The Mandalorian

[MardiganX]

I’ve watched it 4 times now. It’s not lost any of its impact at any point and I seem to focus on something else that is incredible each time. It’s been said before, but the most recent time it was the music. The way it builds slowly and then takes on an almost choir like background as certain things happen. It enhances the atmosphere and feeling of what we

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and more importantly the other characters are

witnessing beautifully. 

 

Every single decision they made and trick they use adds something to the final 20 minutes. It’s masterful film / show making.

[Fletch]

It was absolutely brilliant and just what was needed at the end of this most bogus year. I think I said “oh shit” at least 3 times. Just a beautiful rollercoaster ride to a touching climax. 
 

You guys are able to articulate your thoughts a lot better than me and I’ve really enjoyed reading all your opinions, even the batshit crazy ones that didn’t like it. 
 

I think my only reservation going forward and this isn’t limited to just The Mandalorion is the amount of new shows could be overkill. Hopefully I’m wrong on that front though. 

[JPL]

 

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I remember back when TLJ came out and I was massively disappointed with how they changed Luke into a grumpy old idiot. Any time I brought it up I got the piss taken out of me because I wanted Luke to be the culmination of what he’d been through in the original trilogy, not some miserable old fool who’d had a complete change of character. I even started to think I must be missing something with the amount of people who told me I was wrong.

 

 

Well no, what I’ve just watched proves it can be done and it was far better than anything we saw in the prequels. That was how you do Star Wars and I’m really happy they’ve finally figured it out.

 

They should give Favreau and Filoni the keys, if they haven’t already. I’m optimistic the next films will be good again.

 

Bring on Season 3.

 

The only negative I’ve got is they still can’t make people look right. Maybe he should have kept his hood up.

[mikeyl]

Imagine going into a thread where everything is brilliant just to have the same 5 year moan about not understanding The Last Jedi.

 

I squealed like a child for about 45 minutes in the last episode. The iconography of the ships, the robo troopers, music, the obvious, all of it. Totally exhausted at the end. Felt like I just had sex.

[SeanR]

 

[JPL]

37 minutes ago, mikeyl said:

Imagine going into a thread where everything is brilliant just to have the same 5 year moan about not understanding The Last Jedi.

 

I squealed like a child for about 45 minutes in the last episode. The iconography of the ships, the robo troopers, music, the obvious, all of it. Totally exhausted at the end. Felt like I just had sex.

Not understanding The Last Jedi. You’re so smart. 

 

It’s just called an opinion, which I thought someone as obviously intelligent as you would understand.

 

This is what I and a lot of other people wanted to see from you-know-who and we’ve finally got it and it’s completely shown up TLJ for being in the oh-so-clever subversive bollocks that it is.

[sir stiff_one]

I knew the Mando love in would not remain untainted forever. It was a good run though. Genuinely loved it and I’m not a Star Wars fan or anything, I just quite like it. 
 

 

[Benny]

Newsflash: when people get older they can change a lot. The problem was people hadn't seen any of the previous decades of the character's development for it to make much sense or mean much to the audience. It wasn't a bad idea in TLJ, just executed poorly.

 

Now back to Mando.

[JLM]

I love Star Wars, I loved TLJ Luke and I loved this episode of Mando. Plenty of people who hated TLJ Luke also loved this episode of Mando. They're not incompatible positions, so we don't really need to squabble about it all over again.

 

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I get the criticism of this ending making the world smaller again and perhaps taking shine away from what the show has achieved with its self-contained story, but I also think Mando's goodbye scene with Grogu was still a memorable high point of the episode, as was his battle with the Dark Trooper, in one of the few fights where he's appeared to be out of his depth. He also achieved his goal for the series. He got the kid back to his people. Luke was only able to turn up and save the day because Mando had kept the kid alive, found a Jedi and got the kid to the Jedi Wi-fi hotspot. I think it delivered a good ending for Mando and pals *and* a fucking incredible bit of fan service at the same time. I adored it. I love this show and I will happily gobble up more of it in Season 3.

