[TV] The Mandalorian (*Spoilers*)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Episode 4

Hey look, some nice villagers going about their day! Lemme guess; they're about to get massacred.

... Ofcourse I was right.

Lemmee guess; one of the raiders is going to SOMEHOW notice them hiding under the basket, or the girl is going to freak out or sneeze and they will notice.

Huh, they didn't do it. Nice.

Looking around, there is a surprising lack of dead bodies. Usually the way this goes down in fiction is that everybody is killed and it's one big sob story, but here it seems that the raiders shot a couple guys, chased the rest of the villagers away, and then just left some baskets of blue fish. Guess they're smart enough to know that if you want to do raiding, you have to actually keep villagers left alive so you can raid them again later. They're unusually competent for Hollywood writing.

Anyone else noticing a trend here, where we don't really see messed up human bodies but we see a lot of busted up droids? IG-88 in episode 1? The droid driving the car in episode 3? And now, another droid driving a car at the beginning of this episode. I'm not asking for gore or anything; that'd be incongruent with what Star Wars has established (the most gorey thing we ever saw was Uncle Owen and Lars burned from afar, and looking back that is inconsistent with the rest of the franchise), but at least show some humans plopped over on the ground.

WTH how is she beating him up? How is her hands and kneecap not shattering whenever she punched his helmet or kicked his armor? Only other woman in the entire series who could do that was... Rey. *sigh* Guess I'll just have to write that off as her being a mutant with titanium bones or something.

What do you mean "I guess you'll have to move on..." and "Looks like this planet is taken"? Dude, it's an entire PLANET! You have literally THE ENTIRE REST OF THE PLANET to hide! Surely there is more than just that one bar on the planet.

Why is a married woman hitting on him? (edit: later confirmed as a widower. Still, she had met with him for all of one minute!)

Did he seriously just change his mind on whether or not he was going to fight in the span of thirty seconds?
The Mandlorian: "We can't fight an ATST. We're not taking the job. You guys should relocate."
Villagers: "But there are twenty-five of us".
The Mandalorian: "Okay I'll teach you how to fight.
The dude didn't even sigh. He just changed track just like that.

Sudden Mount & Blade training the villagers sequence.

See? When the big alien raider punched the Mandalorian's helmet, the Mandalorian wasn't even fazed, but when the girl punched him in the helmet he keeled over. And she's beating up guys in plate armor...

Wow, they made an homage to the Iron Giant with the AT-ST chase through the woods at night. Nice!

That battle was raging for three minutes, and somehow the 25 villagers DIDN'T get massacred within that time?

"So what happens if you take that helmet off"... come on, don't ruin the mood show. That was dumb.

"Why don't you settle down with that beautiful young widower?" Goodness gracious, knock it off. He spent a grand total of TWO MINUTES onscreen with her.

Medicore filler episode. 3/10


We are half way through this story, with only four episodes left. So far, there has barely been any story at all. The only story thus far is that there is a Mandalorian bounty hunter who took on a job, found a baby Yoda, turned in the baby Yoda, had second thoughts, took baby Yoda back and fled. That's the entire story of the show thus far. That could've been told in one episode. We didn't need any of this padding. I'm not hopefull for the rest of the season.

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eh... It would have been the same if the setting was a modern war and they were talking about a tank. Unless the operators are actual characters in the story, everyone else tends to talk about the vehicle as if it has agency.

Considering droids are a thing and have been shown to be able to drive cars in the new canon (OT downplayed the question it by only having them copilot ships like Luke's X-Wing), it doesn't make sense to me why droid brains couldn't be rigged to pilot vehicles autonomously. Could've been the deal with the AT-ST.

Couldn’t it just be droid controlled?

Exactly.

Why was that one lady so thirsty? She was ready to adopt Baby Yoda and lock Mando down. Pacing was good. Humor was good. Still felt like a cowboy yandering around. Still better than the first half of the pilot

Can definitely mark it as filler for re-watches.

In retrospect, it feels like borderline wish fulfillment. "The protagonist is so awesome that he near singlehandedly saves an entire village, becomes beloved by their community, will have his name passed down through the generations in the legends, and has a woman throwing herself at his feet."

felt kind of like a typical SG-1 episode to me.

Felt like a bad episode from the latter seasons of SG-1/Atlantis, after the good writers had left.

Also, the opening scene with the raiders... Am I the only one who thought "Uruk-hai in space?!"

