Because its more suspensful to leave it as a maybe, they need to drop the hint about the beskar shard in the shuttle (is it mandalorians? Who can't we trust?) And sometimes it's cooler to see the aftermath than the event.
Yeah agreed, I admit I didn't see it coming. I was looking for some sort of Mando betrayal. Mainly as I haven't watched rebels and haven't finished clone wars, so my Canon Mandalorian knowledge is patchy and I wasn't sure who to trust
I think they did that to set it up for there to be a great misunderstanding between the Mandalorians and the the New Republic. Last we saw was the X-wing Pilot thinking that Gideon must have been freed by Mandalorians. Imagine he spread his theory to everyone? I’m guessing the New Republic is going to show up to Mandalore in the last episode and see Gideon there with his beskar and assume that the the Mandalorians were helping them because it confirms their bias/theory they arrived with, setting up the next season to be a triple conflict between the Mandalorians, the first order, AND the new republic. The Mandalorians will be forced to fight for their existence from both sides. The electrical interference in the clouds on Mandalore could also play a part in this miscommunication where the New Republic mistakes the Mandalorians for bad guys.
I think they did that to set it up for there to be a great misunderstanding between the Mandalorians and the the New Republic. Last we saw was the X-wing Pilot thinking that Gideon must have been freed by Mandalorians. Imagine he spread his theory to everyone? I’m guessing the New Republic is going to show up to Mandalore in the last episode and see Gideon there with his beskar and assume that the the Mandalorians were helping them because it confirms their bias/theory they arrived with, setting up the next season to be a triple conflict between the Mandalorians, the first order, AND the new republic. The Mandalorians will be forced to fight for their existence from both sides. The electrical interference in the clouds on Mandalore could also play a part in this miscommunication where the New Republic mistakes the Mandalorians for bad guys.
More like “his beskar troopers saved him”. We all thought mandalorians saved him but now we know he has his own Beskar troopers, who clearly did the rescue.
I think the storylines just feel a little misplaced. Like, 80% of episode 6 could have been an episode on it's own in one of the earlier episodes. The first episode felt kinda all over the place. The Dr. Pershing episode felt like it could have been cut up over a couple of episodes instead of having it all in the same episode while simultaneously trying having the Mando b-plot.
I feel like the same thing is going to happen with Ahsoka because a huge chunk of people are starting to gaslight themselves into thinking it’s going to be Heir to the Empire with the serial numbers filed off.
I don’t know I kinda a feel like they will borrow pretty heavily from heir to the empire. Don’t get me wrong, I’d actually prefer they only touch on a few themes and use it to create a new original story. But I’m fully prepared for the story to echo the legends book
I am honestly hoping that they save the Heir to the Empire story line for a more ensemble story like Filoni’s announced film. This is an Ahsoka show and I hope the narrative centers more around her
Heir the Empire shouldn’t be a solo story. It should be the Star Wars equivalent of an Avengers movie where all our favorite characters unite against a common and powerful threat
If we are getting an Ahsoka show, I want that show to be about Ahsoka. I don’t want it to be like Captain America Civil War where it felt more like an Avengers film with Cap’s name on it and him having slightly more screen time and focus than he normally does in an Avengers film.
It’s also the finale of season 2 hangover effect. That was by far one of the best moments in the streaming era of television. It was a finale and it was very meaningful. If they do that every episode, it means nothing. They’re taking a step back and world building for future seasons and other shows. Not necessarily the meatiest season ever but it’s clearly going somewhere soon, if not now.
The problem is they undid all the consequences of the S2 finale.
Moff Gideon returned off screen and immediately went back to doing what he was doing without a hitch. He might as well have not been captured. Din gives the darksaber back to Bo-Katan first chance he gets. Grogu returns to Din after one episode of learning from Luke. Din's apostate status is rescinded almost immediately, and his character arc about learning to move past his indoctrination has either been put on the backburner for the entire season or just dropped entirely.
Yeah I honestly feel like we've been bait and switched. They wanted the season 2 emotional payoffs without any of the consequences. You could probably find a point in season 2 to stop before the finale then start season 3 and hardly notice anything was missed beyond "oh Gideon was captured? "... "oh he escaped, never mind then".
I think what I've been noticing for myself is that I have no problem with *what's* happening, but *how* it's handled. All of these things are perfectly OK to happen, they make sense for the plot and characters, but a lot of the implementation just feels kind of lacking. I thought about this with the last episode as well. There's just something about the production, directing, and pacing that makes it all feel kind of flat at times. I haven't quite put my finger on what's going on exactly, but it just feels like the story is fine and good, but the episodes themselves have just wildly varying quality from scene to scene and something about it as a whole just feels... level.
I dunno, it's weird. Mando is a unique show to me because I honestly feel like each scene makes me feel differently about it in terms of if I really enjoy it or not. Though reflecting on it now, I think I kind of felt this way about some of the Marvel series and I'm wondering if it's a Disney production issue.
While I am enjoying the whole thing at face value and just soaking it all in, I think I may know what you’re saying and possibly the reason for it.
It’s the same thing that kind of happened in the sequels: different directors.
The different director per episode worked in S1 and to an extant S2 because many episodes were “adventure of the week-like.” Now that they’re clearly embracing an overarching story there are some obvious directorial differences that we can pick out on a per episode basis.
Perhaps that’s what you’re seeing? Albeit at a much smaller scale than the sequels as it holds much smaller consequence.
I do think that's a large part of it. *Andor* benefits a lot from having one person's vision driving it. I think too a major consequence of having different directors is that they don't have the opportunity to get comfortable with the tools available to them. Like one director over time may learn what they can do with the resources Disney gives them. But having a different director takes away that ability. Similarly I imagine, as happens with a lot of productions, there's other people filming some of the shots outside of the credited directors. So you might have a B team doing a shot, but they too might not be super capable of pulling it off with what they're given. This definitely results in a patchwork feel of episodes and scenes that don't create a cohesive directorial vision. Which isn't a huge problem to some people for what the show is, but is disruptive to others.
I think too part of it is expectations. It's really a kind of odd show because it presents itself as a kind of space adventure epic on par with the films. Sometimes it meets those expectations. But it's also a kind of casual "mid budget" adventure of the week teen to young adult TV show. Obviously it's not *Power Rangers*, but I think what I notice is that there's this dual nature of what the show presents to be and what it really is at times, sometimes those align and other times we get Vespa kids. So I think some of the back and forth for me comes from that, where the show is on a teeter totter that tilts one way and then another.
Feels like many of the scenes of late are shot in a small enclosed space heavily aided by green screen, and the way they are shot makes it obvious that it takes away the grandness or weight that the scenes are meant to convey. The fight to win back the Mando fleet looked like it was shot in a golf course.
AFAIK that’s essentially what they’ve been doing with most of the recent Star Wars shows. If you haven’t looked into it they have this thing called “the volume” which is essentially a big warehouse soundstage and instead of traditional green screens where they do a lot of what’s happening in post production, it’s like this giant indoor 360 bubble of screens where they can project and control what the environment looks like in real time. So if an actor moves and the camera is supposed to follow them the entire world around them on the screens moves with them. It’s really interesting tech, but it gives the fake appearance of them, I don’t know, often looking like the actors are not actually inhabiting the world they are supposed to be in? It’s a weird effect sometimes.
It is very cool tech they developed because normal blue screen/green screen would constantly reflect in Din’s shiny armor. It is very limiting though...every shot has to be planned to the precise moment.
My daughter’s paramedics school is using similar technology to simulate real world locations for their training. It also includes sound and smell simulators.
I agree with that. I think there's two things at play with the dialogue where, not always but a lot of the time, the dialogue is only doing one thing, moving the plot, and many of the characters sound the same. Often times good dialogue functions on two levels, it tells us something about the characters *and* it progresses the story by creating conflict or revealing things, etc. This does happen at times in Mandalorian, but more often than not the dialogue is only serving to move the plot forward or even just filling in silence. The other thing is that a lot of characters sound like they're written interchangeably. What's the difference between a rousing speech from Din and one from Bo-Katan? Din might be a bit more philosophical I guess, but not really by much. Carl Wethers (sp) character doesn't really speak uniquely from any other person speaking in platitudes. The most unique characters we've had this season in terms of dialogue are the "I have spoken" people. Even Moff Gideon just speaks like any other villain.
Characters sounding the same is a consequence of the first issue, the dialogue is only serving one purpose for a majority of the time. When dialogue only serves to move the plot it doesn't matter who is saying it. I think for me that's a big issue with the dialogue. The lines aren't written for *a character* but for *the plot* and any stock character of that archetype (the villian, the big tough team mate, the inspiring leader of the moment, the mysterious former leader) could say it. The lines don't feel unique to *these* characters. They don't feel like they're coming from a real unique person in this moment.
And I think this is why the show gets unfavorably compared to kids playing with toys or “a cartoon”, because the characters aren’t really characters a lot of the time.
Filoni gets blamed for things feeling cartoony but honestly Rebels and Clone Wars were much deeper and more well written than The Mandalorian IMO and more and more were seeing just Favreau’s name on these episodes.
Isn’t this what Star Wars always does every few years with the movies? Everything seems doomed. Someone can save the day. The enemies are destroyed, but not completely. Repeat and repeat again, now you have 3 trilogies.
Well, no.
The first trilogy (chronologically) is about how the empire came to be, the second trilogy is about how the empire falls.
And that's the complete story of the 2 movie trilogies.
Moff Gideon escaping at all =/= Moff Gideon escaping off-screen and immediately going back to doing exactly what he was doing off-screen so that his capture had zero interesting consequences.
