The Mandalorian The Mandalorian 2.02 - Chapter 10 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Pretty sure Disney would be reminding us there are good people on both sides

 

This episode was decent. I thought it was a bit odd that he refers to the woman as a frog. Do frogs exist in the gffa, or is her species actually called Frog?

 

I get so sick of that in modern stories... This obsession with "Grey characters" is not interesting anymore as it's being done every other day. I love the black and white characters of the OT!

 

All of the imperial characters in Disney Star Wars are portrayed as being unequivocally evil, same as the OT.

 

Mod Edit: Nope.

 

The Child eats some sort of frog in Season 1

 

Do you guys think the bug in the cantina supposed to be a reference to the giant mantis that was on the set of ANH but cut from the film?

 

@The Chalk Jedi

Yeah. We're not turning this thread into a political one. We're here to discuss this episode of the Mandalorian. If you want to discuss politics there's a thread for that elsewhere.

 

yeah, I think this series has been pretty clear on where the characters morals are, not really any greyness here

 

Lucas began including real ambiguity into the saga as far early as "The Empire Strikes Back". This was apparent in the decisions made by the leading characters, along with Luke and Anakin's emotional journeys in "Return of the Jedi". The only SW movie made by Lucas that came close to having a black-and-white morality - at least to me - was "A New Hope".

I never understood this aversion to moral ambiguity. Humans are basically ambiguous anyway. Are we not allow to express this in our works of fiction?

 

There is a background of moral ambiguity in The Mandalorian with how the New Republic has been set up with some of Cara Dune's comments in Season 1 about her unit being used to suppress protests after the war. That seems to play into the political cynicism of the Sequel Trilogy, which begins with the NR collapsing under the pressure of hateful radicals following years of lukewarm policy towards them. Plenty of historic and especially modern-day parallels there.

The X-Wing pilots are interesting in the context of this year, embodying a certain idealised vision of what law enforcement should be - a very high level of restraint with the use of force (at no point do they fire upon the Razor Crest despite Mando ignoring several warnings) and also, crucially, preferring mercy and forbearance at the end rather than the cold application of their authority.

 

So because Its Root Leaf Stew that doesn't mean he is a vegetarian. where in the movies or TV shows does it say Yoda was a vegetarian? May be Yoda put beef bouillon or something like it from his planet in the stew? I will also reiterate that if to get the line we need subtitles that's not fair because for many years on TV in the 80s and 90s and on VHS and in the theater back in the day most never saw the subtitles until 20-30 years ago when Subtitles were more readily available. for instance I always thought Yoda said Never For Tact for defense but with Subtitles it turned out I was wrong he says Attack! bottom line it was root leaf stew but whos to say Yoda didn't catch something in the swamp and throw it in as well!

 

I like this very much.

Also, I think some more Galaxy-wide post-war ROTJ aspects play into the overall story too. The Bloodline novel describes how the post-war Government eventually became comprised of Populists and Centrists; where the Centrists preferred the law and order that was around under the Empire. Obviously they were naive or quick to forget the evils commited by Palpatine, Vader, Tarkin and so on, but certain ideals like law and order were looked upon favourably by these people - where Admiral Rae Sloane is a prime example of this. And maybe this was like this because immediately post-Empire, like in Chapter 9 and the events that led to Cobb Vanth getting Boba's armour, maybe there were situations where militia groups came in and seized power. The Treaty brokered between Mon Mothma and the some of the Imperial Remnants after the Battle of Jakuu led to arms and military de-esculation and when combined with ineffectual Government, this created a vaccum for bad people to come along. The moral ambiguity then exists in the form of a thought where if the Empire's law and order (a Centrist viewpoint and ideal) were in place (except without the evil, the oppression, the corruption and so on), would these bad people be able to assume power in these places?

And I share the same thoughts on the X-Wing pilots. They essentially wanted to "pull him over and ask some questions", but maybe their orders from "up higher" dictates that they don't shoot as a way of distinguishing this Government's ideals from those of the Empire's.

 

The moral of it all is that those gun toting Militia run by a crazy old woman were right all along.
We should be Doomsday Preppers.

 

No, I get all that... I just find this modern obsession with good guys/bad guys being blurred a little tiresome It's closer to the real world sure, but I love basic good vs evil stories with my GFFA storylines

The grey for me was always the underworld - Neither good nor evil.

 

The concept of balance of the force practically demands a grey jedi storyline.

 

Not really, no. Not unless you change what balance means from what Lucas stated (in comments and the movies). Remember that balance was destroyed by the darkside rising quickly, after hundreds of years of the light dominating and the dark being almost nowhere to be seen. The balance of the force was never about light and dark being in balance with each other, but instead about one being the regular flow while the other was a damaging influence. There was always some level of darkness involved, but the more powerful the darkside became, the more it disrupted the balance of the force.

If balance was about neither light nor dark dominating, than the chosen one wouldn't have appeared when he did. He also wouln't have brought balance by ending the Sith. Nor would the chosen one have stated that Rey should bring back the balance (by destroying the Sith) after Palpatine managed to come back once more.

 

Frog, Falcon...

 

Yep. Also a nod to the fact that the director of the episode also directed the Ant-Man.

 

If you haven’t watched this episode twice, I highly recommend it. Once the shock of not seeing Boba or other expected things is gone, you realize that this episode is focused very squarely on Baby Yoda’s character development. And in that context, it’s really great. I consider it now in my top 5 episodes.

 

The part where Mando sends the ping, followed by one X-wing pilot asking the other to switch over to channel 2, and then Mando looks out the window to see them both lock their s-foils in attack position is one of my new favorite scenes in all of Star Wars.