He basically just plays Timothy Olyphant at this point.
Cobb Vanth’s bartender was played, under the prosthetic, by W Earl Brown… who was the bartender on Deadwood. Here’s his side of the reunion story.
I just noticed that the R5 that Strangers with Candy had has soot around the same spot where the R5 that Owen Lars was going to buy blew its motivator That’s a level of fan service that I find pleasing.
It’s confirmed that that was the same droid, R5-D4
It’s also canon that R5 blew his motivator deliberately so that R2 would be picked up by the Skywalker family - nice to see he ended up in a good home.
Thanks for that link. Heh.
That was a really fun read. Makes you happy to see a fellow fan have their dream come true.
Also I’ve been watching Buffy and Angel these last few years, but with all the prosthetics probably wouldn’t have realized he was on there too.
Yeah I caught that, that was a nice detail.
I have to say this was pretty much the same as the first season for me - it looks great, the music is great, lots of great Easter eggs for die-hard SW fans, but if you take away all the Star Wars-y stuff all you’re left with is a very slow-moving, generic Western, with a pretty bland central character.
I think having a lead whose face you can’t see just doesn’t work long term. And then the only other regular character is a puppet, who no matter how adorable just isn’t enough (if you look at this episode, all the Child was there for is some cute reaction shots).
I’m excited about the Boba Fett reveal at the end though - even if I’m not a fan of the prequels and the backstory they came up with for him it’s still nice to see Temuera Morrison actually get to play the role.
Plus him probably wanting his armour back at least creates some sort of ongoing storyarc - another problem I had with the first season is the number of standalone episodes in such a short season.
I agree with your post, by and large, but I think the overall plot advancement (besides setting up Cobb Vanth as a future ally) was rather getting Boba Fett involved in the story. So there needed to be something to do on Tattooine, since that was his last known location, and something with getting him out of the Sarlacc, for which purpose we had the Krayt. Without the Krayt-slaying quest, the audience would’ve been left without any good plausible explanation of how Boba Fett is suddenly still around.
I guess I’m Ok with Temuera Morrison returning but the fact that the original Boba Fett isn’t on board is just a load of Bullochs.
It’s interesting how polar opposite our reactions were.
As I noted upthread, I think this series has avoided bloat, and that each episode, each scene within an episode, each individual shot, seems well-planned. I didn’t think any of the episodes has been “slow-moving” - they all seemed well-paced to me.
I get that it might come off as a “generic” space western. There’s a fine line between iconic and cliche. I appreciate it for thoughtfully using iconic elements and genre tropes. I think whether it comes off as loving homage and knowing use of iconography, or as derivative cliche is just down to taste.
Also, as I noted upthread, I don’t think the series actually had stand-alone episodes, at least in the first season. It seemed to me that even the “filler” episodes actually advanced the over-arching plot.
The first three episodes all deal directly with the Child and how the Mandalorian becomes involved and takes responsibility for it.
The fourth episode sets up an important ally, Cara Dune. But that’s a side issue. The main thrust of the episode shows that even a seemingly peaceful backwater is dangerous, and that the other bounty hunters can and will track the Child even there. The most obvious, Skywalker, solution, just give the Child to a loving family in an out-of-the-way place, definitively doesn’t work. We also get significant character development for the Mandalorian, and see the cost of the Way.
The fifth episode shows that another obvious pathway, returning to his occupation as a bounty hunter while trying to conceal the child, just won’t work. Again, even in a remote backwater on a completely unrelated job, the bounty on the Child comes into play. We also get a bit more character development for the Mandalorian.
The sixth episode deals with another possible path, going to the Mandalorians old criminal contacts. That works out about as well as could be expected. We also learn more about the Mandalorian’s past, and how the Child coming into his life seems to have changed him.
The seventh and eight episodes bring us back to the beginning, and a direct confrontation with the Client. But I don’t think those episodes work if we didn’t get those three “stand alone” episodes showing him trying every other avenue he can think of to protect the Child, and all of them going disastrously wrong. The events of those episodes force him into the final confrontation.
I thought his last episode was the first one in the whole series that felt like a random encounter, and didn’t seem to connect to the over-arching plot.
At this point, I don’t think Mando is aware of the difference:
Din Djarin: It’s injured, but it is not helpless. Its species can move objects with its mind.
Armorer: I know of such things. The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi that fought with such powers.
Din Djarin: It is an enemy?
Armorer: No. Its kind were enemies, but this individual is not.
Din Djarin: What is it?
Armorer: It is a foundling. By Creed, it is in your care.
Din Djarin: You wish me to train this thing?
Armorer: It is too weak. It would die. You have no choice. You must reunite it with its own kind.
