It is fucking cowardly. Just like making Rey a Palpatine was cowardly. Like I liked Rise of Skywalker, but I'm happy to point out a few ways where shit could have been done better. But to look at it and not even try to improve and move forward with conviction, but start trying to go "Nah man that shit totally didn't happen" is pathetic.
The Mandalorian Season 2 [SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Bob_McMillan
- Start date
But couldn't you say getting rid of the entire expanded universe was equally cowardly, and now they're going back and fixing their original sin? "Mara Jade? Nah that shit totally didn't happen." "Han and Leia have multiple kids? Nah that shit totally didn't happen." etc, etc....
They basically had hundreds of stories and established characters to lean upon, got rid of all of them, Kathleen Kennedy is on record saying creating Star Wars was hard because they had no source material, wrote themselves into a corner, and now that they want to make more stories they've found they can't do that without basically undoing what they've already done. They shot themselves in the foot, and now that they want to go for a run they have to remove the bullet.
Dunno what some people in this thread were expecting, Mando said this whole time that he was looking for a Jedi to train Grogu and you're mad that he found the Jedi established as training people at this point in the timeline.
Like, what did you expect?
Also I find it hypocritical to be gushing over Ahsoka's inclusion into every fucking Star Wars product while hating on Luke getting an appropriate inclusion that you know is going to be rare cuz they ain't spending the bucks on de-aging Mark Hamill for his own series.
Also, I think it's fairly obvious at this point that the show is going to end with Grogu dying from saving Mando's life from the Remnant/First Order, the latter of whom recover the body and use it to create Snoke.
Like, what did you expect?
Also I find it hypocritical to be gushing over Ahsoka's inclusion into every fucking Star Wars product while hating on Luke getting an appropriate inclusion that you know is going to be rare cuz they ain't spending the bucks on de-aging Mark Hamill for his own series.
Also, I think it's fairly obvious at this point that the show is going to end with Grogu dying from saving Mando's life from the Remnant/First Order, the latter of whom recover the body and use it to create Snoke.
Not especially; the EU was licensed fanfiction - admittedly some of it was pretty fuckin' excellent - but it wasn't really known to the world at large. Discarding it disappointed some sure but was ultimately never going to be a big deal otherwise. Like I won't be surprised or particularly unhappy if the next movie in no way references Mando, or the Boba Fett or Ahsoka shows. In fact I'd prefer it if they didn't.
So, liked the episode (and the season as a whole), but...
This season really felt like the middle movie in a trilogy, didn't it? What's worse is that I can already feel out how the next season (I'm assuming they are gonna do another one): Bo and Co (I'm getting bad vibes that Mando is gonna be pushed into the back seat to have all the "cool" legacy characters do stuff) are going to get a small army together to take back Mandalore from Thrawn (I'm guessing, unless they use him as the hook for their Ashoka series), and then have to fight off Mando's former cult for control of the planet.
Final questions/thoughts in no particular order:
What happened to the third person in Bo's squad? What did they do with the doctor? My brain gave the idea that it would end up being Luke back when they were on the seeing stone a few episodes ago, but I kind of decided they wouldn't (due to the fact that Luke would have to be the "end" of Grogu's arc), but here we are. What was the point of the Dark Troopers (I thought they were gonna be force sensitive, use the force, anything other than slightly tougher robots)?
Final questions/thoughts in no particular order:
What happened to the third person in Bo's squad? What did they do with the doctor? My brain gave the idea that it would end up being Luke back when they were on the seeing stone a few episodes ago, but I kind of decided they wouldn't (due to the fact that Luke would have to be the "end" of Grogu's arc), but here we are. What was the point of the Dark Troopers (I thought they were gonna be force sensitive, use the force, anything other than slightly tougher robots)?
