The Mandalorian Season 2 [SPOILERS]

[TheMysteriousGX]

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.

Or...not?

I mean, I'm not trying to pick a fight, but Ben Solo is *right there*, 80 yards away, chucked down a hole. Ezra's voice wasn't in the montage.

Baby Yoda could've been visiting Mando at the time.

 

[Gergar12]

Of course, it had to be Luke, it literally couldn't have been Cal, because now the baby Yoda is not going to survive order 66 v2.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

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.

No one's ever really gone.

 

[Trunkage]

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.

Colour me shocked if Rey ends up NOT being the last jedi. Luke and Leia were meant to be last too

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I kept thinking, during that scene, that for someone who, for whatever reason, has never seen the OT this must be confusing as hell. This guy who they have no idea who it is just shows up and is obviously really, really cool and meant to be revered by the viewer. But the show never bothers to tell us why and never bothers to tell freakin' Mando why he should give up his adopted kid to the dude other then that he's a Jedi.

That's a pretty odd thought, considering that Luke is easily one of the most popular characters in the history of ever.

And while I agree there could have been more emotional beats with Grogu and Mando (throwing yourself in the way of blaster fire isn't very impressive when you're clad in magic space armor), I don't see what the problem is with letting him go with Luke. Mando was more than ready to let Ahsoka take, adamant even that she should, because even he could understand the massive potential Grogu has as a Jedi. And as Luke said, Grogu will never be safe until he can protect himself. But I do wish there was more between them before they said goodbye. Their reunion felt like nothing, completely overshadowed by the fight with Gideon.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[SilentPony]

Colour me shocked if Rey ends up NOT being the last jedi. Luke and Leia were meant to be last too

And that's fine, and I hope they do that., and I sure as shit hope they don't just stop there. But that's the TV shows retconning the movies.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I actually felt the Season 2 finale was kind of lackluster. Production values are insane as ever and the individual actors all give a good performance, but the narrative? It felt like a train wreck to me. The set up is great, but the execution really flubs on the action. Here we have a handful of people storming an Imperial cruiser, but instead of it being a tense advance on the bridge it is just shot after shot of Awesome People doing Cool Stuff and dozens of Stormtroopers being unusually bad at their job, even for Stormtroopers. After the absolutely stellar Cargo Hauler scene from the previous episode, which was genuinely tense and exciting this kiddie pool "everyone looks awesome!" stuff mostly feels trite. It is made up in part by Mando's encounter with both the Dark Trooper and then Gideon, that both actually feel like they have an actual stake.

And then Luke appears. Without introduction and single handedly messing up the Dark Troopers that have been built up as a major threat this entire season. Not only is this a total waste of the Dark Troopers narratively, it is nothing but a cheap fanservice appearance. I kept thinking, during that scene, that for someone who, for whatever reason, has never seen the OT this must be confusing as hell. This guy who they have no idea who it is just shows up and is obviously really, really cool and meant to be revered by the viewer. But the show never bothers to tell us why and never bothers to tell freakin' Mando why he should give up his adopted kid to the dude other then that he's a Jedi.

My earlier criticism that it feels as if the show doesn't know where it is going feels more justified then ever. Especially now that it is clear that Season 2 was not so much a coherent story about Mando and Grogu as it was a vehicle for a handful of Backdoor Pilots for other shows. Maybe the show will get its shit together for season 3, but with Grogu gone I am struggling to see how the show will have an emotional core. The entire conceit of Grogu was that his relation to Mando gave Mando an emotionality and heart that is hard to give a character with a constantly obscured face. No Grogu makes Mando a much less interesting character and I am not sure I want to watch that show.

Rant over.

You don't seriously believe they'd write Baby Yoda out of the show? That has to be their biggest earner.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

It was fine. By the end they just couldn't hold it in anymore and went all in on the OT pandering. I know I keep banging on about this, but between Rogue One and Last Jedi it looked like the series was starting to slowly move on from its past and try out some new things. Mandalorian had a pretty good run aside from finding excuses to go back to Tattooine. And here we are at the end of season 2 where you have all those interesting characters on an Imperial ship, actually got the live action debut from characters from the animates series... And then we end on Luke showing up and Deus Ex Machinaing away the Dark Troopers the episode was building up to a climactic standoff with. It's just...cheap. And I'll never not find CGI being used to recreate the likeness of real people in a live action production mildly creepy. Just can't get over it.