I thought of that awful CGI orc guy (Azog, I think?) from the Hobbit.

Way too rushed. Episodes need to be longer. Weak throwaway line saying they've been in the village for weeks? I want to like you, series. /shakesfist

At the rate the story is progressing, episodes 1-4 should've been condensed down into a single episode.

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I'm puzzled as to why the Mandalorian episodes are so highly rated on IMDB. Yes, the show isn't insulting like TLJ, but that's damning by faint praise.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Rise of Skywalker after credits flashback scene leaked. :P

[Joathen]

It's a spaghetti western in space- not sure what some of you guys are expecting. This episode was very reminiscent of Firefly (Episode: Heart of Gold) or a handful of Bonanza runs; not every series needs a headlong rush into a central plot conclusion- sometimes it's about the journey, freaking shit.

Solid 8.5/10, won't be the best out of the batch but not comparable to the dumpster fire that was TLJ.

[Kaleredar]

People are calling it a filler episode? What did it lack that the "Jawas stole my shit and I have to go on a quest to get it back" episode had?

Lemme make it clear, I thought this episode was fine, if not predictable. But that's the problem; it was predictable.

The "Jawas stole my stuff" episode, at least, was 1) uniquely star wars and 2) showed the character's limitations a little more concretely. He's a man of action, but he can definitely get in over his head, even in situations where it looks like he has the upper hand. We saw that with him trying to take on the Jawas head on and failing, and then again with the Mud Horn. In the first situation, he's made to resort to diplomacy, while in the second one B.Y. has to save his bacon with the force.

We didn't really learn anything about the Mandalorian in this episode. We can infer that he's going to do the right thing because... well, he's done it in the past. The action is all dimly lit "more-of-the-same" shootout stuff we've seen; the Jawa episode had him trying to scale the sandcrawler, (something we've never seen in star wars,) and also fight a giant space rhino.

Moreover, while it's not really the show's fault... AT-STs are best known for being something the Ewoks took down... without too much effort. Not exactly a menacing piece of Star Wars technology given their track record.

It didn't have to be profound cinema with deep meaning. Hell, I'd have preferred more cheesy action schlock, if they could have made it more dynamic. Maybe Mando or Cara has to scale the AT-ST because it wont step in the pit, and then they take it over and send the enemy forces running, or do something cool that way, instead of the "hunker down and get shot at in a pit" strategy. Maybe they negotiate some peaceful situation with the raiders; who knows. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, and they have budget restraints and time restraints, but... It just felt like a very "standard" episode of television. Derivative of Seven Samurai... The Magnificent seven... The Road Warrior (it's actually a LOT like the Road Warrior, now that I think about it.)

So again; a passable episode. Nothing inherently bad about it. But very predictable.

I was not talking about them referring to it, I was talking about the damn thing behaving like it has its own agency. How it got surprised with the sound of a surprised droid, for instance. How quite visibly became pissed off then they shot one of its "eyes" out. The entire sequence of that fight was made to present it as an entity of its own.

Pretty sure that was just to make it look larger and more "antagonistic."

[s_bushido]

But that's the problem; it was predictable.

Come now... Literally everyone knew he wasn't just going to turn over the kid. The only question was how and when he'd betray the Imperials that gave him the bounty...not if he would. The most unpredictable thing about the show so far has been what exactly the Jawas wanted with the egg.

[Kaleredar]

Come now... Literally everyone knew he wasn't just going to turn over the kid. The only question was how and when he'd betray the Imperials that gave him the bounty...not if he would. The most unpredictable thing about the show so far has been what exactly the Jawas wanted with the egg.

But at least he did cool, Star Wars-y shit while doing those other things. That’s what makes in interesting.

Take out the AT-ST and this could have been from any “lone wanderer”-type series. They don’t even make the raiders interesting; neither their design nor their motivations are anything to note. The villagers are just villagers, the raiders are just raiders, the firefight is just a firefight. Nothing stands out as exceptional or interesting. Also, they already did the “gunshot fake out at B.Y” in the first episode.

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

Cara Dune says something interesting to me as a lore head, along the lines of...

"...after Endor they had us on diplomat security and riot supression, that's not what i signed up for..."

diplomat security and riot supression? paints an ominous picture of how the galaxy is accepting the new republic, and may start to explain how the first order wins over its first few followers

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I believe Jango and Boba weren’t Mandalorians.

this is correct.