Din Djarin: Where?
Armorer: This, you must determine.
Din Djarin: You expect me to search the galaxy for the home of this creature and deliver it to a race of enemy sorcerers?
Yeah, obviously a lot of it is a matter of taste. I just can’t stop being amazed at all the praise it’s been getting. It’s not like I want to slag it off, I really wanted to like it, being the first ever live action SW show.
But I’m not joking, my missus has fallen asleep on several episodes (including this one) and she actually likes Star Wars.
You were saying it managed to avoid bloat, and I was finding even the shorter than usual episodes in season 1 an absolute chore to get through, they just felt twice as long as the actual running time - 35 minute episodes with reeeaally long shots of Mando just walking around etc. (in this episode the shot of them riding back on the speeders felt much longer than necessary for example).
And I don’t have a problem with slow burn TV shows (I loved The Americans for example).
Anyway, I guess you’re right, episodes 4 through 6 did move the overall plot forward marginally, but to me they just felt like your typical sci-fi/western tropes - a “defend backward natives from bandits” episode and a “prison break” episode - neither of them added anything new or unique to the trope, other than being set in the SW universe.
I’ll still keep watching though. I hope Greef Karga and Cara Dune will be back soon so we’ll have more of an ensemble with more interaction between characters.
And the Boba Fett reveal suggests some of the other rumours about legacy characters appearing might be true as well.
If they can bring Boba Fett back, I really hope they find a way to bring The Client back. “I would like to see the baby.”
It’s a little weird that Mandalorians don’t know what a Jedi is. The empire has them as civil servants in a large tower on Coruscant. And you don’t have to be a Jedi to have force powers. Surely there are TV shows and random documentaries about force users. Like there would be a Wiki article on them.
“What are those cops with the Laser Swords called? You know the ones who can jump like 30 feet in the air. There was that one viral video of the dude in the robes who flung a speeder bike into a wall with his mind. Jodees? That doesn’t sound right.”
Yeah that doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s been a lot of talk about how the galaxy is big and there were only a limited number of Jedi out there, but still. Amy Sedaris’ character just used a phrase like “Thank the Force”, didn’t she? Doesn’t really add up.
I would say it’s a combination of there never really being that many Jedi, so 99.99999% of the galaxy had never actually seen one and a 30+ year imperial effort to erase all mentions of Jedi. When people talk about the Force now, they aren’t talking about something the Jedi’s use to move rocks, but some unknown or imaginary quality that guides life. Similar to how we use Fate or Luck.
Remember way back in A New Hope, Han Solo didn’t believe in the force. And that one dude called Darth Vader a practicer of an ancient religion, to his face.
Star Wars has been consistently inconsistent about general Knowledge of the Force and the Jedi.
The prequels made the problem exponentially worse. The Jedi Council was one of the most powerful and important institutions in the Republic, and Jedi led the Grand Army of the Republic and seemed to command the Navy as well, at least at the strategic level. Yet, less than 20 years later, an Imperial officer who seems old enough that he himself should have served with and under Jedi in the Clone Wars is dismissing the Force. And The Mandalorian takes place several years after that.
Still, that’s the canon we, and The Mandalorian, are stuck with. So, even though it doesn’t make any sense given how pivotal the Jedi were in galactic events in living memory, the canon is that some people believe in the Force, some don’t, many people have never heard of the Jedi, and even most of those who have regard them as something out of a half-remembered folk-tale.
The depiction of general knowledge of the Force and Jedi in The Mandalorian is largely consistent with how it’s depicted in the original three movies, which makes sense since it’s a direct sequel to those movies. It’s not consistent with a lot of the other EU material or even a lot of the other “core” material like the prequels, but that’s because that canon is a mess.
Also, the Galaxy is really, really big. Expanded Universe material (usually) makes it clear that the Old Republic and the Empire never really penetrated a lot of regions, like the Outer Rim, and while the Force surrounds and binds the whole Galaxy, the Jedi are only one of many Force-using traditions.
That’s the logical result of tearing down all the Jedi statues.
I don’t know if this makes sense. They are 30 years removed from having all of the Jedi dying to this show taking place. That means even if Mando is old he was less than 10 where the Jedi disappeared and became legend. He didn’t grow up on Coruscant so you have make a guess at how often the Jedi showed up and interacted with people. Look at Phantom Menace the Jedi go to Tatooine and Wato knows what Jedi are but they don’t use any overt powers or do anything while they are there aside from government officials who would interact with Jedis. Add to that the government spending 20 odd years stamping out anything Jedi its no wonder that an orphan, living under ground may not be well versed in history.