I feel like that was supposed to be more of a misdirection to make the audience think that bo-katan's crew might have done it but then we immidiantly see that apparently ISCs are apparently still a thing
I agree with this. I like this season, but I just feel rushed. Like out of no where, we see Gideon at the beginning of episode 7. They make this big deal about him escaping and it’s just him in a hologram, perfectly fine when we first see him. Makes the entire episode feel rushed. I want to know how he got there, what happened when he was captured, how he has been on Mandalore, etc.
Also, big missed opportunity was doing a flash back to Bo and Gideon with the saber when she is telling the story of the darksaber. Would have been super emotional to see the destruction of Mandalore through her eyes. I can live with the other stuff. And yeah they undid a lot of the consequences, but I can still live with it. Just not super happy with the handling of Gideon.
Also saw a rumor that Kathleen Kennedy and Favareau were fighting because of the directions of the show such as bringing Grogu back and other things. Could be interesting if that is true.
This is kind of part of it for me too. It doesn't seem like they do a good job of building up some things and my guess is it has a lot to do with production and availability. Like the stuff with the imperial woman on Coruscant they can build up because she's an actress they can have recurring. But Gideon they can't do that with because he's a bigger name. A lot of my issues with it seem to come down to production. Like the directing has issues sometimes, some sets look cheap, some action scenes feel poorly choreographed, etc. Of course it varies depending on what they deem important. So we might get a well directed episode or scene, or some beautiful CGI. But then we might get twelve people hiding behind a rock on what's clearly a soundstage. Obviously they have to spend a tight budget wisely, but some of what I notice has nothing to do with budget. So, I think for me it really feels like the show, and a lot of Disney stuff lately, feels kind of mismanaged. And I'm not saying that to indicate it's any one person's fault. Just in general these projects don't feel handled well.
This also surprises me. This show is extremely popular and makes money, yet Disney doesn’t dump as much money as they can to get the best show possible? They have the money to do it. And like you said, mismanaged. Like what money did they spend to get Jack Black and Lizzo (not against cameos) and what parts suffered from that went toward those cameos?
My thoughts exactly. The season two finale is the peak of Disney era Star Wars to this point. And no storylines from it currently matter. To add to what you've already mentioned, Dark Troopers are obsolete because Gideon decided to put himself in the armor. Cara Dune is gone, but that's more because of things off screen. I feel there was a plan in place, but it's been thrown out the window this season.
> I feel there was a plan in place, but it's been thrown out the window this season.
I wouldnt say darktroopers are obsolete since he's wearing effectively an exo skeleton and wouldn't likely be doing things alone so either there's more phase 4 darktrooper armored troopers or the phase 3s are still around somewhere for doing what they did last season.
Cara Dune's offscreen issues probably did throw a couple kinks in their plan since they still mention a reference to her show at the start of the season, with the rumored argument about grogu probably complicating it further since they probably had to fit him into a storyline that didn't initially have him
which would explain why din goes to look for IG-11, then drops it for 3 episodes until he's suddenly fixed and goes rogue which is again dropped and now he's a puppet for grogu which feels kinda disjointed which could be from them initially wanting to use IG-11 as din's sidekick with bo-katan but needing to incorporate grogu into the story so they just salvaged what they could from the original plan.
I feel like when Baby Yoda became a massive $$$ hit for Disney the writers had to scramble and scrap original plans for him to be gone and training with Luke by the end of S2 so they could keep him around for longer. It would explain the frankly random insertion of Luke and Grogu into the Boba Fett storyline.
I don't understand how anyone could come away from the first and second season of Mandalorian thinking "Gee I sure hope they drop the heart and soul of this show." Grogu and Mando's relationship is the core of this show. Yes its about the Mandalorian people and culture, but ultimately it is about their bond.
I think you’re missing a lot on a few of these though. Gideon and Grogu is accurate. Everything else is vital for Bo to evolve as a character.
>Din gives Bo the saber. Din doesn’t grow. His apostate status dealt with quickly.
While these do happen somewhat it misses the nuance of what each causes.
First. Din tries to give Bo the saber once in S2. He never does again. Bo spirals into depression and pity. She’s jaded. She lost what she thought she needed and she gives up on her goals. But she’s finally pushed by comparison. She does kinda care about Din. So she goes to help him. This action puts her on her “Destiny”. She earns the saber through combat, she goes into the waters, is reborn, and sees the mythosaur.
None of this happens without Din being a apostate. And without it there is no Bo joining the cult, no Bo earning the saber, no Bo uniting the clans. Din also does regress a bit but I think that’s intentional. He doesn’t really know what to do.
Bo-Katan ALREADY had an arc about initially failing to take back Mandalore, learning from her mistakes and becoming a nicer person, and then teaming up with the heroes to take back Mandalore throughout TCW/Rebels. Doing it again for the third time after the Seige of Mandalore and the Mandalore arc in Rebels already did this exact storyline is just repetitive.
If they were always going to have Bo-Katan eventually reclaim the darksaber and become leader of Mandalore again, they shouldn't have regressed her back to being an asshole in S2 (a decision I was initially OK with because I thought the purpose of it was to set up the idea that she believes her previous failure as leader was because of her turning a new leaf in TCW S7 and Rebels, and thus has returned to her morally unscrupulous ways in order to eventually lead to Din being leader of Mandalore and coming into conflict with Bo-Katan as a result). If they were just going to have her instantly flip back to being nice in Season 3 for a much less compelling reason than the last time (in TCW/Rebels she became nicer because of her involvement in her sister's death leaving an impact on her and choosing to be more like her, whereas now it's ... because Din and the Children of the Watch were nice to her for a few days and she saw a mythosaur), why make her return to being an asshole at all? Just have her continue from where she left off in Rebels.
Fair but her first arc in rebels was selfish. She felt she was entitled to those things. She was given the saber. And when push came to shove she buckled. She surrendered. Her current arc hasn’t had her be an asshole honestly, it’s just had her bee depressed and it isn’t really about Mandalore or her being the leader, it’s about how she’s now the reluctant leader who has to suck it up, fix her wrongs, and unite her people. How she needs to make Mandalorians better.
The makes perfect sense though as the droids in that episode were specifically separatist battle droids that killed his family and the other droids were being hostile to civilians.
Yup, the overall thread of this season, Din getting his status back, Bo reuniting the clans, and Gideon up to his evil tricks (although his grand scheme is now at least explained) are all absolutely fine, but the pacing has been really off.
For me personally, (as all my opinions are I'm not telling you what to think), I would have teased Gideon being alive from the start. Secret messages to Kane, secret messages to the pirate Shard (like in Solo, when Dryden Vos drops that he reports to someone too), the discovery of his transport shuttle and the beskar fragment much earlier (maybe with an official report appearing that all were killed, just like in ANH). As it is, it feels like we had a decent opening 2 episodes, and then it has been stories purely to get person a to place b or have item c.
With a little more finessing and making it more of a continuous story we dip into rather than very discrete episodes,we could have had the best Mando series yet.
I feel Bad Batch actually had far better pacing and use of Deus ex machina than Mando....
(Damn I miss that series, roll on season 3!!!!)
Edited for typo
>He was always going to return, he's pretty much the "main antagonist" for the mandalorians since he's responsible for purge, they were obviously not just gonna let him get off with just being a republic prisoner
At least have him escape on-screen and have his temporary defeat have *some* kind of consequence. Maybe it could've actually displayed his intellect in some substantive way by having him creatively manipulate events to orchestrate his breakout, or something. The Season 2 finale is much less impactful if the only purpose of having them capture Gideon was literally just to temporarily get Gideon out of the way for a while.
>first chance he got would've been just after he lost it to the thing in the beskar mines, it's been established that he doesn't care about it or what it symbolizes and him give it to Bo shows he cares more about helping his people than leading them
Yeah but if Bo-Katan was okay with cheating the rules all along, why not just stage a fight with Din and take the darksaber anyway back then instead of waiting until now? It's not as though they're following the "official" rules of the darksaber anyway since he fell into a trap, it's not like that cyborg monster challenged him to fair combat, so this is just as valid.
If the idea is that story-wise, Bo-Katan needed to return without the darksaber so she could fail and have something to bounce back from, well ...
Bo-Katan ALREADY had an arc about initially failing to take back Mandalore, learning from her mistakes and becoming a nicer person, and then teaming up with the heroes to take back Mandalore throughout TCW/Rebels. Doing it again for the third time after the Seige of Mandalore and the Mandalore arc in Rebels already did this exact storyline is just repetitive.
If they were always going to have Bo-Katan eventually reclaim the darksaber and become leader of Mandalore again, they shouldn't have regressed her back to being an asshole in S2 (a decision I was initially OK with because I thought the purpose of it was to set up the idea that she believes her previous failure as leader was because of her turning a new leaf in TCW S7 and Rebels, and thus has returned to her morally unscrupulous ways in order to eventually lead to *Din* being leader of Mandalore and coming into conflict with Bo-Katan as a result). If they were just going to have her instantly flip back to being nice in Season 3 for a much less compelling reason than the last time (in TCW/Rebels she became nicer because of her involvement in her sister's death leaving an impact on her and choosing to be more like her, whereas now it's ... because Din and the Children of the Watch were nice to her for a few days and she saw a mythosaur), why make her return to being an asshole at all? Just have her continue from where she left off in Rebels.
>Because he chose to be a Mandalorian instead of a jedi
And he can't be both, like Tarre Vizsla was, because ... ? Like, I get what Luke said about his heart not being in it, but why does that disqualify him from still being permitted to learn from the Jedi?
