The Mandalorian (Star Wars Live Action Series)

Wow, what a bait and switch. I was so happy seeing the opening when they hyper jumped and the credits rolled and saw that this was a 50ish minute episode, then I was pissed for 40 minutes following the doctor and the ex Gideon trooper that I knew was a setup. I was so bored I was on my phone and never did that for any Mando episodes. Next 5 episodes better redeem itself or they can just not film S4 the way this is going.

My 12 year old self loved EP 3. This was what I used to read about in the novels, and it's just amazing being able to see these things come alive in a Star Wars tv show.
The pacing felt a bit off though, I wasn't expecting the doctors bit to go on as long as it did. But it was a fun ride while it lasted. It reminded me a little of the Tales from Jabba's Palace novel, where we got multiple stories from characters that were only in the movie's backgrounds.
The New Republic's, what did they call it again, re-conditioning? That was a bit of an odd choice. I thought it was strange how brain washing was acceptible for the Republic, but cloning isn't? Very odd.
But still, seeing Coruscant again never gets old. Especially when it's shown in so much detail. And the highest mountain on the planet being a tourist attraction was very neat touch as well. Brought out my inner geek again. lol

Well I liked the beginning and the end. I find myself liking Bo more and more but that middle section? Yikes.
Some of the dialogue and acting was shockingly bad.
There was some interesting bits/ideas but it was so badly executed.
Coruscant looked so bad and fake at times. That volume screen thing has limitations.
I'm not sure where they're going to take this next. There doesn't seem to be an obvious next goal for Mando. He's redeemed, he has Grogu etc

ScoutingForToys said:

Well I liked the beginning and the end. I find myself liking Bo more and more but that middle section? Yikes.
Some of the dialogue and acting was shockingly bad.
There was some interesting bits/ideas but it was so badly executed.
Coruscant looked so bad and fake at times. That volume screen thing has limitations.
I'm not sure where they're going to take this next. There doesn't seem to be an obvious next goal for Mando. He's redeemed, he has Grogu etc

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The overall tone of the Coruscant part was really weird too, I'd be happy not seeing this director again.

I liked the episode a lot. I can be a harsh critic at times but I think it's also important to just sit back and enjoy things sometimes, too.

I've said it before but the first two episodes combined with TBOBF's Din episodes felt like an interlurde. I figured this episode would kick off some of the main threads of this season and I think it did. This was an extra long episode so we didn't really lose anything; just more stuffed into it.

We got to see a Kom'rk Gauntlet fighter, a hot rod N1 starfighter, 2 Mandos, and R5-D4 get into a dogfight with TIE Interceptors while TIE Bombers do what they do best. All in live action. That's incredible! Felt like a mission in the Rogue Squadron games. Then we got to see more of Corsucant and the New Republic built up and what it got right and what it got wrong.

And for the longest time I've wanted The Armorer to meet Bo-Katan, and we finally got that too. Can't wait to see more.

The Coruscant scenes felt straight out of an EU novel while feeling right at home with the PT/TCW aesthetically. Some of it was a bit wonky, but I like Dr. Pershing and liked seeing the New Republic process of trying to rehabilitate former Imperials. But it was just great to see some of those PT era locations again. I'm glad Coruscant is getting so much love in media these days.

It was a good not great episode comparable to the first two. I’m interested in where they are going with the Pershing/Kane story and while it seems obvious maybe I shouldn’t set any assumed expectations. The opening was terrific of course, how could you not love that? That ending hopefully will lead to some very interesting confrontations.

The Coruscant intrigue actually wasn’t bad sure it was a few layers below Andor writing but only a few and I quite liked the double-triple agent turn that was cool!

The reason there was no security on their mission was because it was a set up to get him to the decommissioned star destroyer and that included the robot security going slow.

I don’t know if I buy their jump off the train though but whatever.

I’m also liking Bo’s travels and i’m enjoying all the shifting alliances so far.

What did bug me were the 750 shots fired by the tie fighters from Thrawn’s fleet that ALL MISSED like literally ALL MISSED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

I’m just going to wave that off that it was a distraction to keep them away from the castle so that the bombers could destroy it.

I really REALLY need that to be the case lol

ScoutingForToys said:

There doesn't seem to be an obvious next goal for Mando. He's redeemed, he has Grogu etc

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Whaddya mean, no goal? Hey Mando! You're redeemed! You have Grogu! What are you going to do now?

"I'm going to Disneyland!"

While I didn’t entirely like the sucker punch of a “Andor” episode in the middle, I liked this episode and both plots.

What was that weird segue? I feel like someone was trying to do their best Tony Gilroy... and failed.

Stop teasing and just show Gideon.

Shockingly bad episode, this show is losing its way - fast. Apart from Sackoff/Bo-Katan the first 3 episodes have been rubbish, inept Mando included. The Pershing and weird girl episode was just bizarre, what was the long train ride all about. The baddie of the episode was a ticket collector. Woeful writing and acting, I too got the impression they were trying to rip off Andor, and failed miserably.

