in the title?

Wexter said:

But Xizor (and more importantly the Black Sun) already is cannon, so there are possibilities there. Dash Rendar I could give or take.

Xizor would make for a really cool re-canonized villain, but I didn’t know he’d been brought back. I remember seeing the Black Sun and the Falleen species in TCW though.

EDIT: Apparently he has been re-canonized through a Galaxy’s Edge cookbook. Bit odd, but why not. Not sure how official that canon status necessarily is, but I do still like the idea of him returning. The Falleen in general are really interesting and it’d be fun to see more of them.

Knight of Kalee said:

timdiggerm said:

Am I wrong in thinking that most of the troopers we saw were probably Rogue One costumes?

Indeed, there were a lot of shore troopers at the Imperial facility. It’s not the first time the series recycles props, though. Multiple extras from TFA, Rogue One and Solo have made reappearances.

I actually think its quite neat that they’re reusing costumes for the movies. Not only is it nice seeing familiar uniforms, aliens, etc. but it’s fun to see that even a big show like The Mandalorian resorts to recycling props and costumes. Like Hal 9000 said earlier, there’s a certain charm to these simple and old school moviemaking shortcuts.

JakeRyan17 said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Palpatine’s speech in the trailer sounds like its taken directly from ROTS so it’ll be interesting to see if that’s his only appearance in this series or if McDiarmid will reprise his role like he did in Rebels.

With seeing Tarkin, I bet that we’ll get more Imperial officers than The Emperor himself.

Speaking of voices, in addition to weather or not Fennec will be an ally or antagonist in the series, I’m assuming they’ve gotten Ming-Na Wen to voice the character. Since this is a younger version they could justify another voice actress, but since she’s already on The Mandalorian I can’t imagine it’d be hard to get her to voice her here as well.

I’m sure they’ll bring her back. She’s too much of a badass not to, AND she’s a voice actress. She voiced Mulan way back when, and doesn’t sound all that different now.

Huh, I only saw the dubbed version of Mulan as a kid so I did not know that.

JakeRyan17 said:

Shadows will not happen. Pablo Hidalgo and some of the other story gurus hate it too much. I imagine LAL will move onto The High Republic or another less-explored part of the timeline next.

Not that I expected a new Shadows of the Empire, especially since Forces of Destiny changed the lore so that Maz gave Leia the Boushh outfit instead of Guri, but just out of curiosity, do you know why Hidalgo doesn’t like it. I was always under the impressions tat Shadows of the Empire was quite well regarded. I really loved it anyway, but I’m not someone who personally needs the new canon to re-canonize specific stories. I think they’re fine just as they are, and I don’t mind dealing with two continuities.

Also, who/what is LAL? Not a name/abbreviation I’m familiar with.

Palpatine’s speech in the trailer sounds like its taken directly from ROTS so it’ll be interesting to see if that’s his only appearance in this series or if McDiarmid will reprise his role like he did in Rebels.

And speaking of voices, in addition to weather or not Fennec will be an ally or antagonist to the Bad Batch, I’m assuming they’ve gotten Ming-Na Wen to voice the character. Since this is a younger version they could justify another voice actress, but since she’s already on The Mandalorian I can’t imagine it’d be hard to get her to voice acting for the character as well.

JakeRyan17 said:

The EU is done because there are no real possibilities. Adapting those stories, which are far messier than anything Disney has released, is not going to appease anyone—as even if they tried, fans of those novels/books/comics/games will always be pissed that it isn’t how they imagined it.

Acolyte is going to be one of the better ways forward, and I wish more was announced like that: in a different era. As fun as Dave’s and John’s three new shows spinning out from Mandalorian sound, I think it’s time to move away from the sequel trilogy. I enjoyed Rogue One, I look forward to Andor, Kenobi sounds cool, as does the other show. The Bad Batch will be cool, and similar to Clone Wars and Rebels, while the other two animated series, Visions and A Droids Story, will find their audiences too.

I think Leslye Headland’s The Acolyte and, if it’s ever brought back to the table, Rian Johnson’s trilogy going to new eras less connected to the main saga of nostalgia will be the better way forward. But fans will complain regardless. Catering to fans just doesn’t work, if you don’t believe me: rewatch The Rise of Skywalker. We need new things, and fans need to embrace that some things will be different. The more we support the franchise as a whole, the more they’ll invest in giving us new and diverse (both by representation and types of stories) content.

Ok, I think we’re kinda having two separate discussions here, or you’re assuming that I’m a lot more negative than I actually am. By EU is simply meant an “expanded universe” as in not the Skywalker saga, not Legends or specifically books, comics, etc. of any specific era of content. Maybe I’ve used the term wrong, but I was under the impression that it still applied to non-saga material. And yes I’m sure The Acolyte will provide something fresh and new, by writing “whatever it turns out to be” I was simply referring to the fact that we hardly know anything about it.

We clearly agree on a lot of points here other than the idea of embracing everything. I just personally don’t think that works. And I don’t mean that people should be angry or disrespectful the way many were (and still are) in response to TLJ, or even all the way back to films TPM. Not liking the ST or PT doesn’t have to mean you’re one of these people. And while I agree that you can’t please everyone and that many fans make bad calls ad want strange things, clearly some creators get more approval from a majority while others don’t, and I do think that should be acknowledged (to an extent) by the people who run a franchise. And we clearly agree that the different shows will please different sections of the fan-base, while others will also like most or all of it as a whole. This is why I think the new Disney+ model holds great promise.