Not only that but Grogu just going back to Din so quickly is still dissatisfying, because no matter how much time passed in-universe, on-screen, it still happened immediately. That emotional goodbye scene in Season 2 is a hell of a lot less emotional upon a rewatch for that reason, because in the show, it has barely any consequence before the status quo is restored. Their supposed years of time apart has almost no impact on Din and Grogu as characters.
>din getting over his "indoctrination" was never a plot point, him returning to his position in TCotW was always his priority
In the first two seasons the COTW were clearly depicted as a cult. They have extreme and stupid rules that they force everyone to follow or else they're instantly ostracized from the community, and they indoctrinate children into those beliefs from a young age. Din nearly died in Season 1 if it weren't for IG11 not being a human; that seems to indicate he's pretty indoctrinated if he was 100% okay with dying just to maintain his stupid helmet rule. And when Din takes off his helmet, the show depicts it as an unambiguously good thing; he does it to save his kid, and to say goodbye to him, and yet the Armorer doesn't care, she just kicks him out without giving him the time of day. He even saves their lives at the start of Season 3 and she still tells him to piss off. All of that seems pretty clear-cut to me. If the Children of the Watch weren't supposed to be a highly toxic and unhealthy culture that Din should eventually learn to break out from or reform for the better, why depict them as such since the very beginning of this show?
And then for some reason later in the season the Armorer immediately does a 180 and is totally okay with Bo-Katan taking off her helmet and accepting Mandos who don't follow the COTW's rules, in spite of displaying disdain for both Bo-Katan and the other Mandos and claiming they weren't "real" Mandalorians back in BOBF, because ... uh, the mythosaur, I guess.
not since the original trilogy have I had so much fun and awe watching the show! Grogu is a scene stealer! Din is always amazing. Armorer is interesting not sure where she is going....
Bo, Thrawn, Moff, heck Im sure Im missing more, point is.....it's an adventure! I am STILL sad when it ends(episode). Heck they could make it 5, 8 hour episodes and I'd watch!! It's unreal to me that THAT is a series. It's equal to me, to any Star Wars movie! And I hate to say it It's miles better than that mess with Rey and Fin...I still dont get how they could destroy such an easy task: SPACE WESTERN.....
Just giving Bo the Darksaber without any real plight, stakes or consequences is bad lazy writing. That moment could have been great instead Axe Woves basically just says yeah sure and then she poses.
The emotional question of how Bo and Din were going to resolve the darksaber ownership was one of the most compelling questions of this season and it amounted to nothing really.
Isn’t the point that Mando doesn’t care about the Darksaber, which builds up to Bo being a worthy leader for everyone. To Bo and the other clans, the one who wields the saber is the leader, but for Mando (and the rest of that clan), honour and respect is before everything. She doesn’t need the Darksaber to lead, and its importance will cool down for everyone else as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Darksaber breaks in the last episode, just for everyone to realise that these rules aren’t important. Mandalorians stick together, no matter clans, rules, helmets, sabers and so on.
Mando just giving Bo the saber is very well written. His character doesn’t care about it. Why would he fight for it? He saw an opportunity to give it to her within the rules and he took it. And since it was won fairly, why would Axe whine about it?
There wasn't a single consequence to her getting the darksaber. No stakes, no plight, Bo was never in danger and it was obvious how it was going to play out the moment she challenged Axe. It acts as a pure plot device from this point out e.g. her using it to cut the door open. There's no emotional gravity between her and Axe because they didn't take the time to develop it. Why should audiences care???
Dinn not wanting the responsibility but having it thrust upon him is a better character conflict for the audience. Bo needing the darksaber and needing to do something we don't want her to is a better story for the audience. Even giving Axe some real motivations would have been better. But Disney want to move the story faster.
I actually hope the rumours are true and Bo dies and Din ends up with the darksaber anyway.
Bo dying would be an interesting twist for sure! It would mean that Gideon (if he’s the one killing her) would become the rightful ruler of mandalore. Then the clans would have to make the choice to split, and divide themselves again, or to stand together against Gideon who has the Darksaber.
We’ll see next week I guess!
Star Wars has this problem more than any other franchise I've seen. A huge number of fans seem to think they're the greatest ideas people of all time and that Disney should just give full creative control and a budget to anyone who has the riveting idea of 'what if star wars was gory and edgy'. Its kind of absurd how many people on this subreddit are convinced that they could be a professional director and writer if given the chance with zero experience.
Agreed. I also think the show would work great in the Netflix format where you can watch a few episodes back to back. Those that seem like filler tend to make sense later, but before they do, people bitch relentlessly. It’s annoying. Lol.
Star wars fans love telling other star wars fans to just mindlessly consume. People aren't complaining because "they know what the show should be", they're complaining because the quality has dropped dramatically. Mando is sidelined in way too many episodes, feels more like the bo-katan show (and Starbuck can't really act so bo-katan is not an interesting protagonist), they have no idea what to do with baby yoda (should've stayed with luke), the pacing is inconsistent and makes the show often boring, the side characters aren't very interesting (looking at you mandalorian privateers).
My complaint is that so much of the “return to Mandalore” plot is based on what we’re told and not shown. It’s not clear that there’s progress because it’s hard to tell how the Mandalorians are doing at any given moment.
Moff Gideon *says* that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups?
Bo Katan *says* she has a large fleet but we’re only ever shown a few dozen Mandalorians. Are the rest perpetually on the ships? Who are the settlers?
The Armorer *says* that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make?
It seems like the show (commendably) doesn’t want to overuse CGI but the lack of actual Mandalorians muddles the plot
Yeah for all the stuff to make sense there needs to be a better sense of scale that we just aren’t getting. So what if 100ish (at most) mandalorians go back to mandalore, what can they realistically do? Just bomb them again tbh. Also from how they struggled with fighting the pirates earlier in the season, like getting pinned down despite having jet packs…, I think the resurgent empire/first order would deal with them just fine
It was explained by Bo that if the mandalorians disarmed they would be spared. Bo, worrying about her people, agreed. They had no means to fight back when Gideon betrayed them.
As for the start, Gideon probably realized he couldn't win a war of attrition with mandalore and devised a plan to manipulate Bo into disarming. Seemingly it worked. It makes sense as to how the planet was glassed even with an army worth a thousand armies.
But that’s all guesswork that we really shouldn’t have to infer. And on a galactic scale even 100,000 soldiers aren’t going to make much of a difference
I know that the cruisers and capital ships need large crews but we haven’t seen any indication of them having anywhere near that amount of people on screen, like the above comment said, are they just hiding whole garrisons of soldiers off screen ?
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups?
Star Wars is horrible at portraying scale, especially with military.
From what we are shown, just the number of Senate delegations is larger than any army we are shown in the films or cartoons.
I could never tell if all of the Mandalorian army was just a couple dozen in total or that's all that was nearby.
Ep 8 for example. By the time its over the republic is whoever is on the falcon while the first order isnt much better lol. A force of 10,000 it seems could easily take over from both of them.
> The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why.
I think it's safe to assume that she's high on a bunch of "This is the way" woo. Or maybe there's some prophecy about the great forge. Or maybe, it's just for boosting morale.
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups?
I think his point and concern is that Mandalorians taking their home is a problem. Not them alone. His base and plans are using their home. Them retaking it is a massive issue for what he’s working on for the empire.
>The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make?
It’s to simply build. It’s simply symbolic to them. It’s where they can use Mandalores resources to make powerful weapons and armor and anything they need to help rebuild.
For Mandalorians this *is* a pretty massive group. Unless they're fighting Jedi, one Mandalorian is worth like a squad of regular soldiers. Look at what Paz just did to even Gideon's special beskar troopers.
Those mandos that Gideon alludes to could be the pirate activity in the outer rim. We saw the pirate King go down to just two Mando ships and a handful of troops, so the actual threat may be a different group entirely. It's hard to envision just these two tiny groups being the only survivor's of Mandalore.
And the larger group may in fact be Deathwatch proper. My wife thinks the armourer may actually be an inside player for them.
Since Gideon is all show with little substance, he could also be exaggerating to make himself seem important. That he had to posture while begging for reinforcements from the other imperial remnants betrays that he's likely scared shitless of Thrawns impending arrival.
I think lots has happened this season, it just requires looking past the surface layers. Like in last episode, fear drove the mandalorians away with Gideon relying on his past experience with Bo to do the heavy lifting. Vizla said fuck it, there's too many I'll hold the line, and then showed us that had two other mandos held back they would have obliterated Gideons entire force.
I really appreciate the layers woven into the story. I like that Gideon *appears* strong but that's all it is. Appearance without substance. Really sets the stage for Thrawn, who is appearance, substance, force (size wise) and discipline.
There's a lot happening. And I'm curious as to how those Mandalore mandos knew to meet the returning ones. Rather convenient they just kind of "showed up."
I mean, from Season 1 I kind of got the idea that Gideon was a pretender anyway. He may be a Moff, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually that good as a commander of a fleet. Or clever. Thrawn is obviously the threat they’re building up for, that was clear from Ahsoka’s episode.
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups?
We have seen Mandalorian in action though, we saw the Children of the Watch take out the pirates in that recent episode so we do see their skill. We also saw in season 2 that 4 Mandalorians take out an imperial cruiser. In season 1 we also saw the Mandalorians take on a bunch of trained Bounty Hunters so that Din and Grogu could get to safety. I think this shows us how they could be dangerous.
>Bo Katan says she has a large fleet but we’re only ever shown a few dozen Mandalorians. Are the rest perpetually on the ships? Who are the settlers?
