I watched Movie 3. This one was a lot of fun. Never boring. However, it did seem to have that feeling that the first movie did of still feeling very episodic. That’s not a shot against your editing, but rather just an observation that it seems the episodic nature of the series cannot be removed without excising entire plot threads.
Before I watched 3, I was wondering in my head “Why did he need to do 3 and 4 at all, seems like they could probably be one movie”. But now I do see. Since you are integrating BoBF and keeping most of Mando’s major threads, it would be impossible to do 3 and 4 as one “movie 3” without entirely removing certain threads. So I don’t blame you for how you handled it, and for what it is, I think you did really well, it was a lot of fun.
I like with your movies how the rewards are sprinkled throughout. This movie felt specifically “Mandalorian focused” which is a good thing. I suspect this movie 3 will be more mandalorian focused than movie 4 will be.
One thing that didnt quite sit with me was Boba’s integration. Now I can see you were trying to maintain his thread throughout this movie. On one hand, including the Sarlacc in this movie and not the last one is neat, because Boba points out that his armor is gone, and then we see where it went…
But, doing so highlights some issues I think were not as apparent with the original series structuring which is… it is surprising that Boba did not hear about Cobb vanth wearing his armor sooner. I mean Boba spent what, 5 years experiencing and getting to know Tatooine better? Meanwhile Din is able to track it down in 10 minutes.
Secondly, the scene of Boba shooting Din’s speeder. Very cool editing, for sure. But… I do not know why he let Din go? Seems like after shooting him, and undoubtedly spotting his armor, he would have chased down the now on foot Din and confront him about his armor. Just makes you wonder why he decides to wait, wish there was just a little bit more to explain his motivation here.
(Also to integrate it better, in the shot of Boba putting his rifle away or whatever, you can see off to the side Jabbas palace, a remnant of the old version. If that could be edited out would help meld it better, minor thing).
And in general, Boba’s integration was just very small. But I know it is going to pay off big in the next movie, so… I don’t exactly want you to make any big changes, I think overall the structure you have is the best that can be done with the material. But I wonder if there are any other fixes that can be done to address some of the Boba things.
Also I noticed a theme through the movie was fighting big monsters lol. Spider, Sarlacc, Krayt. I don’t know if thats a good or bad thing but you know what, it’s fun.
But overall, very impressive, very fun movie. FAR superior and more exciting than the original series. I can’t wait to watch movie 4 here shortly. Book 2 is still my favorite, but I am impressed by just how much more watchable this makes the whole saga.