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We are half way through this story, with only four episodes left. So far, there has barely been any story at all. The only story thus far is that there is a Mandalorian bounty hunter who took on a job, found a baby Yoda, turned in the baby Yoda, had second thoughts, took baby Yoda back and fled. That's the entire story of the show thus far. That could've been told in one episode. We didn't need any of this padding. I'm not hopefull for the rest of the season.

look at the first season of Rebels and Clone wars. stories need a few episodes to establish characters and what not.

Chill. This is the way.

[ravenmoon]

Cara Dune says something interesting to me as a lore head, along the lines of...

"...after Endor they had us on diplomat security and riot supression, that's not what i signed up for..."

diplomat security and riot supression? paints an ominous picture of how the galaxy is accepting the new republic, and may start to explain how the first order wins over its first few followers

I still feel it was a horrible direction to go, just miserable and disappointing, that after all of episode 6, you mean this is what the victory brought? This is how the galaxy gathered together with people like Leia Organa and Mon Mothma around.. are you kidding me?

All so they could paint Luke like a loser and make us feel that this is reality, and we enjoy such miserable stuff. The world we live in is already a miserable place, and people need hope and to see that making a difference makes things generally better. Star wars 1-6 is re watched enough and has enough "falling to darkness, miser, and rising out of the ashes" for us to want something new and different.

How about a restored republic, a utopian galaxy, with a new and greater menace, how about the force and its users at the highest point ever, how about the sith and jedi even working together, something new.

When I played Swtor, , the whole Eternal Empire story arc, really felt like the "new" sort of thing that the movies should have gone with. An emperor thought dead has another trick up his sleeve, and builds an awesome new empire, invading the current, and now they have to fight to preserve the new utopia they fought so hard to create, with new levels of force powers, secrets, stunning new worlds with technology and force wonder.

Not this grim, hey everything looks like Episode 4-6, and nothing has changed.. sheesh, save that for the Mando series and for films like Rogue 1 and Solo set in that time line, it seems a creative drought that a video game company managed to drive a more exciting story and premise than a billion dollar company.


While people may have loved the plot execution and script, what it was about was what was really wrong. Going back to repeat episode 4-6 but now just gender swap everyone, gives us nothing new. Hans dying is like Obi-wan dying, just more emotional to the people now than the ones who first saw star wars and didn't really know much of Obi-wan then.


They really screwed up, and as it stands, I feel the swtOR game story up to the recent expansion was a much more exciting route and something new to do, rather than re-hash.


Conclusion of Epsidoe 7-9

Seemed to be, someone's fantasy of re-imagagining episode 4-6 with a girl as the star and female leads and themed, but ofc the big bad male villain, and subservient obedient male sidekicks.

As if to say, "I always wanted Luke to be female, and imagined Star Wars with girls doing all the "cool stuff" (or rather the things the boys consider really cool and use to exclude me from all the time because I was a girl) and now I get to stick it to them because now I can make a girl and women do all the things the boys find cool, and have girls rule in the end, and stick it to them" Now I have the reins, I'm going to do that, and fill my team with girls who feel the same way.

And we'll make it better than anything George Lucas or any of the males did it. Go girl power, the force is female !!


This is exactly what Episode 7-9 and the whole purpose of it feels like.

[s_bushido]

Take out the AT-ST and this could have been from any “lone wanderer”-type series.

Seriously? Yes, if you take out the Star Wars stuff, it stops being Star Wars...

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

@ravenmoon

i have to disagree with you, though i totally see what you mean and appreciate the thought out response. i personally love the fact that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows after Endor. it's the same as it would be in real life, you have the people who liked the Empire (be it actually or brainwashed into it) revolting against the New Republic, which they see as terrorists.

from our perspective, yes the rebellion and luke and the gang were the heroes, but who are we to know how the galaxy itself felt as a whole? people didn't know what a Sith was and Palpatine had been putting anti Jedi propaganda out there since Order 66. maybe the people of the galaxy are weary of a rebuilt Jedi Order?

the outer rim has pretty much never given a shit about the republic or the empire, as the galaxy is a big place and the authorities have had a harder time ruling over worlds that far away from the core so it's easy to see worlds like that revolting at the thought of any kind of take over.

all of this are things i want to see in the Mandalorian and maybe the Resistance cartoon once i get into that, it will help explain everything that has been going on in the latter part of the skywalker saga.

agree with you on the Eternal Empire story line in SWTOR though, i had fun playing through that. most of the internet would disagree with us lol

[everydaygamer]

@ravenmoon

Honestly, it makes sense, the whole idea of "oh the emperor is dead so war is over" always seemed kind of stilly.