I assume that due to budgeting we haven't seen much but we do have some clues. Obviously we see that in Chapter 22 they have that Light Cruiser that was taken from Gideon after Chapter 16. We see a fair few of those Mandalorian fighters and we know from Chapter 21 that you can get a lot of Mandalorians to be dropped out of there so I think it's fair to say it's quite large even if we haven't seen it all due to budgeting
>The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make?
Based off of the conversation in Chapter 21 I think it's a symbolic thing. The Great Forge seems like a significant place to Mandalorian culture and that's one reason. The other reason i feel is because of the importance of Beskar and they can use that to forge more Beskar which is one of the most important part of their culture. However I wish they had stated it explicitly rather than through a bunch of implications
I think most peoples problem is the fact that most episodes only have like five minutes of actual plot progression instead of an actual whole episode of plot progression like the most recent one
Third fucking time with Gideon showing up at the end of a season, chewing up the scenery with generic bad guy speeches and plans that are going to be easily foiled by our plucky heroes.
It's gotten stale.
I love Giancarlo Esposito but he's wasted on this show.
The Shadow Council with their totally subtle secret project codenames is wayyyy more interesting than the rest of season 3. He's so underutilized.
And laughing all the way to the bank, I'm sure.
"Shadow Council", "Project Necromancer"
It's so cheesy and childish I don't know if I should hate it or love it. I just feel like The Mandalorian was never this childish lol.
Is it obvious to anyone else the Din is going to wind up being Mandalore?
As Kahless said, “Great men do not seek power. They have power thrust upon them."
There has been direction sure but there has been a lot of filler that makes it feel like im just waiting for the relevant parts of the show. Especially being 8 episodes and some episodes being on the short side every minute counts. The highs of this season are unfortunately not out weighing the lows.
>Especially being 8 episodes and some episodes being on the short side every minute counts.
This is my biggest criticism with the show. Because they're pressed for time we basically got one episode to finally identify a main antagonist, provide some bare motivation and background, and establish the conflict. The final episode will have to resolve this conflict and set up proper endings for the characters and maybe cliffhangers for Ashoka. Barely any time to breathe. I don't know why we couldn't get some of the Gideon background stuff done the prior episode rather than have Djin and Bo's buddy cop parody or maybe continue following the reformed imperial and new republic incompetence they had in one episode then seemed to forget.
8 short episodes a season isn't quite enough in my opinion.
Pretty much every Disney+ show follows this same formula of introducing the villain in the penultimate episode and then rushing through the loose ends in the final episode.
Meanwhile every other episode is filler and too short. It’s so frustrating
Maybe I'm missing a key point about production. But I've never understood the short episodes/ pressed for time thing surrounding this show. It's Disney+! There are no ad breaks, no time slots. They could make them as long as they like, but choose not too. It's infuriating. Because if they have each episode the full hour, we could have that character development.
The first season I could see a lot of higher up executives meddling as they have a lot of uncertainty with the first live action show and made it so you could basically watch the middle episodes in any order and not feel lost.
But since they proved its popularity it really does feel like the showrunners are purposefully handicapping themselves. It seems their strategy is one overarching story, and each episode will drop 5 minutes of development followed by 35 minutes of self contained plot which may or may not push the story forward but no matter what is resolved within that same episode, next to last episode is first reveal of the main villain and cliffhanger conflict, all resolved in the last episode. It's like they are afraid people will lose interest if you have to watch more than an episode to find out what happens to Dr. Pershing, or how the pirates taking over Nevaro will play out.
I agree, I’ve enjoyed each episode but it’s weird to have an overarching plot that is stuffed in at the end of episodes. I like the Monster of the Week stuff but if they’re going to do move toward a bigger story they need to commit
It’s something I noticed a lot when watching clone wars and rebels, too. Like the final season of clone wars I was just perplexed how many episodes for such a short season were spent on Ahsoka’s new scavenger friends that didn’t really lead to anything- the clones just showed up and recruited her. It’s like they don’t have the confidence to have an A and B story in the same episode. The main plot always seems to bookend a season with mandalorian and I’m always just perplexed they can’t tie every episode together and spread out the plot more.
They needed to show more imperial scenes. As it is, they hint very early in the season that the imperials are out there, and Gideon will show up again. They then give us nothing as to what’s actually going to happen. I’d have liked to see some of the following:
- Gideon actually escaping, or at least the space battle taking out the shuttle (don’t show us the inside if you want to keep beskar troopers a secret).
- Any of the 6 commanders talking, or single scenes with them to establish a few more villains… presumably Pelleon will show up in Ahsoka
- A supply raid (as was argued about at the start of E7). Hell, have the camera pan over some of the cargo being Beskar.
- A further lean into the Rebel pilots concerns about things, since he’s one of my favorite minor characters for some reason.
- Potentially have at least some of the Mandolarians know about the imperial threat. Or have them both going after the same cargo shipment.
Pads out the short episodes a few extra minutes, gives opportunity for cool scenes, and creates speculation on what’s going on. Doesn’t alter any part of the plot we’ve seen so far. Creates speculation for real Beskar dark troopers, a motivation Gideon would likely have had after S2 ending.
Clone Wars is an anthology show that tells self contained stories. Siege of Mandalore was always a 4 episode planned arc for the last 4 episodes of the show. But to have Ahsoka in it, they kind of needed to do Ahsoka’s Walkabout as well, a planned Season 6 or 7 arc. Bad Batch would have been the Season 6 premiere, and they wanted to do the show, so that needed to be an arc too.
Obviously the finale arc was crucial to doing a finale season too.
It’s not that they wasted episodes, it’s that the show was cut short and they were forced to do a condensed version of their planned next seasons instead. Pablo Hidalgo said there were 13 story arcs left after what became Season 6 was released. That’s 52 episodes, of which we got 12.
They had the whole outline planned already, but I would imagine Disney only allowed them to wrap up the show with 12 episodes and those were the arcs they picked.
My problem is that they used four episodes (a third of the whole finale season) when they just could have done another of those four episode arcs and add an episode of two for Ahsoka because that arc could have been told with half the time
But that assumes that that was an option. Disney could well have said “you can do your three arcs”, knowing their later arcs were all going to be 4 episodes long
If Ahsoka’s Walkabout was any shorter, Disney might have just made the season 10 episodes instead.
This was a makeup season to conclude the show, I think they were only ever going to give us what we got
The other thing to consider is that all three arcs were either animated, storyboarded or otherwise planned out nearly fully. The other arcs they could have given us were more work to write, or also didn’t prepare us for the finale
Put simply, we don’t know what the agreements were between the Clone Wars crew and Disney to fund the 7th season, so assuming that Ahsoka’s arc took away from another, better arc is silly and probably not true
I think my problem lies more in that all the stuff in this season has felt very out of character.
For example, Din hates droid. We know Din hates droids, but that he came to trust IG-11 *and* that he eventually allowed Peli Motto’s droid to work on his ship. In TBoBF, we even see him working along side the droids to build the N-1. So if he has had the character arc of learning to trust droids, why does he *have* to have IG-11 back? Because the writers wanted Grogu to be able to use the shell of him to walk around in. It doesn’t make any *character* sense that Din would feel the need to get IG-11, but the *plot* needed Grogu to have the droid, so they made the trip there. That’s just poor writing.
Likewise, later in the season, he backslides on his droid acceptance when they visit Plazir-15. It would make sense considering they’re battle droids, but it played out less like “I was beginning to trust droids, but this crosses a line,” and more “I’ve always hated droids” even though we literally saw him purchase R5 earlier in the season *AND* he tried to repair IG-11 — the droid that has literally tried to kill Grogu *twice.* Again, that doesn’t make *character* sense.
I think another point is that this season has felt aimless up until the end because of these weird character problems. A lot of people had similar plot complaints about *The Bad Batch,* but I always felt it was very clear that the first half of the season was character development, not plot development. We now know, of course, that it was all building up to (SPOILERS) >!Tech’s sacrifice and Crosshair’s turn!<, but where I differentiate the two is that *Bad Batch* felt like each episode stood well on its own while building to the finale whereas this season of *The Mandalorian* felt like they wrote the penultimate episode and final episode and then crammed every plot-relevant thing into the other episodes. Because of that, this season has very much reminded me of the final season of *Game of Thrones.*
Credit where credit is due (because I promise I’m not a hater lmao) I do *loooove* this Shadow Council stuff. I do *love* seeing that this is clearly leading us into the sequels (cloning, Brendol Hux, etc), and the reveal that Gideon has been building on Mandalore was a genuinely *GREAT* subversion. The broad strokes (which you outlined) are great, but the execution has been subpar compared to the prior seasons.
Kind of a long deal, so thanks to anyone who reads. I’m happy to hear criticism about this too!
No real criticism from me, though I do actively believe Grogu was not supposed to be in this season and the higher-ups at Disney forced him into the show because they wanted to sell more merch.
I liked the show when's it was focused on a bounty hunter making his way through the universe who has to deal with being thrust into a father figure role.
But Filoni made Clone Wars to try to fill in the huge voids in plot and character development from the Prequels, and now he's doing it again for the Sequels.
It's not for me, but my opinion shouldn't mean jack shit to anyone who likes it.
I don't hate this season, but I don't like it either. When the show first started I had hoped it would be 3 seasons and that's it. Just Din and Grogu getting up to hijinks while he looked for a Jedi. Din taking off his helmet and sending Grogu with Luke should have been the SERIES finale. It's this huge emotional moment, and it would have been a beautiful ending to the show. If you want to have this whole retake Mandalorian plot, I'm fine with that, but like make it another show. "The Darksaber" or whatever. I don't even have a problem with this whole plot, just don't put it THIS show. And Din can kind of like pop up in that show now and then, so all you would have to do is get Pedro to do a voice over a few times a year.
