The Mandalorian

[St_Eddie]

The later episodes are more adult in theme if not execution. Don't think I can give examples without spoilers but some of the characters do get fleshed out nicely.

Spoiler alert

Darth Maul is a much better character in this than in The Phantom Menace

[close]

Heh.  I love the implication that Darth Maul was even a character to begin with in The Phantom Menace, as opposed to a walking excuse to spin a light around and look cool.

What was his sole line in the movies?  "At last we will have revenge"? Riveting; an angry man with some regrettable face tattoos.  I don't doubt that the expanded universe elaborates on his character a great deal but let's face it; simply saying "he likes tacos" would be the biggest revolution ever in terms of expanding upon his character.  When your baseline is zero, the only way is up.

Still, nice to know that he got a new set of nifty robo-legs.  Good for him.  I wish him well.

[druss]

What was it that he wanted revenge for anyway?

Not only did he just have one line, it didn't even make any sense.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Jedis ate all the tacos. He was furious.

[Artie Fufkin]

Didn't he have a thirty-second cameo in an episode of Man Down too?

Yep! That was unexpected to say the least!

[Ignatius_S]

Mark Hamill is great in everything i've heard him in and he does indeed seem to have a proper charisma and energy about him. His Joker is mentally good.

Yeah - and it's weird to think he only got the Joker gig when Tim Curry got the boot. IIRC, he was up for other roles in the series but suddenly got offered that one.

He's done quite a bit of v/o work, which I thought was fantastic (e.g. Skips in The Regular Show) but only found out much later that is was Hamill.

Bit of a tangent, but hate to give up an opportunity of talking about Hamill and/or Curryy. Curry was in a Broadway production of Amadeus playing Mozart and when he left, Hamill took over the role - Hamill was keen to reprise it for the film, but it wasn't to be...

[Mr_Simnock]

What was it that he wanted revenge for anyway?

Not only did he just have one line, it didn't even make any sense.

He is referring to the Sith having revenge over the Jedi side of the force after living in the shadows and hiding for centuries.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Nah, it's definitely the tacos thing.

Space tacos are the dogs bollocks.

[Ignatius_S]

Bit of a stretch from Luke and his Dad's robo-hand. Are they that desperate to keep old characters going.

Not toooo desperate -

Spoiler alert

he gets killed off in Star Wars Rebels.

[close]

There was something that I read quite a while ago where it claimed that Lucas regretted killing off Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace as he had no idea that audiences would really dig a badass looking villain, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz, who wielded a double-wielded lightsaber... after all, what are the odds of that happening.

If Lucas has done the last trilogy, he planned for Maul to be the main baddie.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Lucas regretted killing off Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace as he had no idea that audiences would really dig a badass looking villain

Had he learned nothing from Boba Fett?

[druss]

He is referring to the Sith having revenge over the Jedi side of the force after living in the shadows and hiding for centuries.

Ah right, must have missed that in the film.

[St_Eddie]

Had he learned nothing from Boba Fett?

Or Darth Vader, for that matter.

[Dex Sawash]

I finished Clone Wars yesterday and the final season looks better with improved score. About half of episodes are good.

[Ignatius_S]

Had he learned nothing from Boba Fett?

Lucas had learnt from his mistakes but was confident that he could still repeat them.

[Povidone]

I've been battering through both series over a couple of days using a borrowed disney+ account. Enjoyable and engrossing and I cant fucking stand star wars but this actually gives its world some depth.

Someone did point out to me that it's a video game in TV show form which is basically correct, the format is essentially a bunch of fetch quests presented by engaging actors (Timothy Olyphaunt *swoon*) and then mando gets some loot. Every time they infiltrate some base or ship you are practically shown how each corridor is cleared in a workmanlike fashion - you the player..erm audience must know how our crew got from A to B. I dont know if any of this is intentional but it does make for a very different storytelling style, its simplicty decieves you and SUBVERTS YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

I think this was made clear to me during the episodes with the frog woman, for some reason modern tropes had me thinking there was some greater significance to baby yoda snaffling the eggs, but it was in fact very simply because baby yoda is EAT EGG CUNT and just another problem for mando to deal with in an already exasparating situation. Funny and good.

[Thomas]

Because I'm new to Star Wars, and I usually forget what a Tatooine or a TIE fighter is by the time it's offscreen, I appreciated the videogame-like format. A different level with each episode.

In fact, as I rattled through the original films last year, on here I said of them:

Very videogamey. The goodies have to go to a certain planet to speak to an NPC. He sends them to the next level planet to collect a gem. And on and on until the boss level.

The faster-than-light-travel mechanism, carrying the characters immediately from one planet to the next, makes the various locations feel even more like levels of a platform game.

[Schmo Diddley]

I really enjoyed it, felt like it was produced by Star Wars fans that want to bring the universe to life. Good fun, doesn't take itself too seriously and plenty of fan service.

That's what the last trilogy missed -  those films were an absolute dogs dinner.

Apparent power struggle at Disney between Favreau and Kathleen Kennedy (in charge of last trilogy) over the creative direction of Star Wars. She's head of LucasFilm or similar, he's got a line in to Disney apparently.

Was hoping they'd steer away from the Jedi as the story doesn't need it.

[Norton Canes]

Yeah. That ending. I'm still getting over it. Traumatised.

[Norton Canes]

PTJD.