 

Also props to Giancarlo Esposito, have thoroughly enjoyed him throughout this show. Breaking Bad alone was enough to make him one of my favourite actors, but between this and The Boys he is knocking it out of the park. He's like the new Christoph Waltz for me, I want to see him in everything. This last episode needed the biggest range of emotions from him and I think he was superb throughout. The pile of Empire remains under his leadership is so much better than the First Order. Moff Gideon's theme is a belter too. On that note, the soundtrack for this show has been first rate. The Ahsoka episode in particular had an incredible score, completely blew me away.

 

The stinger scene was glorious too. I was not even remotely prepared for fat Bib Fortuna.

 

I hope we get Mando season 3 alongside the Bobba series, I am ready for more of it.

 

[Benny]

The music in the series has been consistently one of the best scores ever. Including films.

[JPL]

I didn’t want to start an argument by the way. I just wanted to say how happy I was to finally see him how I wanted to see him, instead of the boring, totally out of character nonsense of TLJ. I love Star Wars and it still pisses me off how little they understood it in the Sequels.

 

All in my opinion of course, before someone else decides to tell me how stupid I am for having a different view to theirs.

[MrPogo]

On 20/12/2020 at 21:08, JPL said:

I didn’t want to start an argument by the way. I just wanted to say how happy I was to finally see him how I wanted to see him, instead of the boring, totally out of character nonsense of TLJ. I love Star Wars and it still pisses me off how little they understood it in the Sequels.

 

All in my opinion of course, before someone else decides to tell me how stupid I am for having a different view to theirs.

Nope, that was exactly what I most wanted to see in the new trilogy; Jedi Master Luke at the height of his powers, and something finally delivered. Just a shame Mark Hamill effectively spoiled it before I saw it; his “hey everyone, please don’t spoil this unnamed thing for people whole haven’t seen it” on Friday being the only even vague spoiler I’d seen anywhere, which sent me in thinking “that’s got to be Luke in The Mandalorian. Thanks Mark. And even if it’s something else I’ll now be disappointed when Luke’s now not in it”.

[Mogster]

1 hour ago, Benny said:

The music in the series has been consistently one of the best scores ever. Including films.

 

Speaking of which.

 

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I might be wrong, but I think I heard a bit of Luke's theme from the new trilogy as Luke was walking up to the blast doors, which was a lovely touch.

 

[Jg15]

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[mikeyl]

1 hour ago, JPL said:

I didn’t want to start an argument by the way. I just wanted to say how happy I was to finally see him how I wanted to see him, instead of the boring, totally out of character nonsense of TLJ. I love Star Wars and it still pisses me off how little they understood it in the Sequels.

 

All in my opinion of course, before someone else decides to tell me how stupid I am for having a different view to theirs.

Even though it was underneath your response it wasn’t really a dig at yours - it was the earlier long form deconstruction really. Absolutely no problem at wanting different things and getting served what you want on different occasions. But there is also no denying that some of the more militant TLJ haters use Mandalorian to diminish what they don’t like. E.g the discourse of the 4 woman fireteam (“this is how you do Diversity!”) when what they meant was “not Rose!”.

[Glasgowchivas]

59 minutes ago, Mogster said:

 

Speaking of which.

 

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I might be wrong, but I think I heard a bit of Luke's theme from the new trilogy as Luke was walking up to the blast doors, which was a lovely touch.

 

You’re not. It’s the Jedi Steps theme 

[JPL]

16 hours ago, mikeyl said:

Even though it was underneath your response it wasn’t really a dig at yours - it was the earlier long form deconstruction really. Absolutely no problem at wanting different things and getting served what you want on different occasions. But there is also no denying that some of the more militant TLJ haters use Mandalorian to diminish what they don’t like. E.g the discourse of the 4 woman fireteam (“this is how you do Diversity!”) when what they meant was “not Rose!”.

To be honest, I hadn’t read the thread when I posted, so I wasn’t aware that anyone else was slating TLJ. I’m always going to think they totally fucked up the sequel trilogy and it made me wonder if they could actually make anything decent, but this show has shown me they can.