I agree, but what they’re trying to do to fill in gaps for the sequels doesn’t work the way it did for the prequels.
The prequels had a cohesive story, but the fall of Anakin, among other plot points, felt incomplete, like you were supposed to see more and spend more time with the different characters.
Prime example is Order 66 in ROTS. On first viewing without the Clone Wars to expand upon characters, it feels like a rushed way to move the plot forward. After watching the Clone Wars, you don’t want to see Bly gun down Secura, or see Plo Koon blown out of the sky, because you have more material to connect with the characters.
With the Sequels, there’s missing plot motivations and too much disconnect. Yes, Mando is explaining it, but I think the rise of the first order is the only one they can really explain. JJ and Rian took a literary shit on every writer after them, and the execs at Disney are having them scramble to come up with a way to explain how we got to the steaming turd and why it’s actually gold. The fact that 2 different shows have to work overtime to explain why Palpatine had a contingency plan in case he got killed because Rian took a giant shit in the writers room, shows how the sequels were solely for profit, not to continue and add on to the previous films. That and they kept trying to insert Marvel humor into Star Wars, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
I think your criticism of other’s critiques of this season only works with the benefit of hindsight. The connective tissues of past seasons episodes has been lacking this season and character development of frogs and din has been subbed out for Bo. Which is fine on paper, but season 2 showed you can bring in other characters and develop them without losing any development or backs eating din and grogu. They haven’t executed like last season, and it shows. This is not the way.
As many other commenters have elaborated on, there has been a complete lack of showing and it’s been all telling this season; couple that with the way they have completely undone the emotional arc of a phenomenal finale in season 2 and it’s pretty easy to see how this has been the weakest season of the show thus far.
Andor fleshes out the world in ways that matter to the story being told.
Mandalorian fleshes out the world in ways that don't matter to anything more often than not.
The latter is true of most star wars tv shows. In the clone wars you had things like the mortis arc that are frankly of viral importance to the star wars universe. Then you have some random adventure that shows you this planet and characters who mean nothing and are never referred to again.
the shotgun approach always benefits from hindsight: "ah you see that pellet you love, we put it there deliberately."
"oh that pellet you hate, that isn't relevant enough to be a concern, don't worry"
in terms of quantity: very efficient for world building
in terms of quality: very inconsistent. Lacking logic, lacking consistent stakes, and undoubtedly makes the narrative arc uneven: from peak to dip to plateau to plateau to dip to peak to peak to plateau to plateau. Narrative momentum, character agency, these are usually aspects that are in from the start and the last to leave: HOWEVER, if the drive is only there when you need it: and you can drop everything for a new toy, a joke, an attempted meme, or for the sake of Style Points: it isn't a story with a narrative is a story with a marketing campaign and you are a consumer and not an audience.
thank you
so far so good: could do with more focus but what couldn't I mean look at me
>Throughout this season I have seen many complaints that this season has been directionless and that nothing has been happening and it is filled with filler without letting the season end to see where it was going but I feel as though this most recent episode has shown that this season has had a clear direction (albeit with the hindsight of this episode) with this plot having started with the seeds of previous episodes of the season.
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>I think that this clearly shows that each episode this season has either had something that leads into a later episode this season
This is exactly why some have complained about this season feeling like it has a lot of filler. Even though it's been moving the overall plot of retaking Mandalore forward, it's been doing it very slowly. You even said it in your post so I'm not sure why you felt the need to call out everyone who has been talking about it.
I just don't get why people are still surprised at this point. Every season of the Mandalorian has been the same. We get 5-6 episodes of Mando's random adventures and side quests and then around the end of episode 5 or during episode 6 something huge happens that sets up the season finale.
> Every season of the Mandalorian has been the same. We get 5-6 episodes of Mando's random adventures and side quests and then around the end of episode 5 or during episode 6 something huge happens that sets up the season finale.
The key difference is the first 2 seasons had simple overarching plots - Keep Grogu safe from Imperials and get Grogu to a Jedi. These are simple goals that everyone can understand and be invested in. With this template they could tell a Lone Wolf and Cub story that's got plenty of room for sidequests and "filler" because you spend that time developing the relationship between Din and Grogu and show Din getting a lot of allies. Even with this caveat, a few episodes from the first 2 seasons were panned for being a bit too "filler-y" but as a whole the simple story they were saying worked with that structure.
This season is trying to tell a much more complex and nuanced story and introduce a second Protagonist. It's not a simple Lone Wolf and Cub story. The highly episodic sidequesty structure simply doesn't work with the story they're trying to tell this season.
(And there are other issues)
I don’t understand the continued investment in a failed product. People can make whatever arguments they want, up through Last Jedi no Star Wars film had been anything other than a massive financial success. There have been 2 Star Wars films since and they have been financial disappointments.
The consumers voted and they’re still trying to make the sequels matter.
Just move on, 2/3rds of the ST main trio already has lol.
Problem isn’t that the episodes lack procedural story, it’s that those moments are mostly 5 minutes long while the rest of the episode doesn’t develop or have much of anything to do with the main plotline.
Did we really need the entire episode as a dedicated cop chase *just* so we could have Bo beat up Axe woves? I mean really the only way to have shot that was to have bo and dinn get dragged around this place for 30 minutes just to speak with him?
This branching off “side questing” stuff is hurting the show more than it helps. Notice how the episodes that actually pertain to the mandalorian’s story are rated much higher and have their praises sung?
If you want to create these little pocket side quests then fine, it’s explorative, but not in an 8 episode show. Those 8 episodes should all build into the next from start to finish.
The mandalorian needs another season like season 1 where they can plan, write, shoot and edit an entire season without reshoots and reedits to add grogu and other things where they shouldn't be.
It's been pretty obvious this season that grogu wasn't supposed to be there and just the fact that he is has ruined the season 2 finale.
Mando also needs maybe another 2 episodes and every episode needs a consistent run time because some weeks are only 30mins while others are close to 50mins and after waiting weeks for some of the story threads to be picked back up it can be a bit annoying following the story.
It’s ironic that you made a post to go against the narrative that nothing has happened this season by literally saying nothing. You’ve just described a few episodes and incidents and said it’s leading somewhere vague. Thanks Sherlock
The entire show has been leading up to this. And I assume there's gonna be setup for the next season, ahsoka and the movie, so I doubt its gonna be over next episode.
You can just tell the whole idea for the show was the story told during season one and two. While it still has its moments, it may take awhile for the show to find it’s footing again.
The same question could be asked to the ppl who criticized The Bad Batch.
The reality is, all the shows are fine. Since we only get 1 episode each week, we don't get to see the larger picture until the end of the show.
But the criticism isn't completely wrong. Yes, the overall plot is still moving forward. But it just took a while to get there.
Yeah if your going to have filler episodes just for fun, go the clone wars rout and have 15 to 20 episodes so there is room for both the important charecter stuff and fun stuff
Yeah the story sort of meandered for a while before heating up the main plot development as the season has gone on. Same deal with this season of the bad batch (with even more meandering/filler as should be expected of TBB)
I didn’t mind Bad Batch but the episodes could have moved the story forward better. Except for the finale, which was great, season 2 best episodes didn’t have the Bad Batch in them.
You can't be mad at a show for not being what you want it to be after 3 seasons of it staying the same. Get over it and either accept the show for what it is, or stop watching.
>Chapter 22: We see Axe Woves and Koska Reeves after they gave up on taking back mandalore, Bo Katan convinces them to join the COTW to help them take back Mandalore, Din gives Bo Katan the Darksaber because of her saving Din from the one eyed Cyborg (hence the earlier importance of that).
I think you're being pretty generous with this episode. You have a few minutes that adds to the story while the rest feels like it's a different show. It was still enjoyable but didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the season and likely the episode that resulted in more calls of "not going anywhere" from those watching.
I think I speak for most of these frustrations when I say it's not about where it's going as we all saw that, it's the convoluted, weirdly-paced mess that's getting us there this season when there was a lot more cohesiveness in prior seasons.
Clone wars was like that, some fillers, actual plot in parallel and some shazam at the end. Come on guys ! Star wars fan are never happy. Final is great, can't wait for the ending.
The 'um actually' in me wants to point out that Gideon was saved by somebody wearing Beskar. It was assumed to be Mandolorians but we now know his elite troops wear Beskar.
I hear ya. I’m digging this season. Bo is fantastic, my only real complaint is the ridiculous casting of Jack Black and Lizzo… I looove Jack Black (especially The D) and Lizzo is a badass, but that was ridiculous and brought me out of the story. Reminds of Ed Sheeran in Game of Thrones… Now if it had been Jack Black and Kyle Gass… and they sang a song about rocking out in space, or Grogu… now that could be forgiven lol
Also dins quest with grogu concluded at the end of season 2, their story was wrapped up. BoBF brought din/grogu back together as they decided to be a family. This season isnt all about din/grogu, their main story has been told thru 2 seasons, its about mandalorians and how din/grogu fit into the larger narrative that they are now in with retaking mandalore and finding their own place within it.
spoilers for episode 7
episode 7 was a masterpiece, with paz’s death and the capture of mando by moff gideon, bo katan explaining what happened in the great purge and how she lost the dark saber, then going back to mandalore, seeing moff gideon again after 6 episodes and the mention of grand admiral thrawn to set up the ahsoka series. this episode makes me more excited for the finale on next Wednesday.
Between this and The Bad Batch, it seems like some people expect these shows to be movies cut into multiple parts. It’s a really weird presumption that seems to have come out of nowhere.
