So....The Mandalorian

[Tank]

Welp, ep 203 was basically what everyone has been waiting for since the show was announced. Deep lore drops, Mando vs Imperial action, old faces...

I loved this one. Turns out Sasha Banks isn't Sabine (which would have been perfect honestly), and Katie Sackoff not only plays a character she voiced originally in animation, but also name drops both the Darksaber and Ahsoka, AND confirms what we all suspected about the helmet rules.

I even loved the cargo crane walker, as Lucas said his original inspiration for ATATs was all the huge cargo cranes at the port of  Los Angeles.

Still don't know why the boat wasn't floating over the water though...

[Dark Wader]

Ages in Star Wars really make no sense. Thinking about it, Katee Sackhoff’s character should be in her 50’s at least but she still looks around late 30’s. 

[Jedigoat]

Hover boats!  No floaty boats!  And the docks looked way too earthbound, all the crates and pallets in the background looked like a regular third world harbor that you'd see in modern action films. 

[Tank]

4 hours ago, Dark Wader said:

Ages in Star Wars really make no sense. Thinking about it, Katee Sackhoff’s character should be in her 50’s at least but she still looks around late 30’s. 

So you're an expert on Mandalorian aging?

[Dark Wader]

I’ll have you know I have pretty extensive academic qualifications in Mandalore. (Sp?) 
 
 

[The Choc]

Fun episode. Season is 2 out of 3 so far which is probably the hit rate the first season had.

I think I've figured out why this show just can't get past the "pretty good" rating for me. The main character is just boring and uninteresting. Now I get the whole stoic guy in a western vibe they are going for. The thing is those characters are at usually at least somewhat morally ambiguous. Alot of times they end up doing the right thing but its kind of up in the air until they actually do it. Since the 2nd or 3rd week last year Mando has been pretty much 100% good guy which doesn't leave much interesting in terms of what hes going to do or the choices he's going to make. Couple that with the fact that he's not exactly a fun character who youd wanna go for a beer with and the character who is meant to carry the show is kinda just boring and predictable. 

[The Choc]

Also they are really hitting us over the head with this Mandalorian's jet packing out of monsters to set up Boba's return as feasible. 

[Zathras]

1 hour ago, The Choc said:

 

I think I've figured out why this show just can't get past the "pretty good" rating for me. The main character is just boring and uninteresting. 

I think you hit the nail on the head there.  The action scenes are good, but the Mando is kind of a bland character.  It always felt like he was a Fett stand in, anyway, but with Baby Yoda, this show now seeming to morph into a live action continuation of TCW and Rebels, and now with Fett probably returning,  Mando almost seems sidelined in his own show (as a character, not necessarily a lack of seeing him).  Sort of like Picard in Star Trek Picard. 

[The Choc]

Just a tad of personality can go a long way. He doesn't need to be the life of the party but man there is just nothing there. This kind of character its usually the whole "will he or wont he do the right thing" and as an audience we kinda know he will but still it hasn't happened until the yet. Mando has done the right thing and basically always does the right thing. So just isn't anything there. 

Even Blondie in TGTBTU has a bit of like dry wit in him and you can tell in a way he kinda enjoys Tuco's antics. There is something there. Plus that movie has Tuco as a co main character to give us sometihng different. This show it's just blah with him. This show Mando himself is just blah, then factor in the sort of one off "procedural" type episodes which are hit and miss and the show is just pretty good. 

[Tank]

The whole point of this show was to give us Boba Fett without having to be Boba Fett. Man of few words, action, looks cool.

They've delivered on that. The even said in a Gallery episode they know they are pushing it when most of the time you have a dude in a mask and a puppet onscreen.

It's very intentional that the drama lands on other people, and Mando slips in and out if their story. That allows them pathos without losing the core concept.

That said, it isn't sustainable forever. They have been planting seeds from the start that at some point he will take of the mask and make real connections. It's coming.

My guess? The liberation of Mandalore will be the season finale, and that will be the turning point for him.

As for Fett-- the talk of him becoming a regular or getting his own show-- nonsense. The entire reason they made a new Mandalorian character was to get away from the inherent trappings of the fact SW is about good and evil, and Fett is a bad guy. We're not done with him, but he's not going to become the hero of anything.

At best, he gets the armor back and becomes a reoccurring  villain, a sort of anti-Mando. Maybe he becomes the nemesis for S3 Mando is tasked to hunt down.

 

[Zathras]

Well I agree with you on that.  Mando is literally just a badass in a suit, that grudgingly does the right thing in like every episode.  He's a good guy by default.  Now the moral ambiguity, I understand maybe they are trying to do a different compared to the films, because they are pretty black and white, good guy vs bad guy.  But Mando needs more personality, and more character progression.   I mean I know its harder to do because the mask, but Vader always was able to convey his personality through body language, and of course JEJ.  That is what Mando needs.

[Jedigoat]

It's not like we haven't all seen Mad Max.  Sorry if he's not Mel Gibson!   Or yay, it's not Mel Gibson?

[Zathras]

Quote

As for Fett-- the talk of him becoming a regular or getting his own show-- nonsense. The entire reason they made a new Mandalorian character was to get away from the inherent trappings of the fact SW is about good and evil, and Fett is a bad guy. We're not done with him, but he's not going to become the hero of anything.

At best, he gets the armor back and becomes a reoccurring  villain, a sort of anti-Mando. Maybe he becomes the nemesis for S3 Mando is tasked to hunt down.

I hope you are right on that because with Fett, less is more.   I am OK with a recurring role, but I don't know how you make a show about Fett.  Movie, maybe.  