I'm sure it wont. But that's my point - the movie verse is being kept separate from the TV show verse outside of the general setting. Like how Marvel is doing a "What if" show to show alternate timelines, they're doing the same with Star Wars. Mando, Boba Fett and the Ahsoka TV show are in a "What if" universe where Luke doesn't get all the Jedi killed and the Emperor isn't secretly alive. That way they can make new shows that keep exploring the post-Empire Galaxy without having to reference what are considered pretty major plot holes in the story that occur with the Sequels.
And is there even a Star Wars movie in development? I know Taika Waititi was in talks to direct, but I didn't think that was confirmed nor another movie confirmed. It looks like Disney is stepping back from Star Wars movies and concentrating on TV shows.
I didn't even mind (I have absolutely no frame of reference for the thing they are from), it was just weird how they managed to make droids using Jedi blood, and the only special thing they can do?
Punch stuff, like, really hard.
I don't think Grogu's blood was used for the Dark Troopers. Moff Gideon seems to be the kind of guy who's got multiple projects running concurrently.
Except there's no indication these are What If? stories in the same way things like WandaVision is. Nor does Star Wars have an easy vector for Multiversal story telling like Doctor Strange. As for movie's in development, last I heard there was something called The High Republic.
There is exactly one movie in development for which a story brief has been given, Rogue Squadron, which is set after the Sequel movies.
Other movie projects only have directors announced: Taika Watiti is developing one, as is Kevin Feige, and Rian Johnson's trilogy has technically never been canceled despite no word of it for the past 3 or 4 years.
There's like 10 Disney+ series that were announced last week, one of which is called The Acolyte and is set in the High Republic era (which is something like a hundred years before the prequels).
There is no Rey Disney + show announced and no news about Keira Knightly being cast to portray the character, I don't know where that came from.
Anyways, about the actual show.
I managed to finally have some free time to watch the last 4 episodes today. This season was fun, but I didn't feel like it hit with the same impact of the first season. The show is buckling under the weight of trying to carry the entire franchise: introducing the birth of the First Order, Ahsoka back door pilot, continuing the Mandalore plot from the cartoons, Boba Fett spin-off or centering the 3rd Mandalorian season on him (it's vague at the moment), Cara Dune and the X-Wing Police backdoor pilot, what I'm pretty sure was a Snoke reference, Thrawn reference, and Luke Skywalker. And maybe I'm missing something. I joked about the show hosting 5 back door pilots earlier in the thread, but I ended up not being that far off. The show's suffering for it. A lot of the action scenes were contrived, you can tell they were thought of first and an excuse made in the writer's room to direct the plot to them.
It's not enough to turn me off of it, but it's definitely lesser than the previous season. I'm not really looking forward to the Marvel-ization of the franchise, if it means a focus on lore and fan service over writing and characterization.
Spoilers: I appreciated Luke getting his moment, but it was literally a moment. You'd think he'd at least introduce himself when telling Mando he'd take Grogu off of his hands, and I noticed several shots of Luke were from behind or cut his head off. It's like they only had Mark Hamill on set for 15 minutes. Or only had the budget to de-age him for around 70 seconds of screen time, with his stunt double covering the rest.
Other movie projects only have directors announced: Taika Watiti is developing one, as is Kevin Feige, and Rian Johnson's trilogy has technically never been canceled despite no word of it for the past 3 or 4 years.
There's like 10 Disney+ series that were announced last week, one of which is called The Acolyte and is set in the High Republic era (which is something like a hundred years before the prequels).
There is no Rey Disney + show announced and no news about Keira Knightly being cast to portray the character, I don't know where that came from.
Anyways, about the actual show.
I managed to finally have some free time to watch the last 4 episodes today. This season was fun, but I didn't feel like it hit with the same impact of the first season. The show is buckling under the weight of trying to carry the entire franchise: introducing the birth of the First Order, Ahsoka back door pilot, continuing the Mandalore plot from the cartoons, Boba Fett spin-off or centering the 3rd Mandalorian season on him (it's vague at the moment), Cara Dune and the X-Wing Police backdoor pilot, what I'm pretty sure was a Snoke reference, Thrawn reference, and Luke Skywalker. And maybe I'm missing something. I joked about the show hosting 5 back door pilots earlier in the thread, but I ended up not being that far off. The show's suffering for it. A lot of the action scenes were contrived, you can tell they were thought of first and an excuse made in the writer's room to direct the plot to them.