Anyway, this has deviated a lot from discussing the Bad Batch so unless there’s some final points you’d like to add to this discussion I think we should end it here.

JakeRyan17 said:

ZkinandBonez said:

JakeRyan17 said:

I think it was, you’re just not looking in the right places.

And as far as people being overlooked, it was Kathleen that brought him over to Mandalorian after she fired Josh Trank and hired Favreau. Mandalorian started as the unproduced Boba Fett movie. Kathleen pulled him to help develop it as a series with Favreau before Star Wars Resistance, and that’s why he was overseeing but not show-running that series. That’s also why he learned to direct from Johnson, because that’s how long ago they were working on season 1.

Like, everyone wants to demonise her or blame her for what they don’t like, but then they don’t credit her for what they do like. She was getting Mandalorian off the ground prior to firing the directors of Solo.

But at the end of the day, as with any film, the director has that final say on set. If you wanna complain about films not getting things right, blame them. Abrams is the main culprit, even if you hated TLJ Abrams signed off on that while he was still shooting TFA.

I just feel like we’re always looking for excuses to blame the woman for what the men do wrong and not to credit her for her astute decisions. Filoni is great, don’t get me wrong… but he’s not the messiah. Film and TV aren’t ever made by just one person.

You’re making a lot of assumptions again. I never mentioned Kennedy by name, nor Abrams or Johnson. I’ve only vaguely criticized the ST in a very general way and I appreciate it if you didn’t compare me to certain angry fans simply because of some very superfluous similarities. I don’t think they’re awful movies, there are many elements that I actually liked, but I’m just not particularly impressed by the overall trilogy and how it concluded.

I stand corrected on several production details though. I didn’t know they were “preparing” Filoni for live-action as early as TLJ. I will say though that I’m somewhat tired of the “film and TV aren’t made by one person” argument. Yes, its true that many people make movies/series great, but directors and show-runners are there to keep all that talent together and keep their input within a cohesive framework so that the final product fits within his/her idea of what the movie/series should be. Filoni’s obviously not the only reason TCW, Rebels or The Mandalorian are good, but he’s obviously one of the main contributors to all of them.

He is. That’s why he was brought in for story meetings prior to TFA. That’s why Kathy brought him over with John to rework the Boba Fett movie into The Mandalorian.

I’m tired of people who don’t work in this industry creating messianic figures out of people. Dave is exceptionally talented, but there was a lot else going on on those films that Filoni could not have fixed, even if he were president of Lucasfilm or CEO of Disney itself.

I agree, and I also think the “put him in charge everything” arguments were silly. I doubt he’d be interested in the job even if it were hypothetically offered to him.

I do however think its important for the fans to have a person to look up to as the “visionary” as it were. That’s obviously quite corny, and as you said can often lead to a form of veneration. But after Lucas sold SW and dropped out of the franchise I don’t blame people for wanting a new creative anchor. And there’s something to be said for him being that guy, not for everything of course, but creating a little pocket universe for Filoni’s ideas is, I think, a clever move. If Filoni’s stuff doesn’t appeal to some people, then there’s the ST, RO/Andor, whatever the Acolyte turns out to be, etc. But there is that somewhat self-contained Filoni-saga, “-verse”, whatever they end up calling it, that will hopefully end up feeling consistent. This is the big danger with a franchise like SW, eventually someone is going to make something that a lot of the fans don’t like and then other people will have to incorporate that into their stories for the sake of continuity. Since one person can’t carry the whole thing on his/her back, I think breaking it into semi self-contained “clusters” of content with only the movies as the core skeleton. But then you again end up with the Lucas saga vs ST argument. I don’t blame Disney for making the obvious decision to cash in on their humongous purchase and make more movies. But when one person was in charge of the previous six films there’s some huge shoes to fill when continuing the saga and I think it was domed to cause a stir either way. Heck, even Lucas caused a stir by his continuation of his own stories. But I do think live-action and animated EU stories is the way to go forward. It’s safer and there’s so many possibilities.

sade1212 said:

There’s bits and pieces in The Art of the Rise of Skywalker from a meeting Lucasfilm had in ~2014, after the first draft of TFA was written, in order to decide what to do in VIII and IX. It included Filoni, Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Chiang, John Knoll etc. It was actually Filoni’s idea to have Leia train Rey after Luke fails to do so (he goes as far as to say Leia could become the “Obi-Wan” of the Sequel Trilogy) and that Leia should be the one responsible for Ben’s redemption, both ideas we see come about in TROS. Of course, that was before Carrie passed away or TLJ was written, so the wisdom of choosing to still use those ideas for IX anyway is questionable - but it’s clear evidence that Filoni was a creative influence on the sequels.

I think people underestimate his role at Lucasfilm - Kennedy isn’t stupid; she’s as aware as anyone that Lucas spent years teaching Filoni while they were making The Clone Wars. But Filoni isn’t a producer, and, as we see in the Mandalorian, he’s still only beginning to get his legs as a live-action director. Kennedy gets a bad rap because of the bumpy production of the sequels, but a lot of that comes down to Iger wanting to rush TFA out ASAP to recoup the costs of buying Lucasfilm, and then only giving each subsequent movie ~2 years rather than the 3 that the previous trilogies had.

Fair enough, I stand corrected on a lot of points. I get why the ST was rushed, but it’s still a shame we got such a messy and inconsistent set of films for practical reasons. At least now that Disney/Lucasfilm have started focusing on series it seems like we’re getting much more coherent stories from now on. I’m still glad to see that Filoni has reached a point were his animation contributions to the lore is starting to become the focus of a lot of the new live-action content.