[druss]

I really enjoyed it, felt like it was produced by Star Wars fans that want to bring the universe to life. Good fun, doesn't take itself too seriously and plenty of fan service.

That's what the last trilogy missed -  those films were an absolute dogs dinner.

Apparent power struggle at Disney between Favreau and Kathleen Kennedy (in charge of last trilogy) over the creative direction of Star Wars. She's head of LucasFilm or similar, he's got a line in to Disney apparently.

Was hoping they'd steer away from the Jedi as the story doesn't need it.

Who makes the decisions over who gets control? Seems they either give it to someone who has made the most successful films ever at the box office with almost every film universally well regarded by fans, or give it to someone who decided not to have any planning for a trilogy that most fans thought was shite and who managed to preside over a Star Wars filming bombing at the box office (a fucking STAR WARS film).

[Ignatius_S]

Who makes the decisions over who gets control? Seems they either give it to someone who has made the most successful films ever at the box office with almost every film universally well regarded by fans, or give it to someone who decided not to have any planning for a trilogy that most fans thought was shite and who managed to preside over a Star Wars filming bombing at the box office (a fucking STAR WARS film).

Bob Iger, as Disney CEO - and that's one reason why some are doubtful about the rumours (or at least, cautious in accepting them in their entirety), that for that level of infighting (three different camps!) would need a quite impressive amount of inaction for Iger/Disney concerning exceedingly valuable IP.

Lest, we forget, several months ago Kennedy was getting fired and George Lucas being hired.

[greenman]

I'm guessing with Kennedy Disney might well be looking to avoid any negative PR from actually letting her go and have instead relegated her back to the kind of number crunching producer work she did under Lucas. Honestly though I suspect the direction of the sequels really had a lot to do with Disney as well and it might well be Kennedy was just a bit limp as a president of a sub studio relative to Marvel and Pixar, more willing to just bend to what was coming down from on high.

I've been battering through both series over a couple of days using a borrowed disney+ account. Enjoyable and engrossing and I cant fucking stand star wars but this actually gives its world some depth.

Someone did point out to me that it's a video game in TV show form which is basically correct, the format is essentially a bunch of fetch quests presented by engaging actors (Timothy Olyphaunt *swoon*) and then mando gets some loot. Every time they infiltrate some base or ship you are practically shown how each corridor is cleared in a workmanlike fashion - you the player..erm audience must know how our crew got from A to B. I dont know if any of this is intentional but it does make for a very different storytelling style, its simplicty decieves you and SUBVERTS YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

I think this was made clear to me during the episodes with the frog woman, for some reason modern tropes had me thinking there was some greater significance to baby yoda snaffling the eggs, but it was in fact very simply because baby yoda is EAT EGG CUNT and just another problem for mando to deal with in an already exasparating situation. Funny and good.

I wouldnt be supprised of using an episodic format to create a story as a series of game levels was part of the intension and as you say I think ti works well.

It feels like an obvious antidote to both the prequels and sequels obcession with complex plotting and a lot closer to the style of the originals which you could argue were themselves more a series of linear tasks plot wise(find Ben Kenobi, Rescue Leia, Destroy Deathstar). The Western/Samurai influences really were always heavy on the "people doing things" style as a reveal of character I think it works well here, especially if you have a man in a mask as your lead role.

[SteveDave]

Cara Dune died on the way back to her home planet

https://deadline.com/2021/02/mandalorian-gina-carano-lucas-film-responds-to-controversial-statement-1234691898/

[phantom_power]

#canceldisney+ is now trending because apparently cancel culture is bad unless it is to suit your own right wing purposes. Why are all these free speech twats such whiny little man-babies?

[Neomod]

Cara Dune died on the way back to her home planet

https://deadline.com/2021/02/mandalorian-gina-carano-lucas-film-responds-to-controversial-statement-1234691898/

Good riddance. Not because of whatever shit she's come out with but for me that character was really incongruous.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Somewhat ironic that the venn diagram of people defending her and those who think that women that look like her have no place in mainstream media is a perfect circle.

[Blumf]

Good riddance. Not because of whatever shit she's come out with but for me that character was really incongruous.

Why? Seemed fitting for the world the show presents.

Sad to see the character go, but the actor did seem to insist on being an pointless edge-lord on twitter.

[EOLAN]

That tweet alone doesn't seem that bad and would agree with some points, but maybe I don't have all the context. Presume she was given some warning and I guess Disney is very brand aware so if you want to continue working for them you have to self-censor.

[Huxleys Babkins]

That tweet alone doesn't seem that bad and would agree with some points, but maybe I don't have all the context. Presume she was given some warning and I guess Disney is very brand aware so if you want to continue working for them you have to self-censor.

She's been posting alt-right conspiracy crap for months now. This was the final straw.

[katzenjammer]

That tweet alone doesn't seem that bad and would agree with some points, but maybe I don't have all the context. Presume she was given some warning and I guess Disney is very brand aware so if you want to continue working for them you have to self-censor.

This is the particularly bad bit ' How is (hating Jews) any different from hating someone for their political views'

[Dex Sawash]

After liking her in Haywire, I found out she was one of those MMAers. Probably would never have watched it had I known. A really good action actor, I think. Just in the last week, I saw a "news" feed story about her apologizing to Disney for being a loon and I had some hope for her maybe turning herself in at the FEMA re-education camp.