The Mandalorian (Star Wars Live Action Series)

[Darthrazz]

Ummm.. what the hell did I just watch?
Why run through the streets chasing a droid when they could have flown?
Does this season have and endgame, is it leading up to anything at all?
Does Grogu serve any purpose to the storyline anymore?
There are only two episodes left, what's the next one about? Grogu following a frog and falling into a well? - At this point I wouldn't doubt it.
Why does Mando look so frumpy lately? It looks like his armor is oversized?
His shoulder bells look like they are always too low. The other Mando's all look well put together.

 

[greygoose]

Two eps left to setup any spin-offs and a BS cliffhanger for season 4, of course.

Is there even a story to tell in season 4...

 

[greygoose]

Ummm.. what the hell did I just watch?
Why run through the streets chasing a droid when they could have flown? My thoughts exactly.
Does this season have and endgame, is it leading up to anything at all? See post 10,995 by Jayception.
Does Grogu serve any purpose to the storyline anymore? Looks cute and jumps around a lot = toy sales.
There are only two episodes left, what's the next one about? Grogu following a frog and falling into a well? - At this point I wouldn't doubt it. Bo does something cool. Mando says something. Grogu does something funny.
Why does Mando look so frumpy lately? It looks like his armor is oversized? I asked this after last weeks episode. He looks 'bigger' than usual.
His shoulder bells look like they are always too low. The other Mando's all look well put together. Looks like he has a giraffe neck.

 

[Garlador]

Is there even a story to tell in season 4...

Calling it. They absolutely are going to use the last two episodes to set up the cliffhanger for Season 4.

We’re in the home stretch and, personally, I think it’s a fine - but flimsy - season. It’s spinning its wheels, doing episodic sidequests, with no real driving agency or high-stakes goal. And I think you can clearly see the shift from Seasons 1-2 to Season 3. Episode 1 of the show laid down the stakes and by Episode 3 Din had a purpose that drove the plot for the rest of two seasons.

Here, the goal is for Bo to retake Madalore. Cool, fine. Retake from who? Cave monsters? And if she does, okay? How does any of that change Din or Grogu’s development?

So… I’m in a sort of “stop caring and enjoy the ride” mode, and if all I want is cool space dude fighting aliens and robots while hopping around the galaxy and bumping into Lizzo, Doc Brown, and 1/2 of Tenacious D, I’m at least entertained.

I don’t think it’s bad yet, but it certainly feels aimless and lacking ambition.

Tune in next time to see Din and Grogu rub elbows with Snoop Dog, Jimmy Fallon, and Kim Kardashian. Hijinks will ensue.

 

[greygoose]

Tune in next time to see Din and Grogu rub elbows with Snoop Dog, Jimmy Fallon, and Kim Kardashian. Hijinks will ensue.

This is the way.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

What is this show and where is it going? What is the goal here? What is the point?
Set up for season 4 or for Ahsoka?
We waited 2 years for this season.
Sure, we're finally at a point where we've united a bunch of Mandalorians. We have a leader. We have an objective.
Problems;
Only 2 eps left.
Wrong leader (from a certain point of view)
Take back Mandalore from what or who exactly? It looked pretty abandoned.
Who is the villain exactly? Are we going to see Gideon in the last 3 mins of ep10. He's going to spout some generic bad guy dialogue only to step aside and reveal Thrawn (setting up the Ahsoka show)

There's some stuff in the back ground about the New Republic being incompetent and not much better than the Empire, vague threats of an Imperial resurgence etc etc but nothing has been developed and now we're out of time.
2 Eps left to "retake Mandalore" and I guess develop this Imperial Remnant, New Republic stuff.

This makes me think a chunk of this season has only been to set up season 4 of The Mandalorian or Ahsoka. That's it. And we waited 2 bloody years for it.

The overall story and writing might be weak but they can get away with that somewhat if they do the adventure action show stuff well but they don't!
They don't even do pew pew well for crying out loud. Action in this season has been executed very well at all.

I fear I'll be joining Asta in the don't care about Star Wars club soon.

I'm struggling to think of much nice to say about this episode. It's just outweighed so much by the stuff I didn't. I'm sad about that because The Mandalorian was one of the few bits of modern Star Wars I liked.
This show is slipping into BoBF territory.

I suppose it was nice seeing battle droids (though I don't have as much as a connection to them as a lot of other, maybe younger, fans) and I do like Bo-Katan. I do also like Bo and Din going on adventures together, but Bo is definitely over shadowing Din and I'm not sure that's a great idea.
I quite liked the Ughnaut interaction.
Mercenary Mando's, doing any job for money. That was OK.