[infinitemeridian]

This show is...alright? Average? Passable? I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't 20 minute episodes. Thought we'd be getting hour long deals, especially given not all episodes are out yet. I like the music and the "lore" behind the mandolorian, but he is a bit one-dimensional and the episodes haven't been too thrilling so far.

[ravenmoon]

@ravenmoon

i have to disagree with you, though i totally see what you mean and appreciate the thought out response. i personally love the fact that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows after Endor. it's the same as it would be in real life, you have the people who liked the Empire (be it actually or brainwashed into it) revolting against the New Republic, which they see as terrorists.

from our perspective, yes the rebellion and luke and the gang were the heroes, but who are we to know how the galaxy itself felt as a whole? people didn't know what a Sith was and Palpatine had been putting anti Jedi propaganda out there since Order 66. maybe the people of the galaxy are weary of a rebuilt Jedi Order?

the outer rim has pretty much never given a shit about the republic or the empire, as the galaxy is a big place and the authorities have had a harder time ruling over worlds that far away from the core so it's easy to see worlds like that revolting at the thought of any kind of take over.

all of this are things i want to see in the Mandalorian and maybe the Resistance cartoon once i get into that, it will help explain everything that has been going on in the latter part of the skywalker saga.

agree with you on the Eternal Empire story line in SWTOR though, i had fun playing through that. most of the internet would disagree with us lol

Well, they're just trolls who hate swtor, and never actually paid it much mind, probably got sour because on the launch the end game wasn't the well oiled machine that Cata had going with 4 raids to their only one, got so pissed off and the bitter taste has them writing off Swtor at any mention, without ever looking at the content. Shame on them. It has great stories, and the direction and plot line leading to the Eternal empire and what came after it was very cool, and the sort of direction that would have ben awesome for the main star wars to go in, especially after someone as powerful as Palpatine,

My big gripe with the DDisney continuation is not really how less likely the direction they took was, as you correctly say it is plausible and definitely believable, it's that they rehashed episode 4-6, and peddled the same scenario - of a dark war torn universe, with us struggling under pretty much identical threat as 4-6

They didn't give us anything new, amazing, wonder filled or that exciting, they just re-told episode 4-6 in a better way. And yes, I admit it was done better than 4-6, but it was less enjoyable, because it's a rehash and not really taking the saga forward.

I also really don't like how they ruin the skywalker legacy, compared to the EU (which i've never looked at, but heard) has a much brighter and more adventerous outlook, where instead they just seem to kill off all the old heroes is disapopinting. This is real life. I don't go to movies to see real life. In real life, I'm the guy that struggled against all natural odds to do the impossible in my generation, and at the end of it all, instead of being appreciated, I had to fight on to stop more evil and had to give my life to keep said evil at bay - I look to the next life or to the future of humanity beyond my natural first life to see if my sacrificed made any lasting difference in the long run, but even if it did not, I am satisfied if I helped, saved and hcanged many lives for the good.


But real life has history to tell, fantasy life, can actually show a whole lot more. And if you're not continuing with the timeline, but ending it with RoS, and instaed telling endless stories in the 1-9 movie canon with series like Mandalorian , Resistance and films like Solo and Rogue one , then I'm sorry, you needed a much brighter end or far more positive future outlook.

Meh, I don't know why it irritates me this much, ..but i guess i really liked star wars, and just hate how they're ending it with the last 3 movies. I expected the flash and flair or beautiful advanced worlds, lightsaber and force fights of 1-3 taken to the next level like the Clone wars cartoons started doing (espeically on the Cartoon Network) coupled with the charm, wit and better direction of the original 3 (episode 4-6) but done better, to result in a turly incredible 7-9 which so far has fallen well short of that for all those reasons.

[7empest]

Same as most folks I am entertained, but it feels very "safe mode" and with an IP as rich and, literally rich.. >they have all the money in the world to fuel this IP<, it feels very lackluster.

Everything feels like "I've seen this all before elsewhere" but now it's about a tin man, his wrestler sidekick, a merchandise pushing yodle, and neat credit concept art.

[infinitemeridian]

Same as most folks I am entertained, but it feels very "safe mode" and with an IP as rich and, literally rich.. >they have all the money in the world to fuel this IP<, it feels very lackluster.