It's not enough to turn me off of it, but it's definitely lesser than the previous season. I'm not really looking forward to the Marvel-ization of the franchise, if it means a focus on lore and fan service over writing and characterization.
Spoilers: I appreciated Luke getting his moment, but it was literally a moment. You'd think he'd at least introduce himself when telling Mando he'd take Grogu off of his hands, and I noticed several shots of Luke were from behind or cut his head off. It's like they only had Mark Hamill on set for 15 minutes. Or only had the budget to de-age him for around 70 seconds of screen time, with his stunt double covering the rest.
Heh. Though, I will be quite miffed if Boba Fett literally steals the show, cause he is still the least interesting character. He works best in an ensemble like this, but carry his own season?
Man, that post credits scene where he takes Jabba's throne and Ming-Na Wen is lounging as his gun moll? It's got my buy-in.
Can't get over Temuera Morrison's voice as Boba, tho. I know it was like 5 lines, but I grew up with the original, pre-Special Edition OT movies. That's Boba Fett's voice to me. Temuera just feels wrong every time. But I'll have to get over it.
True, I guess I'm just a little sore over all this Star Wars they put in my space western. As for the voices, hearing them side-by-side, they are actually
I know its similar, but its just not the shame. Especially since Temuera has his own accent.
I am so down with the idea of a gang lord series in Star Wars. I don't have a lot of faith in it, though. Boba in Mandalorian has been all gruff "Me Honorable Warrior, me make honor oath, me fight good." There were just a couple of moments of something else: his anger at the Mandalorians' contempt for him, and the highlighting of his ferocity when bashing in stormtrooper skulls. The latter makes me wonder if there's something there about the stormies replacing the clones offending him, or something. But overall he mostly just got along with everybody and had very little initiative once he got his armor back, like a shadow of what the movies implied about him. My favorite moment was when he was fighting the other Mandalorians and getting "thuggy". So leaning into that by making him a crime kingpin would be much better than him being Mando v2.0. But are they going to make a show following a main character villain? I think they'll pull their punches on it. But we'll see.
As far as "and then Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren killed literally every other Jedi including Baby Yoda" goes...
Order 66 killed all the Jedi. With much more prejudice, millions of participants, the benefit of absolute surprise, and Emperor Palps.
Except Ashoka. And Kenobi. And Yoda. And Baby Yoda. And Kanan Jarrus. And anybody else they need for a story.
I'm comfortable with not assuming Baby Yoda is Automatically Dead by the time of Rise of Skywalker.
Order 66 killed all the Jedi. With much more prejudice, millions of participants, the benefit of absolute surprise, and Emperor Palps.
Except Ashoka. And Kenobi. And Yoda. And Baby Yoda. And Kanan Jarrus. And anybody else they need for a story.
I'm comfortable with not assuming Baby Yoda is Automatically Dead by the time of Rise of Skywalker.
I mean, Boba Fett's always been a putz when anybody with actual skill shows up. It's part of why I like the character.
You gotta see it from a certain point of view....
Baby Yoda will be adult by the time they do another Sequel trilogy... and somehow the empire and rebels sre still there
Its not really an assumption, its stated lore. Rey is the last Jedi, stated by all the dead Jedi, and Palpatine himself who can't sense any more Jedi in the Galaxy. There's 3 possible explanations: Baby Yoda left the Galaxy somehow, Luke just gives him back to Mando who somehow hides him from Palpatine and the rest of the Jedi which would go against the established story of Mandalorian of BY being very strong in the Force and being detectable by other Force users, or Baby Yoda is dead and died during the Kylo Ren massacre.
And of those 3, according to the Sequel movies, all of Luke's students died, and they didn't give themselves an out by saying "some escaped" or "some where on other planets", and no other Jedi are left in the Galaxy except Rey.