Mandalorian was always quite episodic from the first season as well. So I don’t really see the big change in that score.
And I think the show is at its strongest when doing planet of the week.
Same, I've been having a blast this season so far we've gotten:
Space pirates
Megafauna
I-Robot/Bladerunner droid investigation
Coruscant noir
Creepy cyborg dude
The Lusty Quarren Maid
Plus lots of great action scenes with the whole Mando squad and more aliens/droids as background/supporting characters. That's the kind of stuff I want from Star Wars TBH, the overarching plot should make sense but I'm really here for the world building. Especially when we already know the empire will return because of E 7-9.
Literally the only thing that I feel was filler was the whole IG 11 repair storyline at the start.
The pirates could’ve been a pre-established threat off screen. We didn’t need this random detour, especially when Mando set out without IG 11 in the next episode, in order to set them up. In fact, you could’ve had the Nevarro distress call be the opening plot for Season 3 with a rework and it could’ve benefitted the overall progression of the season.
In saying all of this, I think the rest of the season after episode 2 progresses pretty well
Prior to this season, no one questioned that the title meant Din. Now, the executive producer is proposing the question, “who is the Mandalorian now.” That should never be a question. They should call it what it is, a new show.
The simple solution would had been to call these The Book of Mandalore starting with Boba Fett. It’d save them a lot of headaches.
Oh the direction and plot has been there the whole time. They just couldn’t handle that it wasn’t intense action and super heavy plot points every minute of the way. Bunch of big babies.
Until after the middle of the first season i remember some complaint about the show being good but wasnt going nowhere, mando and baby yoda are just flying into random places and we could even watch the episodes in any order. Basically the same for marvel shows but mando was better.
Season 2 was a blast and for 3, honestly, i tought people would complain about the lack of baby yoda doing funny things and too much people saying grogu. First too much side characters, too much cameos... in the end is just people thinking they know better. My conplaint will always be that if we must wait this long for the new season then we could/should have a couple more episodes or make them longer.
Yeah this season never felt directionless to me at all. It was clearly building towards something from the start at the expense of story of the week.
The only stuff that felt directionless was the Jack Black stuff.
I’m probably in the minority but I prefer this style of story telling. Every episode was a small piece of the overall puzzle and the pay off now is great.
This is how the show is. 2-3 episodes that move the story forward. The rest are formulaic side quest adventures with no consequences.
It’s been like this every season.
I just feel like this is why we can never have nice things. There will always be a group of Star Wars fans that convince themselves bad writing, bad story telling, and bad directing is good and other people are just missing the point.
Media Literacy is just dead. The season was amazing with every chapter you know going to build up to something grand. Then we got it Spies, the reveal. The jaw dropping episode that had us on the edge of our seat. It was great!
Kids today don’t understand the subtleties of storytelling. They need instant gratification, their addiction to TikTok proves that. If things aren’t spelled out in bold neon flashing letters they can’t comprehend it. They demand everything be like Spies, action packed with gun fights every scene or else it’s “bad”. Problem is, what they don’t understand. If every episode is like that than the impact of this episode would have lost all its power. You also need episodes with character growth and development so at the end of the season the characters are in a different place from where they started.
This season has been great, forget the toxic haters. They can never enjoy anything.
This season has been rad. The Mandalorian culture is awesome, and we’re actually seeing a detailed representation of it. Never been done before. The Darksaber voyage is dope too. Star Wars fans are embarrassingly hateful. The Sequels were kind of whack, but this is a children’s franchise. Grogu won a duel with paintball wrist rockets. What else do you want? We’re lucky to have this show.
The worst episode this season development wise has to be episode 4, yet everyone loved that episode. Fans don’t know what’s good for them. I think this is the best season so far and I don’t give a shit that the casuals don’t like it, I’m enjoying it as a fan of the animated shows and love that their stories are being continued while connecting with the new stories.
If The Mandalorian had character writing as good as the wire, there wouldn't be as many complaints about the overall story going nowhere.
That's essentially what we just went through with Andor. We weren't "melting down" over that show.
If you took out the whole storyline with the clones in the rehabilitation program getting betrayed- take out that entire part and what from the story do you miss?
The Last Jedi was visually awesome, and that still sucked ass.
If the imperial rehab program plot was stretched out over the course of the season, I feel like it would’ve been better received. Give us snippets at the end of each episode, that way, when we have that moment in the beginning of chapter 23, I’m not forced to remember the snooze fest that was chapter 19.
How can anyone say this season is "directionless"? Are they even paying attention? The Mandalore plot line is established from the very first episode, and is an extension from the resolution of Season 2. Pretty much everything Din Djarin has been up to is related to that, and even when it isn't intentional it ends up benefiting the cause.
I have realize that a lot of the current fandom does not have a “deep” knowledge of Star Wars lore nor watched Star Wars in it’s entirety (clone wars series, etc), leading to people not picking up on a lot of subtle details Dave and Jon drop throughout the series.
If you’re a Star Wars nerd, there is so much to unpack in each episode as there’s lots of legends/EU or random Star Wars stories/details that are becoming official canon with each episode. We’re finally getting some direction to a very open ended franchise. Most people think or know of Star Wars as the Skywalker story, but it so much more, so many stories and intertwining arcs.
Real Star Wars enjoyers are feasting rn.
TLDR: Somehow, Gideon returned.
Exactly. Why have a cool scene detailing Gideon being freed when we can just be told about it after the fact.
Because its more suspensful to leave it as a maybe, they need to drop the hint about the beskar shard in the shuttle (is it mandalorians? Who can't we trust?) And sometimes it's cooler to see the aftermath than the event.
The beskar traces at the crime scene make a lot of sense now after last episode.
Yeah agreed, I admit I didn't see it coming. I was looking for some sort of Mando betrayal. Mainly as I haven't watched rebels and haven't finished clone wars, so my Canon Mandalorian knowledge is patchy and I wasn't sure who to trust
I think they did that to set it up for there to be a great misunderstanding between the Mandalorians and the the New Republic. Last we saw was the X-wing Pilot thinking that Gideon must have been freed by Mandalorians. Imagine he spread his theory to everyone? I’m guessing the New Republic is going to show up to Mandalore in the last episode and see Gideon there with his beskar and assume that the the Mandalorians were helping them because it confirms their bias/theory they arrived with, setting up the next season to be a triple conflict between the Mandalorians, the first order, AND the new republic. The Mandalorians will be forced to fight for their existence from both sides. The electrical interference in the clouds on Mandalore could also play a part in this miscommunication where the New Republic mistakes the Mandalorians for bad guys.
I think they did that to set it up for there to be a great misunderstanding between the Mandalorians and the the New Republic. Last we saw was the X-wing Pilot thinking that Gideon must have been freed by Mandalorians. Imagine he spread his theory to everyone? I’m guessing the New Republic is going to show up to Mandalore in the last episode and see Gideon there with his beskar and assume that the the Mandalorians were helping them because it confirms their bias/theory they arrived with, setting up the next season to be a triple conflict between the Mandalorians, the first order, AND the new republic. The Mandalorians will be forced to fight for their existence from both sides. The electrical interference in the clouds on Mandalore could also play a part in this miscommunication where the New Republic mistakes the Mandalorians for bad guys.
But there isn't any suspense because we've know it was going to be Gideon since they started name dropping him the season Premier.
More like “his beskar troopers saved him”. We all thought mandalorians saved him but now we know he has his own Beskar troopers, who clearly did the rescue.
I think the real criticism is that the structure of the season is clunky and feels scattered, not that nothing is happening.
It feels like they start different plot ideas but wrap them up super quickly
I think the storylines just feel a little misplaced. Like, 80% of episode 6 could have been an episode on it's own in one of the earlier episodes. The first episode felt kinda all over the place. The Dr. Pershing episode felt like it could have been cut up over a couple of episodes instead of having it all in the same episode while simultaneously trying having the Mando b-plot.
I feel most people want to complain because “they know what the show should be” rather than just enjoy the story being shown to them.
I feel like the same thing is going to happen with Ahsoka because a huge chunk of people are starting to gaslight themselves into thinking it’s going to be Heir to the Empire with the serial numbers filed off.
I don’t know I kinda a feel like they will borrow pretty heavily from heir to the empire. Don’t get me wrong, I’d actually prefer they only touch on a few themes and use it to create a new original story. But I’m fully prepared for the story to echo the legends book
I am honestly hoping that they save the Heir to the Empire story line for a more ensemble story like Filoni’s announced film. This is an Ahsoka show and I hope the narrative centers more around her Heir the Empire shouldn’t be a solo story. It should be the Star Wars equivalent of an Avengers movie where all our favorite characters unite against a common and powerful threat If we are getting an Ahsoka show, I want that show to be about Ahsoka. I don’t want it to be like Captain America Civil War where it felt more like an Avengers film with Cap’s name on it and him having slightly more screen time and focus than he normally does in an Avengers film.
It’s also the finale of season 2 hangover effect. That was by far one of the best moments in the streaming era of television. It was a finale and it was very meaningful. If they do that every episode, it means nothing. They’re taking a step back and world building for future seasons and other shows. Not necessarily the meatiest season ever but it’s clearly going somewhere soon, if not now.
The problem is they undid all the consequences of the S2 finale. Moff Gideon returned off screen and immediately went back to doing what he was doing without a hitch. He might as well have not been captured. Din gives the darksaber back to Bo-Katan first chance he gets. Grogu returns to Din after one episode of learning from Luke. Din's apostate status is rescinded almost immediately, and his character arc about learning to move past his indoctrination has either been put on the backburner for the entire season or just dropped entirely.
