The Mandalorian Official "The Mandalorian" Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Tremendous behind the scenes featurette from ILM:

 

I re-watched episode 4 for the 3rd time. I kind of changed my mind. It's not THAT bad after all. Perhaps one of the least interesting but still quite entertaining.

 

The TV Channel Pro 7 here in Germany shows the first Episode of the Mandalorian in front of the Free TV Premier of the Last jedi.
Interesting marketing decision.

 

Whoa, Mando's free-to-air in Germanyvania?

Kinda odd. Good for you guys though.

 

I like the episode but some of the shoots look like belong in a fanfilm and wannabe han solo was just awful. He looked like those fan film actors.

 

Now I've got Disney+ I've watched the first 3 episodes of this over and over again, as much as I love Rogue One I'm going to say that this is my favourite Star Wars thing since Jedi came out. It captures the spirit of the originals perfectly, it also has so many cool moments that are really close to bordering on fan service but I think they get away with them. Even things that we maybe never even thought of wanting to see that are squeezed into this show. How would IG-88 moved and sounded? Whats the inside of a Sand Crawlers 'bridge' like? The quirkiness of the Jawa collective and them trying to repel the Mandalorian.What happened to stormtroopers after the Empire fell? How did a bounty hunter go about his trade? A mini carbon freeze. The Mandalorians armour, how its made and their code. Mandalorians in battle. Baby Yoda could have derailed the whole thing, but hes perfect. Falling asleep after using the force - priceless. Baby Yoda trying to heal the Mandlorians wounds. But not only the obvious things like that, the attention to little details that come and go in scenes matter in Star Wars as well. It may only be a fleeting glimpse of something, but to me it puts me straight in to the universe of the OT. Great show.

 

Just rewatched with my kids over the past week in quarantine. I liked it all on the first viewing but found even my less-favorite parts improved when viewed as a whole. But basically it remains magic. And I say that as someone who's enjoyed the whole Disney era apart from TROS, which didn't even come out until Mando was almost over... point being, I wasn't looking for anything to correct or make up for the general direction of SW, but this show still really nailed it for me.

And to this day I think that somehow, paradoxically, one of the things that helped it nail the feel so well was... not using a single John Williams cue in the score! I think we'd just gotten used to that as a fallback to make things "feel SW" even when they didn't, and to me that goes all the way back to the PT. Those cues were getting to the point where they induce eyerolls as often as goosebumps. It was time, but it would only have worked on a show as otherwise grounded in the aesthetic as this one. Big gamble, really pays off.

 

for now! but if Disney forces Baby Yoda and Gideons motivations into resurrect the Palps territory it will all go right down the pooper. Let's hope Favreau gets this and pushes back. I really wish he could pretend like the ST is a alternate universe so they can do their own thing without having to tie into the lead up to the First Order.

 

Me too. I think the actor was supposed to come off as he did: sort of missing the mark.

 

So, I've just finished watching the Mandalorian today and I loved it. I was feeling almost downright melancholic as I was watching the last two episodes.

I want to try to express all the things I like about the show, but I can't so I'm just going to take some of my jumbled notes and try to turn them into a semi-orderly list of points.

• I like that the overall story and the individual stories all feel so tightly plotted: the show has no superfluous characters and it doesn't get lost in its world-building and focuses on what is relevant. The characters don't stick around if they don't need to and they come back when they do. A good example is "The Gunslinger" where the show visits Tattooine and doesn't belabour the point that it's Tattooine by taking us on a tour of all the famous places on the planet. It treats the world like a pitstop because that's all it is in this Star Wars story: a place where Djarin can get his ship fixed and earn some quick cash to pay for the repairs. He's not here to see the sights, he's not here to meet the locals and he's not here so we can visit old relatives/friends of the francise.
• The show isn't scared of silence; it allows for quiet moments. Similarly, it also doesn't feel the need to have characters talk for the sake of simply talking. For example, Din Djarin doesn't talk when he's alone.
• Characters don't state and/or explain the obvious.
• The characters don't feel like echoes of existing Star Wars characters. Similarly, the stories and the characters might be based on or inspired by other (non-Star Wars) stories, but they still feel like their own thing. It helps make the show stand on its own and feel like its own unique thing.
• I like that the characters struggle against their obstacles and I like the ways that they try to solve them. It makes everything feel more authentic.
• I like that we don't see Din Djarin without his helmet even when he is alone. It helps emphasizes the taboo and make the one time that we do see him without it all the more poignant.
• I like the characters. Incidental, Cara Dune surprised me since she didn't match the initial impression I'd been given of her character. I thought she'd be some broody ex-stormtrooper with a dark and troubled past who didn't trust anybody. Instead, she was a down-to-earth, fun ex-rebel soldier who looks like she could bench press a wookie . And I love that I can't exclude the possibility that she has, in fact, bench pressed a wookie at some point in her life.
• If I have to name my least favorite episode, it'll probably be "The Prisoner" but not because I think it's bad or anything. There wasn't really an episode I didn't enjoy.
• Most of the episodes are simple stories that earn their distinction and my enjoyment by being very well executed. "The Sanctuary" has one of the oldest plots but it is one of my favorite episodes of the Mandalorian.
• I like Mandalorian armor that has some colors so I wasn't all that keen on Din Djarin's silver armor (but boy, do I love how shiny it is), but that's a personal preference and I don't dock points, to speak, for that.
• I don't get why people consider Fennec Shand dying to be a waste of her character. She wasn't really a character: she was basically a boss battle.
• I like how chill the Armorer is: she doesn't flinch when Paz Vizla throws down the beskar slab or when he and Din gets into a fight. She also takes everything that happened to covert in stride. That woman could take you on a verbal tour of her own family getting murdered and cannibalized and still make it sound like you just visiting a museum.
• It almost made me think Din Djarin was going to die in the last episode. I don't how the show managed to make me believe that because I rarely, if ever, don't remember that the protagonist will always live in these kinds of shows. I'm giving it major points for that accomplishments, especially since I think it's because the show managed to immerse me so well in the moment that I got pulled along.
• I love that the show uses the storyboards as its credits for each episode.
• I like the show's sense of humor.
• I like that the show isn't afraid of being a little silly at times. It doesn't take itself too serious.
• The cinematography is wonderful and I have no complaints about it.
• I like how Din Djarin looks like an ordinary man underneath his helmet. He's got mussy hair and he's expressive, both but especially the latter seem like the natural consequence of him having worn a helmet for most of his life.
• Pedro Pascal is really perfect for the role: he manages to perfectly portray a character using only his voice and body language and he can portray that same character using his face and voice (without body language because Din Djarin can't move). Without helmet, it feels like we are seeing a different, more vulnerable Din Djarin or rather, we are seeing what the helmet previously hid from us (but something that does not come as a surprise).
• I find it really endearing that Din Djarin has a little mustache. He wears a helmet for the vast majority of his day yet he still thinks it's worth it to maintain that little thing. I don't think it's silly or anything. I mean, people wear fancy underwear, not because they expect anyone to see it, but because they like how it looks and how it makes them feel.
• I wasn't expecting that pile of Mandalorian armor. That came as a real surprise to me. Hurt my heart a bit too.