Some random grumbles about recent episode;

Celebrity cameos were awful. Cringey bad dialogue and acting.
Comments about it all getting worse since the ex-Imperial officer arrived. Where's the payoff to all this stuff.
The fleet wasn't all that impressive. We saw how 2 of the ships were captured in season 2 yet Bo claims it took her a long time to gather it.
Aliens that don't sound like aliens;
When Mon Cal sounded like Admiral Ackbar or that one from Rogue One. Now they sound so human.
Running after droids instead of using jetpacks.

Just loads of nitpicks etc.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

Who's the villain?

 

[HPGR_Thrawn]

I really enjoyed the most recent episode. The CSI stuff and droids were cool. It was a fun side quest. It did seem to tonally shift at the end. I'm guessing we won't really get to Mandalore this season. There still must be more Mandalorian groups running around to unite first.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

As I've posted before, I've accepted we're never going to get Andor quality story or dialogue. Or acting. Or glorious actual sets and locations (I'm so tired of that volume thing) but I'd be OK if The Mandalorian at least did its action scenes well. It's been so bleh this season.

Anyway....

The rumours of Boba Fett making an appearance. It's getting late in the day now, just 2 eps left. Do you think Boba will appear and if so, what context do you think he'll appear in?
How will they fit him into the story with just 2 eps left?

 

[The Buffinator]

Calling it. They absolutely are going to use the last two episodes to set up the cliffhanger for Season 4.

We’re in the home stretch and, personally, I think it’s a fine - but flimsy - season. It’s spinning its wheels, doing episodic sidequests, with no real driving agency or high-stakes goal. And I think you can clearly see the shift from Seasons 1-2 to Season 3. Episode 1 of the show laid down the stakes and by Episode 3 Din had a purpose that drove the plot for the rest of two seasons.

Here, the goal is for Bo to retake Mandalore. Cool, fine. Retake from who? Cave monsters? And if she does, okay? How does any of that change Din or Grogu’s development?

So… I’m in a sort of “stop caring and enjoy the ride” mode, and if all I want is cool space dude fighting aliens and robots while hopping around the galaxy and bumping into Lizzo, Doc Brown, and 1/2 of Tenacious D, I’m at least entertained.

I don’t think it’s bad yet, but it certainly feels aimless and lacking ambition.

Tune in next time to see Din and Grogu rub elbows with Snoop Dog, Jimmy Fallon, and Kim Kardashian. Hijinks will ensue.

I think it's possible that Moff Gideon and his supporters (perhaps including another Mandalorian faction?) could be hiding in plain sight on Mandalore and were behind perpetuating the disinformation about it being uninhabitable. All we've seen of the planet was the ruins of a city center and the living waters below it, so it's conceivable that they've settled elsewhere and have amassed a formidable fleet. Having Din, Bo and company travel to Mandalore to triumphantly take back their home world only to be met with an armada led by Gideon seems like an appropriate cliffhanger.

 

[jye4ever]

That droid seperatist mystery was one big fat waste of valuable narrative time.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

What is this show and where is it going? What is the goal here? What is the point?

Kathleen Kennedy has the singular benefit of being in charge of Star Wars at a time when it's clearly impossible to say publicly that she sucks on a broad scale. Anyone working the MSM would lose their careers if they pushed that narrative too hard. Any major platform will be bribed, blackmailed or leveraged with Big Mouse Dollars to tune down fan backlash.

This is a type of pure cultural terrorism. Because there is clearly malice involved. It's not someone trying their best to make something great and being grateful for the chance to build upon an already established beloved "universe" It's a constant dull drumbeat, that's a declaration of war on all SW fans, trying to shame them for loving what they love, as if they were complicit in acts and social transgressions that probably happened long before they were born.

Some people were not happy about hearing that Phoebe Waller Bridge might take over the Indiana Jones franchise. But at least she's created what can be considered two legitimate hit shows. I'll give PWB that much credit. At least she built something from scratch.

Kennedy has built nothing on her own. She's the least responsible teenager in the house, who got handed the keys to family car, and proceeded to crash it into a giant brick wall.

S2 Mando ends with the clear "rules of the universe" that Djarin can't just hand over the Dark Saber to Bo Katan. There needs to be a straight up stand up fight over it. Then the last episode, he just hands it to her with a 10 second contrived unconfirmed story about it, and everyone else just nods and says OK to it.

I'm actually OK with a story where somewhere in the SW universe, the theme is just to plain hate men outright. But at least do it competently. Ridley Scott's Thelma And Louise is a singular totem to pure hate for all men. But it was well crafted and had nuance and some respect towards actual character development. I may not like the theme, but I can respect that Ridley Scott is usually a competent effective storyteller.