 

I don’t know anything about your last sentence, but I don’t think anyone on here is like that. There’s just quite a few of us, quite rightly in my eyes, that absolutely hated how they handled Luke.

 

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t want to start an argument, so let’s get back to talking about how good Mando has been.

[JohnC]

Someone Deepfaked that bit

 

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[Captain Kelsten]

I don’t understand why Disney didn’t just use that, considering some bloke has managed to do it himself in his spare time over the weekend for far superior results. 

[JPL]

5 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

I don’t understand why Disney didn’t just use that, considering some bloke has managed to do it himself in his spare time over the weekend for far superior results. 

They’ve obviously invested in some other kind of tech for it, seeing as they’ve used it for Tarkin, Leia and now this. They must be pretty pissed off though, because the results so far have been terrible.

[5R7]

i don't understand why they don't just use a composite from footage, it would look better, at the very least, take the original person and scan all available data to create a head!

[MardiganX]

Following my fifth viewing today I've decided Season 2 Episode 8 of Mandalorian is the highlight of my movie / TV show / gaming year. Yes I am taking the release of the PS5 into account so that should put that statement into context

 

It’s in my top 5 of all time in that category but for this year at least with all its horrendous, soul crushing bullshit, this has made me so unbelievably happy and for some reason more looking forward to Christmas and watching the original trilogy again with my son.

 

I appreciate I’m maybe getting carried away, but I don’t care. I can’t give it any higher praise than that, so I won’t try. Just fucking magical!

[MrPogo]

11 hours ago, 5R7 said:

i don't understand why they don't just use a composite from footage, it would look better, at the very least, take the original person and scan all available data to create a head!

I remember it being said they tried the latter with Carrie Fisher, but ageing changes the face shape so much that it doesn’t help at all in creating a 20 year old version of someone.

[IcEBuRN]

On 19/12/2020 at 17:30, Vemsie said:

It was enjoyable but I didn't like this nearly as much as some of you. The show has always been as deep as a puddle, but my biggest problem with current SW is that it makes a vast universe seem incredibly small. It's as if there are only seven important figures in that entire universe. 

 

I loved how TLJ told us that a nobody can be a hero, but all the great things that film set-up were retconned in the disappointing RoS and now we constantly get bombarded by nostalgia pandering and fan service. They could have had a cool new Jedi or Sith react to Grogu's Force call, but of course it had to be 

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Luke

 

I'm kinda done with that. Give me something truly fresh.

There's your problem. You thought the TLJ was good, and not a steaming pile of fuck you to the fans and the film that came before it.

[Vemsie]

3 minutes ago, IcEBuRN said:

There's your problem. You thought the TLJ was good, and not a steaming pile of fuck you to the fans and the film that came before it.

Indeed I do. Easily my favourite Star Wars film.

[Vulgar Monkey]

2 hours ago, MrPogo said:

I remember it being said they tried the latter with Carrie Fisher, but ageing changes the face shape so much that it doesn’t help at all in creating a 20 year old version of someone.

 

If its just a straightforward mesh of the surface geometry, sure, but at this point I'd half expect someone could feed a face into an algorithm and have it figure out the underlying bone structure, moreso if it has both the old one and a young one to cross reference against each other. I mean, faces should be perfect for algorithmic learning; slight variations on what are otherwise firm rules (same anatomy, limited range of proportions etc).

[the_debaser]

4 hours ago, Vemsie said:

Indeed I do. Easily my favourite Star Wars film.

I’d agree with this. TLJ and Empire are leagues ahead of all the other movies. 

[Bucky]

On the topic of people I don't know why they just don't cast similar looking actors.  The uncanny valley isn't worth the trade off.  

 

The performance and more believable and it's not like audiences haven't made this leap of faith a hundred times already.

 

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hypable.com/sebastian-stan-mark-hamill-bucky-is-a-skywalker-pass-it-on/amp/

 

 

[IcEBuRN]

Do NOT click this link until you've watched the finale. just a example of some of the special effects.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrHXA2cSpNU

[IcEBuRN]

6 hours ago, Vemsie said:

Indeed I do. Easily my favourite Star Wars film.

annd no accounting for taste.