Just finished The Convert. Enjoyed.

3.5/5 for me.

If cloning is so taboo, why is Dr. Pershing giving a lecture that outlines his research?

If everything remotely related to imperial technology is to be scrapped, why is something called a ‘mind flayer’ given a pass and has zero safety settings? Ration biscuits are evil and corrupting, but that mind flayer thing is clearly a safe piece of equipment.

ScoutingForToys said:

There doesn't seem to be an obvious next goal for Mando. He's redeemed, he has Grogu etc

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There is no goal for Mando. He has now been accepted back as a Mandalorian, you could pretty much close the book on his story.

Looks like this season will be Bo's story and Disney further linking it to the ST.

This episode really does fall in line with Disneys MO so far: Eschew logic in favour of making the Lucas created heroes complete failures. they make them incompetent fools (Leia, New Republic etc), absolute failures (Han, Luke etc) or a complete joke (Boba Fett, Kenobi). That way they can artificially elevate their sub-standard hero replacements after the bar has been so drastically lowered (Rey becomes the chosen one who kills Palpatine, Din becomes the badass Mandalorian bounty hunter we thought Boba was supposed to be etc etc). Subvert and replace. This new episode is entirely in line with that so it really is consistent. The twist in the side plot this episode made no logical sense but it did serve to make the New Republic look incompetent and even somewhat evil, as if the Empire was replaced with Empire 2.0. Way to make the original trilogy's achievements mean nothing (though the sequel trilogy already did that).

The only real outliers in Disneys output were Rogue One and Andor, both of which add to and compliment everything that came before. But those had actual good writing and the creators respected what came before, I don't expect more like those to come along from Disney any time soon.

As for Mando season 3 we had:
An episode of basically filler and cringe in the form of toy/theme park commercial
An episode of side quest that basically could be cut out without really effecting the plot beyond bathing in waters (which it seems the armourer had bottles of the entire time)
And now an episode of failed world building B plot that made little logical sense just to kill off a side character most had already forgotten about anyway.

Mando s3 was supposed to be better. s1 was a movie idea stretched with filler to quickly make a flagship show, s2 was rushed to meet the demand for more content and now s3 has been botched due to behind the scenes drama, rewrites and studio meddling. Maybe s4 will be the great season. I doubt it, but I hope, just like I hoped for s3 to be the best season of Mando.

Venzhe said:

If cloning is so taboo, why is Dr. Pershing giving a lecture that outlines his research?

If everything remotely related to imperial technology is to be scrapped, why is something called a ‘mind flayer’ given a pass and has zero safety settings? Ration biscuits are evil and corrupting, but that mind flayer thing is clearly a safe piece of equipment.

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It’s not a Mindflayer it’s a Six-O-Two Mitigator, this isn’t the Empire son

choombaz said:

It was a good not great episode comparable to the first two. I’m interested in where they are going with the Pershing/Kane story and while it seems obvious maybe I shouldn’t set any assumed expectations. The opening was terrific of course, how could you not love that? That ending hopefully will lead to some very interesting confrontations.

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Hopefully Favreau and Filoni will "subvert expectations" and have this show have nothing to do with the Sequel Trilogy. Afterall, Disney where happy for Rian Johnson to "subvert expectations".

chrisstbh said:

The overall tone of the Coruscant part was really weird too, I'd be happy not seeing this director again.

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Yeah it was not good. It all had a weird tone. Don't know if some of that tone was intentional, so the audience feels something is wrong and the New Republic is not what it seems etc but for me, they failed in execution.
The female ex-officer was so weird throughout, with her goofy smiling etc. She came off hyper fake. Of course, there's a reason for that and I instantly didn't trust her, but the actress went too far. Massively over played it.
Then the clunky weird dialogue throughout.
Pretty much every characters acting was appalling in that middle section. The Mon Cal character was particularly crap.
If I ever rewatch this season, I'll only watch the opening 5 mins or so of this episode.
There were some bits that had potential; the Empire like bureaucratic elements of the NR, the waybtheh refer to them as numbers, the elite not really noticing the difference between the Empire and the NR, the operation paperclip like Amnesty program etc etc, but the execution was so ham-fisted.
Imagine what this episode would have been had it been directed by Gilroy.

SW to me is becoming tiresome. Same old same old as Indy puts it. Rogue One was truly awesome, mando is watchable, but I can lose interest quickly at times, the nods are not wasted on me, but a lot of it is filler and can feel stale at times. Hope as the season moves forward something better happens with the story

ScoutingForToys said:

Imagine what this episode would have been had it been directed by Gilroy.

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Just to clarify, Tony Gilroy has never directed any SW. He was showrunner on Andor but didn’t direct any episodes. His brother however did direct though. I know I need to shut up in these situations but I just can’t help myself lol.