[The Choc]

4 minutes ago, Tank said:

The whole point of this show was to give us Boba Fett without having to be Boba Fett. Man of few words, action, looks cool.

They've delivered on that. The even said in a Gallery episode they know they are pushing it when most of the time you have a dude in a mask and a puppet onscreen.

It's very intentional that the drama lands on other people, and Mando slips in and out if their story. That allows them pathos without losing the core concept.

That said, it isn't sustainable forever. They have been planting seeds from the start that at some point he will take of the mask and make real connections. It's coming.

My guess? The liberation of Mandalore will be the season finale, and that will be the turning point for him.

As for Fett-- the talk of him becoming a regular or getting his own show-- nonsense. The entire reason they made a new Mandalorian character was to get away from the inherent trappings of the fact SW is about good and evil, and Fett is a bad guy. We're not done with him, but he's not going to become the hero of anything.

At best, he gets the armor back and becomes a reoccurring  villain, a sort of anti-Mando. Maybe he becomes the nemesis for S3 Mando is tasked to hunt down.

 

Just because it's deliberate doesn't mean it works. And I hope you are right and that the character does I guess "come out of his shell" or whatever. Then the show will likely be better than it is now. 

[Zathras]

3 minutes ago, Jedigoat said:

It's not like we haven't all seen Mad Max.  Sorry if he's not Mel Gibson!   Or yay, it's not Mel Gibson?

See I just can't put my finger on what it is about Mando.  Is it Pedro Pascal's acting? Or is it that they have fallen into a writing rut?  Or just the character model is not sustainable?  

But Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell and other actors (even the Jason Wingreen/Jeremy Bullock combo playing Fett) playing similar characters to Mando just have that "thing" That make them cool

[The Choc]

Mando isn't cool, he actually seems like kind of a nerd. 

[Tank]

I mean, Bo Kataryn basically outed him as the Magalorian.

[The Choc]

I think sometimes his overly dry reactions to baby Yoda's antics are supposed to be funny but they don't seem to work in that way. 

[Jedigoat]

Ever since he rescued the child, that what we're basically saying, right?   He got boring??  I don't think it's Pedro.  I'd say it's the stories and the choices they're presenting to his character. 

Every episode, he needs someone's help.  They agree to help if Mando helps them first.  Then Mando just blindly trusts these people every time.  Then it bites him or the one he's helping directly in the ass.  I'm getting tired of that more than I am the character. 

[Zathras]

3 hours ago, Jedigoat said:

Ever since he rescued the child, that what we're basically saying, right?   He got boring??  I don't think it's Pedro.  I'd say it's the stories and the choices they're presenting to his character. 

Every episode, he needs someone's help.  They agree to help if Mando helps them first.  Then Mando just blindly trusts these people every time.  Then it bites him or the one he's helping directly in the ass.  I'm getting tired of that more than I am the character. 

For me at least, the second part of your post is what I mean.  Sort of the Gilligan's Island syndrome.  But who knows, maybe Tank is onto something by end of season. 

[Tank]

What's my batting average on predicting this stuff?

[Zathras]

No clue off the top of my head, but I'm sure better than mine! 

[Rogue 3]

All great points people. I do agree with what’s being said (the repetition of “giving help to get help”, Mando being too good in comparison to traditional “Man with no Name” western characters (TG,TB & TU is my favourite film just as a fun fact)), but despite that, I’m really enjoying the show.

Episode 3 was really good in introducing those elements from Clone Wars. It will be interesting to see how they introduce Ashoka properly when she is found - I’m sure there are plenty of big fans of the films watching who won’t have watched the animated series. Maybe a flashback type episode? Her describing events to Mando as they head somewhere? Oh man - that would be good to see some live action of TCW! 

[The Choc]

Its great if Mando eventually gets to be a little less boring but that doesn't help make the 11 episodes we've already had any better. 

I;d expect even if the story opens up in some ways for the usual series of events to continue: Mando gets some objective. A couple episodes where he gets sidetracked and has pretty much stand alone adventures. Then he reaches the objective set a couple episodes earlier, only to be given some new objective which it will take him 3 or so episodes to reach with a couple detour episodes between.

On the surface thats totally fine. Until recently the main rule of tv was that at the end of a show everything should be exactly as it was at the beginning. Mandalorian takes that old creedo and expands it to basically "at the end things should very incrementally change."

What they have to do is make sure the detour adventures are fun in and of themselves. The first episode this year was. The 2nd wasn't at all. I think that is evidenced by the fact there wasn't a single post about it on this board.

If they are going to have these self contained adventures along the way those need to be good or else there is really no reason at all for those episodes to exist.

[Tank]

We call those ship-in-a-bottle episodes. Like Zathras said, it is like an 80s show. A-Team, Star Trek TNG, Knight Rider, Buck Rogers, pretty much every genre show ever, westerns included.

Serialized storylines was purely for soap operas until the 90s when Twin Peaks changed the rules. In the late 90s you had a lot of these shows adding more serialized elements. Shows like the Wire made serialized action so popular that networks started to double down on it and get deep into mytholofies with their stories, like LOST. 

Post Breaking BAd-- forget it, every show worth it's weight is serialized now.

So Mando IS a throwback-- which does bring us back to it really riding on Mando himself. Like I said, I think they are fully aware of this, and we are seeing a course correction. I think maybe some of you are impatient. Keep in mind that two seasons of Mando is still fewer episodes of a single season of a show of this type back in the 80s. 

The first season was his wake up call. Yes he often did the right thing, starting off with the pilot by saving the Child, but he was still learning lessons. S2 is really going to be his transformartion. I'll admit that 202 felt like filler, but we're definitely going somewhere now.