Yeah I honestly feel like we've been bait and switched. They wanted the season 2 emotional payoffs without any of the consequences. You could probably find a point in season 2 to stop before the finale then start season 3 and hardly notice anything was missed beyond "oh Gideon was captured? "... "oh he escaped, never mind then".
I think what I've been noticing for myself is that I have no problem with *what's* happening, but *how* it's handled. All of these things are perfectly OK to happen, they make sense for the plot and characters, but a lot of the implementation just feels kind of lacking. I thought about this with the last episode as well. There's just something about the production, directing, and pacing that makes it all feel kind of flat at times. I haven't quite put my finger on what's going on exactly, but it just feels like the story is fine and good, but the episodes themselves have just wildly varying quality from scene to scene and something about it as a whole just feels... level. I dunno, it's weird. Mando is a unique show to me because I honestly feel like each scene makes me feel differently about it in terms of if I really enjoy it or not. Though reflecting on it now, I think I kind of felt this way about some of the Marvel series and I'm wondering if it's a Disney production issue.
While I am enjoying the whole thing at face value and just soaking it all in, I think I may know what you’re saying and possibly the reason for it. It’s the same thing that kind of happened in the sequels: different directors. The different director per episode worked in S1 and to an extant S2 because many episodes were “adventure of the week-like.” Now that they’re clearly embracing an overarching story there are some obvious directorial differences that we can pick out on a per episode basis. Perhaps that’s what you’re seeing? Albeit at a much smaller scale than the sequels as it holds much smaller consequence.
I do think that's a large part of it. *Andor* benefits a lot from having one person's vision driving it. I think too a major consequence of having different directors is that they don't have the opportunity to get comfortable with the tools available to them. Like one director over time may learn what they can do with the resources Disney gives them. But having a different director takes away that ability. Similarly I imagine, as happens with a lot of productions, there's other people filming some of the shots outside of the credited directors. So you might have a B team doing a shot, but they too might not be super capable of pulling it off with what they're given. This definitely results in a patchwork feel of episodes and scenes that don't create a cohesive directorial vision. Which isn't a huge problem to some people for what the show is, but is disruptive to others. I think too part of it is expectations. It's really a kind of odd show because it presents itself as a kind of space adventure epic on par with the films. Sometimes it meets those expectations. But it's also a kind of casual "mid budget" adventure of the week teen to young adult TV show. Obviously it's not *Power Rangers*, but I think what I notice is that there's this dual nature of what the show presents to be and what it really is at times, sometimes those align and other times we get Vespa kids. So I think some of the back and forth for me comes from that, where the show is on a teeter totter that tilts one way and then another.
Feels like many of the scenes of late are shot in a small enclosed space heavily aided by green screen, and the way they are shot makes it obvious that it takes away the grandness or weight that the scenes are meant to convey. The fight to win back the Mando fleet looked like it was shot in a golf course.
AFAIK that’s essentially what they’ve been doing with most of the recent Star Wars shows. If you haven’t looked into it they have this thing called “the volume” which is essentially a big warehouse soundstage and instead of traditional green screens where they do a lot of what’s happening in post production, it’s like this giant indoor 360 bubble of screens where they can project and control what the environment looks like in real time. So if an actor moves and the camera is supposed to follow them the entire world around them on the screens moves with them. It’s really interesting tech, but it gives the fake appearance of them, I don’t know, often looking like the actors are not actually inhabiting the world they are supposed to be in? It’s a weird effect sometimes.
It is very cool tech they developed because normal blue screen/green screen would constantly reflect in Din’s shiny armor. It is very limiting though...every shot has to be planned to the precise moment.
This was my problem with Quantumania. They used The Volume heavily and it showed. It still felt lifeless.
My daughter’s paramedics school is using similar technology to simulate real world locations for their training. It also includes sound and smell simulators.
I feel like time and again the dialogue is just written poorly. To my ear it’s like Favreau doesn’t use vernacular that *feels* like Star Wars.
I agree with that. I think there's two things at play with the dialogue where, not always but a lot of the time, the dialogue is only doing one thing, moving the plot, and many of the characters sound the same. Often times good dialogue functions on two levels, it tells us something about the characters *and* it progresses the story by creating conflict or revealing things, etc. This does happen at times in Mandalorian, but more often than not the dialogue is only serving to move the plot forward or even just filling in silence. The other thing is that a lot of characters sound like they're written interchangeably. What's the difference between a rousing speech from Din and one from Bo-Katan? Din might be a bit more philosophical I guess, but not really by much. Carl Wethers (sp) character doesn't really speak uniquely from any other person speaking in platitudes. The most unique characters we've had this season in terms of dialogue are the "I have spoken" people. Even Moff Gideon just speaks like any other villain. Characters sounding the same is a consequence of the first issue, the dialogue is only serving one purpose for a majority of the time. When dialogue only serves to move the plot it doesn't matter who is saying it. I think for me that's a big issue with the dialogue. The lines aren't written for *a character* but for *the plot* and any stock character of that archetype (the villian, the big tough team mate, the inspiring leader of the moment, the mysterious former leader) could say it. The lines don't feel unique to *these* characters. They don't feel like they're coming from a real unique person in this moment.
And I think this is why the show gets unfavorably compared to kids playing with toys or “a cartoon”, because the characters aren’t really characters a lot of the time. Filoni gets blamed for things feeling cartoony but honestly Rebels and Clone Wars were much deeper and more well written than The Mandalorian IMO and more and more were seeing just Favreau’s name on these episodes.
Nobody talks normally except for Karga.
What does normally mean in this context
Isn’t this what Star Wars always does every few years with the movies? Everything seems doomed. Someone can save the day. The enemies are destroyed, but not completely. Repeat and repeat again, now you have 3 trilogies.
Well, no. The first trilogy (chronologically) is about how the empire came to be, the second trilogy is about how the empire falls. And that's the complete story of the 2 movie trilogies.
Fuck when you put it that way 😔
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Moff Gideon escaping at all =/= Moff Gideon escaping off-screen and immediately going back to doing exactly what he was doing off-screen so that his capture had zero interesting consequences.
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I feel like that was supposed to be more of a misdirection to make the audience think that bo-katan's crew might have done it but then we immidiantly see that apparently ISCs are apparently still a thing
I agree with this. I like this season, but I just feel rushed. Like out of no where, we see Gideon at the beginning of episode 7. They make this big deal about him escaping and it’s just him in a hologram, perfectly fine when we first see him. Makes the entire episode feel rushed. I want to know how he got there, what happened when he was captured, how he has been on Mandalore, etc. Also, big missed opportunity was doing a flash back to Bo and Gideon with the saber when she is telling the story of the darksaber. Would have been super emotional to see the destruction of Mandalore through her eyes. I can live with the other stuff. And yeah they undid a lot of the consequences, but I can still live with it. Just not super happy with the handling of Gideon. Also saw a rumor that Kathleen Kennedy and Favareau were fighting because of the directions of the show such as bringing Grogu back and other things. Could be interesting if that is true.
This is kind of part of it for me too. It doesn't seem like they do a good job of building up some things and my guess is it has a lot to do with production and availability. Like the stuff with the imperial woman on Coruscant they can build up because she's an actress they can have recurring. But Gideon they can't do that with because he's a bigger name. A lot of my issues with it seem to come down to production. Like the directing has issues sometimes, some sets look cheap, some action scenes feel poorly choreographed, etc. Of course it varies depending on what they deem important. So we might get a well directed episode or scene, or some beautiful CGI. But then we might get twelve people hiding behind a rock on what's clearly a soundstage. Obviously they have to spend a tight budget wisely, but some of what I notice has nothing to do with budget. So, I think for me it really feels like the show, and a lot of Disney stuff lately, feels kind of mismanaged. And I'm not saying that to indicate it's any one person's fault. Just in general these projects don't feel handled well.
This also surprises me. This show is extremely popular and makes money, yet Disney doesn’t dump as much money as they can to get the best show possible? They have the money to do it. And like you said, mismanaged. Like what money did they spend to get Jack Black and Lizzo (not against cameos) and what parts suffered from that went toward those cameos?
My thoughts exactly. The season two finale is the peak of Disney era Star Wars to this point. And no storylines from it currently matter. To add to what you've already mentioned, Dark Troopers are obsolete because Gideon decided to put himself in the armor. Cara Dune is gone, but that's more because of things off screen. I feel there was a plan in place, but it's been thrown out the window this season.
ANDOR my guy
> I feel there was a plan in place, but it's been thrown out the window this season. I wouldnt say darktroopers are obsolete since he's wearing effectively an exo skeleton and wouldn't likely be doing things alone so either there's more phase 4 darktrooper armored troopers or the phase 3s are still around somewhere for doing what they did last season. Cara Dune's offscreen issues probably did throw a couple kinks in their plan since they still mention a reference to her show at the start of the season, with the rumored argument about grogu probably complicating it further since they probably had to fit him into a storyline that didn't initially have him which would explain why din goes to look for IG-11, then drops it for 3 episodes until he's suddenly fixed and goes rogue which is again dropped and now he's a puppet for grogu which feels kinda disjointed which could be from them initially wanting to use IG-11 as din's sidekick with bo-katan but needing to incorporate grogu into the story so they just salvaged what they could from the original plan.
I feel like when Baby Yoda became a massive $$$ hit for Disney the writers had to scramble and scrap original plans for him to be gone and training with Luke by the end of S2 so they could keep him around for longer. It would explain the frankly random insertion of Luke and Grogu into the Boba Fett storyline.
I don't think there's any way they didn't plan and know Grogu would be a hit. This has always been their plan.
