If you wear a helmet all the time, why would you shave?
…I loved the gradual escalation this season of the expansion of the universe to include elements from both the novels, the cartoon series and the original trilogy. The first episode introduced Cobb Vanth AKA “the Marshal”, a character from the Aftermath Trilogy by Chuck Wendig. Then we get Bo-Katan from the Clone Wars and Rebels. Then we get Ahsoka Tano and a name-drop of Thrawn. The way they were building things up it seemed inevitable (to me, anyway) that anything less than Luke would have been a disappointment, and my guess is that if they didn’t get Mark Hamill back they would have moved Ahsoka’s debut to the final.
Ooh, I can fanboy this!
You can always tell which Mandalorians have beards, because they keep sticking their beskar spears up under their helmets to scratch… it’s itchy, and that helmet chafes (That’s also why the beskar spear is so valued).
I had a beard when Covid hit and I was wearing a mask every day, so I shaved to make a better fit (less leaking around the beard).
But…
… I kept my mustache. Me and Din, man… Movember til March.
It is the way.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Mando Season 3 coming out in December as well? I thought both series were going to be running concurrently
They were telling fibs to hide this secret. But it will be in production immediately after Fett is done, with the release also timed for immediately after, at least as far as I can tell from the articles released today.
So expect the Boba Fett show to run from December 2021 to February 2022, and Mando S3 from March to May 2022, more or less, probably. Then the other new shows, Obi Wan, Ahsoka, and Rangers will all be out later in 2022 and early 2023.
It will be a Star Wars-palooza for a while.
I had goosebumps from the moment the X-wing appeared until the very end. If I hadn’t already been spoiled as to Luke’s appearance (screw you, google feed), I might have cried. It was everything I’ve wanted since 1983. I’ve found something to love in everything Star Wars, even the times it has disappointed me. But “Luke saving the day” is what I did with my action figures. It’s what I did at Chuck E. Cheese in the vector-traced SW game, and at home in Super-ROTJ on the SNES. It’s what I pretended to do on the playground. It’s what a part of me always hoped to see every time a new SW book or movie or video game or series came out. After TLJ, I thought we’d never see it happen. So happy to be wrong.
And my biggest flaw with the Last Jedi was that it did not deliver a cool Luke moment. I know that they thought it was cool that he dodged Kylo Ren’s blade and then revealed he wasn’t really there.
I still believe Rian Johnson was so committed to subverting expectations, he failed to give us one brief fan service moment we deserved. We wanted to see Luke actually show up, light up his light saber, and fight Kylo Ren. Yes, he wouldn’t be going for the kill, but it would be clear he was really “putting that kid in his place” and whoop him.
Sometimes, it is OK to deliver a little fan service. I’ll give a recent example that did it so well. Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.
Captain America calling the hammer, catching it, and beating up Thanos. Come on. It was fan service, but the crowd cheered it was well earned. A great moment.
Luke at the end of The Last Jedi could have been as cool as that if handled well.
For me, Luke is so awesome, he could defeat Kylo with mind tricks from the other side of the galaxy. It was the purest light-side victory seen in the movies.
I agree. Outsmarting an enemy is much cooler than just beating him in combat. Remember, Luke defeated the Emperor by turning his lightsaber off and submitting to him.
I loved The Last Jedi. And I think RJ did about the only thing that made sense with Luke. Remember that in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren murdered probably billions of people, and Luke stood by and did nothing. How could the Luke we know have done that? RJ came up with just about the only possible explanation, and it required that Luke had deliberately separated himself from the Force. And then he still did something awfully cool, and awfully in keeping with the light side.
And The Mandalorian fixed the “gap” of not getting to see Luke at the height of his powers, dispatching Imperials with ease.
Exactly! Seeing Luke storming the ship was pure awesome as well.
This was the Luke being who he thought the galaxy wanted him to be. Who he perceived the Jedi as being. But The Last Jedi was the Luke who had lived a lifetime of not managing to live up to those impossible standards single-handedly, and realising that the answer to problems is not dealing out destruction, but preventing destruction from happening in the first place.
I’m late joining this thread but wanted to mention I really enjoyed all the tie-ins and nods to the Knights of the Old Republic series. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the series nearly as much if I hadn’t known the history behind it.
Are other Mandalorian fans here also KotOR fans?
It’s been a while since I played through. What nods are you referring to?
There was the assassin droids in the Ahsoka episode, but other than that I didn’t catch any. I’m sure I missed a bunch though, it’s been a long time since those games.
We finished Season 2 this week and overall I enjoyed it. I would say I liked Season 1 better. It’s pretty common for Season 2 to not live up to Season 1 anyway, so no surprise there.
I thought the characters in Season 1 were more compelling. The guy with the big lizards was a far more interesting character and when he died it had an emotional impact. The droid that protected baby yoda was amazing in both incarnations, and the change in Din’s attitude towards droids because of it added nice texture to the overall story.
For Season 2, I think I lose out because I don’t know these people, but many others already know the characters. There’s little to no character development in Season 2. The most compelling character introduced in Season 2 is The Marshall, and I’m pretty sure I’m giving bonus points because I find him attractive.
I know who Boba Fett is, but the not-dead thing is weird to me.
I don’t know who the other Mandalorians are, and Season 2 wasn’t set up to make me care.
I don’t know who the other jedi-type person was. To me she seemed like a random ‘go see this person who will tell you to then go see to other thing’ and an excuse for lightsabers.
The criminal guy was interesting and I liked getting more backstory on him, but he was introduced in Season 1.
I hope Disney puts their focus on these established elsewhere characters in non-Mandalorian series, and get back to creating new compelling characters in The Mandalorian.
They will, but of course they’ve already done that, quite considerably, in the “elsewhere” you talk about. It’s weird to me that you’re frustrated about not knowing more about characters that we already know more about. The idea is to inspire you to watch the animated series that cover these characters, Clone Wars and Rebels.
Lots about the Mandalorians and their culture:
Not removing his helmet (Mandalore never did), the destruction of their planet, references to war between the Mandalorians and the Jedi, metal weapons which can spar with lightsabers without damage.
I also saw an HK assassin droid reference. There were probably more but that’s all I can remember right now.
I agree. The Mandalorian has done a good job with new characters even if most were introduced in season 1. The way these characters are written is what has really made The Mandalorian a great series. Cara Dune, Greef Karga, Kuill, Peli Motto, and the returning characters of Boba Fett, Bo-Katan, and Ashoka Tano, are all more interesting than the characters from the sequel trilogy. The villains are also more interesting, with even minor single episode villains like the imperial captain played by Titus Welliver being more colorful than the ones from the sequel trilogy. I’m sure that we will continue to get interesting characters as the series is seemingly set to shift more towards Mandalore and away from Grogu, and with the returning characters set get their own series’s.
It is more that I think relying on previously established characters blocks out the depth of storytelling to non deep dive Star Wars fans. I’ve only seen the movies and The Mandalorian. If I have to watch other stuff to get the right impact, then I think that is a mistake in storytelling. I think Season one did a great job because it didn’t rely on previously established characters. I would like more of that.