I love my little nephew to death. But I wouldn't give him the keys to my car. And that's what happened with Star Wars. They gave someone with the competency of a 14 year old the reins of a billion dollar empire and decided to just watch it all burn.

 

[wormlander]

Carano was a side character and not even a compelling one, she had zero chemistry with Din - her departure into Wild Space is in no way responsible for the kids-hour mess we see before our eyes today.

Are you kidding? Since when did bad chemistry between characters stop Disney from making shows about them? She'd be all over this season of Mando had they moved forward with the Rangers spin-off, I guarantee it.

 

[pixletwin]

This show is a prime example of what can happen with the Corporates gets too involved with the Creatives in decision making.

 

[JAWS]

I have not watched the the last episode. I thought episode 4 was bad and 5 was ok.

I’m starting to have the same problem with this season as others.

No main villain really hurts this series. It’s why I loved Andor as much as I did. It focused on the bad guys also. Just like the OT did. The Villains are more than half the fun in SW

 

[Ramatuelle]

The rumours of Boba Fett making an appearance. It's getting late in the day now, just 2 eps left. Do you think Boba will appear and if so, what context do you think he'll appear in?
How will they fit him into the story with just 2 eps left?

Leave him out of this mess. He has suffered enough. I really dont want to see him here. Luckily the temp intern currently in charge seems to have forgotten all about him; whew.

Earlier I compared this show to a Willy Wonka movie, but you know what - I think it can be better compared to the Wizard of Oz. We're in Oz now. Oz without a wicked Witch. Tell me this new planet was NOT Munchkinland! It was. The production values here are great, but its still really jarring. There's absolutely no tension here, and they keep gutting their own storylines. They undid what they did with Grogu, and now they undid their Darksaber storyline. The rest of this is going to be setting up Ahsoka, and I dont even care.

We did not get Sabine, we did not get Fenn Rau, what did we get....? Bo-Katan looking cool and Grogu Force-flipping. That might be enough for the kidlets, but its not enough for me. Think of the tens of millions of dollars thrown out the window on this.

 

[Ramatuelle]

Are you kidding? Since when did bad chemistry between characters stop Disney from making shows about them? She'd be all over this season of Mando had they moved forward with the Rangers spin-off, I guarantee it.

I never said bad chemistry stopped Disney from making shows about a character.

What I DID say was that Carano added little value to the Mando storyline and had no chemistry at all with Din. Therefore her absence means little if anything to the show's continuity. Things have went horribly wrong with this show. But not because of her departure, because she was really a non-entity to begin with.

I dont care that Rangers got cancelled. This is because I was never interested in watching Carano, who literally could not act her way out of a paper bag. She did not have the acting range to carry a show like that. Never will. And you need some charisma for that, she does not have that either.

These shows are not here for drama, they are here for something else now. We're being *TAUGHT.* Except I as an adult, do not need teaching thanks. Bo is being elevated at Din's expense, but why can we not have TWO powerful characters who enhance each other? Disney has neutered Mando, and before that they neutered Boba Fett! FETT, one of the Dragon-energy-iest men in the entire SW universe. The mind boggles. But I digress here.

 

[BladeS]

Law and Order: Special Droids Unit

 

[ZE_501]

I dont care that Rangers got cancelled. This is because I was never interested in watching Carano, who literally could not act her way out of a paper bag. She did not have the acting range to carry a show like that. Never will. And you need some charisma for that, she does not have that either.

I agree with all of this. Thanks to her background she was very believable in a fight scene, which I enjoyed, but that doesn't mean you hand her a script or a whole series, for that matter -- that she doesn't have the acting chops for. Nothing against her but there are plenty of character actors and physical actors that I wouldn't put there either.

These shows are not here for drama, they are here for something else now. We're being *TAUGHT.*

This is something I addressed in some rant a while back; I don't believe Disney has an 'agenda' to 'teach' anything. I just think they're aggressively and cynically positioning themselves in the market for younger general audiences, kids and special interest groups. They exist solely for profit and I don't think they would do anything that wasn't making them money. Now if they're tanking anyway, that leaves them in a pickle because this is the wrong climate to go back to say -- the '80s -- but nobody said pimpin' was easy.

Bo is being elevated at Din's expense, but why can we not have TWO powerful characters who enhance each other? Disney has neutered Mando, and before that they neutered Boba Fett! FETT, one of the Dragon-energy-iest men in the entire SW universe. The mind boggles.

I am also with boggle of the mind.

Andor (whether or not one likes it -- I love it) has all kinds of complex, strong characters resonating off each other and enhancing each other, but Andor almost certainly wasn't written by committee with the good crayons.

 

[wormlander]

So bad...

The Droid "morgue"...

Oh well, at least Grogu got "Knighted"...wtf?

It's Sir Grogu to you