As a bonus, here are my thoughts on the second season.

• I hope part of the next season will include learning the fate of some of the other members of the Mandalorian Covert.
• I hope we see more parent-child interactions between Din Djarin and the baby. I won't dock the show any points if we don't, because I figure it's probably due to the limitations of working with a puppet.
• I really want the show to maintain its tight focus, and I worry that bringing in established characters is going to change tha. Part of why I like the Mandalorian is that it feels like its own thing with a story that is separate from everything else and is just about these character's lives and struggles. It's not about Ahsoka, Luke etc. It shouldn't be about them: it should be about Din Djarin and his kid.
• I don't want them to show us Din Djarin's face, even when he's alone, just because we've now seen it now.

 

Along with Rogue One and Solo, the best Star Wars release since The Empire Strikes Back.

 

Il Mandaloriano

 

I'm hoping for the Mandalorian to adapt the unfinished Bounty Hunter Arc from TCW, obviously with some character and story changes but I believe it could work.

 

Some might speculate that S1 Chap5 was exactly that...

 

What if Filoni trolls us, we thought we were getting Boba Fett, but we got Cad Bane instead. A true western bounty hunter.

 

How does this normally go?

 

I do think that Mystery Man is Boba Fett but I would find it very cool if Cad Bane gets introduced in the show as well. True he was most likely meant to die in the Bounty Hunter arc but that arc's already had elements retconned so it's most likely not canon anymore. Have him come out of retirement for one last job

 

Not my work. Just came across my facebook feed. Max Degtyarez put this on ArtStation.

 

I love it. The best are the silly little descriptions of what’s happening, like “Reprogrammed IG-11 is waiting patiently until the lizard gets out of the way.”

 

Like that it has as droid socket...but trying to figure out how you would get a droid up there. Ramps in to the lower deck and possibly a lift system like the Naboo N1 in the generator room for the droid to be put into place. But how to get from lower to upper deck? I could see a lift platform that runs up along the ladder as an option.

 

I'm glad this episode is getting some love. I really enjoyed this episode and there was a lot of undue criticism upon its initial release.

@FromDromundKaasWithLove I agree with most of your post but with the following especially...

OMG this might not seem like a big thing to some, but less really is more. GL got it. Filoni/Favrou get it too.

When Padro Pascal was announced, I was a bit disappointed because I was afraid a big name actor's agent would demand more face-time. I am so happy real world factors like an actor's fame or paycheck did not factor in and this developed out of what is best for the story/character. That should always be the case, but sadly, it isn't.

Do people really think that is the last we've seen of her? One way or the other, she will be back. I don't know if this will be a flashback, resurrected, cloned, simply not actually dead or in a separate series, but I'm pretty sure she will be back on screen at some point. I mean, c'mon.

 

On our rewatch, my daughter and I actually timed the periods without dialogue in Episode 2. And of course I've forgotten the totals, but safe to say it was more than half of the episode, with not a word uttered throughout the first three or four scenes at all and back to the same approach for the quest. Funny thing, my daughter had just been shown a couple of Kurosawa films at school right before the show premiered, and she recognized their influence on SW and ANH in particular right away... and then tripped out to see this show double or triple down on that influence and nail it.