On a more positive note, I'm kinda crushing on Cara Dune. Shame her actress seems to be a moron.

 

[SupahEwok]

It was fine. By the end they just couldn't hold it in anymore and went all in on the OT pandering.

Honestly don't understand criticizing OT fanservice in one breath and praising the animated series fanservice in the next.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Honestly don't understand criticizing OT fanservice in one breath and praising the animated series fanservice in the next.

If I'm being honest, it's really just that they haven't had enough animated series fanservice for it to get old yet while we've had five years of non stop OT fanservice.

 

[twistedmic]

In all honesty, I felt pretty ambivalent about half the season, especially with all of the cameo/returning characters. I never watched ‘Clone Wars’ and lost interest in ‘Rebels’ fairly early on sobI did not care about those other Mandalorians or Ahsoka. And there was always something about Boba Fett that looked/felt off , even before he cleaned up his armor. So all of those appearances failed to really strike a chord with me.

Even Luke’s appearance was more of a shrug and ‘meh’ moment than anything else.

And I wasn’t too thrilled about how Mando himself seemed to become a secondary character in his own show to make room for characters I had no real emotional attachment to.

I prefer to have new characters with little to no ties to previous characters rather than linking in seven different shows/movies/comic books/websites.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

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.

Thinking about it some more, that whole "Book of Boba" name is worrying me, as that sounds less like "here's Boba the crime kingpin" and more like "the life and times of Boba", and show us his whole life story (things to expect: Boba painting the armor green, meeting a young Han Solo, kid Boba, escaping from the Sarlaac pit, etc).

You don't seriously believe they'd write Baby Yoda out of the show? That has to be their biggest earner.

That's the problem though: they already did. This was why my brain disregarded him as a possibility when it thought it, is that there really is nowhere else for that plot thread to go narratively (and I think why they are looking like they are going to pivot to Boba). They aren't going to kill him, but there's no reason for him to rejoin Mando that won't seem real dumb (unless they just give us both Grogu and Luke as traveling companions, but I really doubt it).

 

[SupahEwok]

Thinking about it some more, that whole "Book of Boba" name is worrying me, as that sounds less like "here's Boba the crime kingpin" and more like "the life and times of Boba", and show us his whole life story (things to expect: Boba painting the armor green, meeting a young Han Solo, kid Boba, escaping from the Sarlaac pit, etc).

I wouldn't worry about that. You'll notice that each episode of the Mandalorian is called a "chapter". "Book" in this case would therefore either symbolize a special double episode or a season of the show with Fett as the protagonist. Just a framing device, I doubt it means anything more.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Shoulda bait-and switched the Luke reveal. It went on for too long.

If, like, Darth Maul pulled back the hood (and Bo Katan was still unconscious) we'd have a "Jedi" character that *we* knew not to trust but that nobody in the show knew about

Plus I'd be able to make "local man literally too angry to die" jokes

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Seeing as how they spent a small fortune on the Animatronic, no I don't really believe that. But as Mister Mumbler said: there's no way Grogu comes back to Mando that isn't really contrived and silly. So either they stick with their big season finale and the emotional core of the show is gone or they reverse it a few episodes into season 3, at which point it will all just feel like a stupid bait and switch. Either way, the show is worse for it.

I agree. And I don't doubt for a second they won't go back and reverse it. Disney is all about having their cake and eating it too. They fold back on phony dramatic moments for a living.

 

[Dalisclock]

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.

Well, they all died, "from a certain point of view".

Just like Palpy died "From a certain point of view".

Just like Anakin was killed by Vader "from a certain point of view".

So basically, we'll see what happens.

 

[Dalisclock]

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.

OTOH, they turned Boba from a little ***** who gets taken down by a nearly blind man to a fairly competent bounty hunter when we actually see him do shit on screen.

If that's the price to pay for a voice retcon, yeah, I'm fine with that.