Everything feels like "I've seen this all before elsewhere" but now it's about a tin man, his wrestler sidekick, a merchandise pushing yodle, and neat credit concept art.

It feels very boardroom-esque, but then again, that's the Star Wars brand these days.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

When I played Swtor, , the whole Eternal Empire story arc, really felt like the "new" sort of thing that the movies should have gone with. An emperor thought dead has another trick up his sleeve, and builds an awesome new empire, invading the current, and now they have to fight to preserve the new utopia they fought so hard to create, with new levels of force powers, secrets, stunning new worlds with technology and force wonder..

This isn’t at l what happens in swtor. No one thought the emperor was dead he stripped a planet of life then left for another galaxy only to return with an unstoppable force. The empire and republic were openly at war when he showed up it wasn’t a utopia. Even when he dies again on his return you know that he’s not really gone as he’s with you and the others can know that to. The eternal empire is just like any point in Starwars it just has some shiny new buildings and robot troops.

[Axxil]

Still enjoyable but the weakest episode so far.

Quite untrue. Episode was fantastic.

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snip

So you can predict traditional tropes. Good for you.

Episode was great.

[ohiostate124]

Quite untrue. Episode was fantastic.

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So you can predict traditional tropes. Good for you.

Episode was great.

Please explain how it was better than any of the previous 3 episodes.

[PACOX]

Same as most folks I am entertained, but it feels very "safe mode" and with an IP as rich and, literally rich.. >they have all the money in the world to fuel this IP<, it feels very lackluster.

Everything feels like "I've seen this all before elsewhere" but now it's about a tin man, his wrestler sidekick, a merchandise pushing yodle, and neat credit concept art.

That's what SW has been since forever.

[ravenmoon]

This isn’t at l what happens in swtor. No one thought the emperor was dead he stripped a planet of life then left for another galaxy only to return with an unstoppable force. The empire and republic were openly at war when he showed up it wasn’t a utopia. Even when he dies again on his return you know that he’s not really gone as he’s with you and the others can know that to. The eternal empire is just like any point in Starwars it just has some shiny new buildings and robot troops.

Yes, I was describing the adaptation to the present. In swtor, we are along the journey as the hero discovers exactly what is happening. Sadly we don't get that in the films that tend to have major time jumps.

My main point was having something new and exciting that hadn't been done in episode 1-6, for the big screen.


For a a tv show, like the Mandalorian and the cartoons, you can explore the details of the interim stages, but then series tend to follow characters and groups rather than events, they can give the settings that connect events, but like in the Mandalorian, they are following heroes or teams. Video games like SWTor's rpg format can actually follow the details of events in a way neither series nor films can. But for films, you need a grander presentation, and I felt the adaptation of the Eternal empire would have been a good enough one to do. Even the set of Zakkar and the Eternal fleet, like some awesome new super power, with a bunch of force users that Jedi and even sith have to work togehter, even the way they handled that was pretty good considering, I think it would have made for far more interesting story telling than a character/gender swap rehash of episode 4-6

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Same as most folks I am entertained, but it feels very "safe mode" and with an IP as rich and, literally rich.. >they have all the money in the world to fuel this IP<, it feels very lackluster.

Everything feels like "I've seen this all before elsewhere" but now it's about a tin man, his wrestler sidekick, a merchandise pushing yodle, and neat credit concept art.

They "had" all the money in the world to pull off something far more better than we got.

But I agree with you, it really felt like the "safe" option to go, everyone loved Episode 4-6, it has the Star wars feel many longed for, let's just go with that, as it seems guaranteed to be popular.

Unfortunately, Lucas already spoiled us by raising the FX , style and action drastically in 1-3, so naturally we were expecting a similar jump in quality as new owners i felt would be more keen to impress, .. tbh, I really expected a much better script and plot than the Lucas films, along with much better choreography, fight scenes, more imaginative force powers and world vistas, hi-tech cities and alien worlds.

WE got none. we got more deserts, swamps, and broken outposts, force fighting just as bad as episode 4-6, but this time without the charm of being the first of it's kind.

I guess we were use to Star wars really coming out with new things that were the first of it's kind when the IP launched a new sequence of movies. Except Disney didn't bother wtih that. I guess they're already a big company, aren't weren't trying to sell new pioneering film techniques and technology, nor do something new for the cinematic world.

For all their billions, they didn't think or aim big enough,.

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And they will pay the price for it. Played it safe, and it's a huge loss.