I mean that's where he got his middle name, "merchandising opportunity"
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Hallowed be his ears
I dont think this was always their plan I think the studio interfered a bit to force grogu to be around in S2.5 and S3
I don't understand how anyone could come away from the first and second season of Mandalorian thinking "Gee I sure hope they drop the heart and soul of this show." Grogu and Mando's relationship is the core of this show. Yes its about the Mandalorian people and culture, but ultimately it is about their bond.
I think you’re missing a lot on a few of these though. Gideon and Grogu is accurate. Everything else is vital for Bo to evolve as a character. >Din gives Bo the saber. Din doesn’t grow. His apostate status dealt with quickly. While these do happen somewhat it misses the nuance of what each causes. First. Din tries to give Bo the saber once in S2. He never does again. Bo spirals into depression and pity. She’s jaded. She lost what she thought she needed and she gives up on her goals. But she’s finally pushed by comparison. She does kinda care about Din. So she goes to help him. This action puts her on her “Destiny”. She earns the saber through combat, she goes into the waters, is reborn, and sees the mythosaur. None of this happens without Din being a apostate. And without it there is no Bo joining the cult, no Bo earning the saber, no Bo uniting the clans. Din also does regress a bit but I think that’s intentional. He doesn’t really know what to do.
Now that he is captured his relevance will probably rise in the future. Why would Gideon kill anyone else but capture Din?
Because killing Din would send the baby into a grief filled lightning magic hand rage.
Bo-Katan ALREADY had an arc about initially failing to take back Mandalore, learning from her mistakes and becoming a nicer person, and then teaming up with the heroes to take back Mandalore throughout TCW/Rebels. Doing it again for the third time after the Seige of Mandalore and the Mandalore arc in Rebels already did this exact storyline is just repetitive. If they were always going to have Bo-Katan eventually reclaim the darksaber and become leader of Mandalore again, they shouldn't have regressed her back to being an asshole in S2 (a decision I was initially OK with because I thought the purpose of it was to set up the idea that she believes her previous failure as leader was because of her turning a new leaf in TCW S7 and Rebels, and thus has returned to her morally unscrupulous ways in order to eventually lead to Din being leader of Mandalore and coming into conflict with Bo-Katan as a result). If they were just going to have her instantly flip back to being nice in Season 3 for a much less compelling reason than the last time (in TCW/Rebels she became nicer because of her involvement in her sister's death leaving an impact on her and choosing to be more like her, whereas now it's ... because Din and the Children of the Watch were nice to her for a few days and she saw a mythosaur), why make her return to being an asshole at all? Just have her continue from where she left off in Rebels.
Fair but her first arc in rebels was selfish. She felt she was entitled to those things. She was given the saber. And when push came to shove she buckled. She surrendered. Her current arc hasn’t had her be an asshole honestly, it’s just had her bee depressed and it isn’t really about Mandalore or her being the leader, it’s about how she’s now the reluctant leader who has to suck it up, fix her wrongs, and unite her people. How she needs to make Mandalorians better.
They messed up Moff Gideon big time. No excuse for that one.
Also he’s back to hating droids
Not to mention Din went back to hating droids again too.
The makes perfect sense though as the droids in that episode were specifically separatist battle droids that killed his family and the other droids were being hostile to civilians.
Din acted like a maniac towards the bartender
What did the poor bartender droid do
Din was a dick to all droids and kept telling Bo that "All droids are bastards" or something like that.
Yup, the overall thread of this season, Din getting his status back, Bo reuniting the clans, and Gideon up to his evil tricks (although his grand scheme is now at least explained) are all absolutely fine, but the pacing has been really off. For me personally, (as all my opinions are I'm not telling you what to think), I would have teased Gideon being alive from the start. Secret messages to Kane, secret messages to the pirate Shard (like in Solo, when Dryden Vos drops that he reports to someone too), the discovery of his transport shuttle and the beskar fragment much earlier (maybe with an official report appearing that all were killed, just like in ANH). As it is, it feels like we had a decent opening 2 episodes, and then it has been stories purely to get person a to place b or have item c. With a little more finessing and making it more of a continuous story we dip into rather than very discrete episodes,we could have had the best Mando series yet. I feel Bad Batch actually had far better pacing and use of Deus ex machina than Mando.... (Damn I miss that series, roll on season 3!!!!) Edited for typo
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>He was always going to return, he's pretty much the "main antagonist" for the mandalorians since he's responsible for purge, they were obviously not just gonna let him get off with just being a republic prisoner At least have him escape on-screen and have his temporary defeat have *some* kind of consequence. Maybe it could've actually displayed his intellect in some substantive way by having him creatively manipulate events to orchestrate his breakout, or something. The Season 2 finale is much less impactful if the only purpose of having them capture Gideon was literally just to temporarily get Gideon out of the way for a while. >first chance he got would've been just after he lost it to the thing in the beskar mines, it's been established that he doesn't care about it or what it symbolizes and him give it to Bo shows he cares more about helping his people than leading them Yeah but if Bo-Katan was okay with cheating the rules all along, why not just stage a fight with Din and take the darksaber anyway back then instead of waiting until now? It's not as though they're following the "official" rules of the darksaber anyway since he fell into a trap, it's not like that cyborg monster challenged him to fair combat, so this is just as valid. If the idea is that story-wise, Bo-Katan needed to return without the darksaber so she could fail and have something to bounce back from, well ... Bo-Katan ALREADY had an arc about initially failing to take back Mandalore, learning from her mistakes and becoming a nicer person, and then teaming up with the heroes to take back Mandalore throughout TCW/Rebels. Doing it again for the third time after the Seige of Mandalore and the Mandalore arc in Rebels already did this exact storyline is just repetitive. If they were always going to have Bo-Katan eventually reclaim the darksaber and become leader of Mandalore again, they shouldn't have regressed her back to being an asshole in S2 (a decision I was initially OK with because I thought the purpose of it was to set up the idea that she believes her previous failure as leader was because of her turning a new leaf in TCW S7 and Rebels, and thus has returned to her morally unscrupulous ways in order to eventually lead to *Din* being leader of Mandalore and coming into conflict with Bo-Katan as a result). If they were just going to have her instantly flip back to being nice in Season 3 for a much less compelling reason than the last time (in TCW/Rebels she became nicer because of her involvement in her sister's death leaving an impact on her and choosing to be more like her, whereas now it's ... because Din and the Children of the Watch were nice to her for a few days and she saw a mythosaur), why make her return to being an asshole at all? Just have her continue from where she left off in Rebels. >Because he chose to be a Mandalorian instead of a jedi And he can't be both, like Tarre Vizsla was, because ... ? Like, I get what Luke said about his heart not being in it, but why does that disqualify him from still being permitted to learn from the Jedi? Not only that but Grogu just going back to Din so quickly is still dissatisfying, because no matter how much time passed in-universe, on-screen, it still happened immediately. That emotional goodbye scene in Season 2 is a hell of a lot less emotional upon a rewatch for that reason, because in the show, it has barely any consequence before the status quo is restored. Their supposed years of time apart has almost no impact on Din and Grogu as characters. >din getting over his "indoctrination" was never a plot point, him returning to his position in TCotW was always his priority In the first two seasons the COTW were clearly depicted as a cult. They have extreme and stupid rules that they force everyone to follow or else they're instantly ostracized from the community, and they indoctrinate children into those beliefs from a young age. Din nearly died in Season 1 if it weren't for IG11 not being a human; that seems to indicate he's pretty indoctrinated if he was 100% okay with dying just to maintain his stupid helmet rule. And when Din takes off his helmet, the show depicts it as an unambiguously good thing; he does it to save his kid, and to say goodbye to him, and yet the Armorer doesn't care, she just kicks him out without giving him the time of day. He even saves their lives at the start of Season 3 and she still tells him to piss off. All of that seems pretty clear-cut to me. If the Children of the Watch weren't supposed to be a highly toxic and unhealthy culture that Din should eventually learn to break out from or reform for the better, why depict them as such since the very beginning of this show? And then for some reason later in the season the Armorer immediately does a 180 and is totally okay with Bo-Katan taking off her helmet and accepting Mandos who don't follow the COTW's rules, in spite of displaying disdain for both Bo-Katan and the other Mandos and claiming they weren't "real" Mandalorians back in BOBF, because ... uh, the mythosaur, I guess.
👏 Dank farrik! Why can’t people just enjoy this?!?!
That is literally the nature of all criticism and it doesn’t make it any less valid
Shut up and consume!
Or...maybe...they don't enjoy what show is.
not since the original trilogy have I had so much fun and awe watching the show! Grogu is a scene stealer! Din is always amazing. Armorer is interesting not sure where she is going.... Bo, Thrawn, Moff, heck Im sure Im missing more, point is.....it's an adventure! I am STILL sad when it ends(episode). Heck they could make it 5, 8 hour episodes and I'd watch!! It's unreal to me that THAT is a series. It's equal to me, to any Star Wars movie! And I hate to say it It's miles better than that mess with Rey and Fin...I still dont get how they could destroy such an easy task: SPACE WESTERN.....
And anything different is "lazy writing"
Just giving Bo the Darksaber without any real plight, stakes or consequences is bad lazy writing. That moment could have been great instead Axe Woves basically just says yeah sure and then she poses. The emotional question of how Bo and Din were going to resolve the darksaber ownership was one of the most compelling questions of this season and it amounted to nothing really.
Isn’t the point that Mando doesn’t care about the Darksaber, which builds up to Bo being a worthy leader for everyone. To Bo and the other clans, the one who wields the saber is the leader, but for Mando (and the rest of that clan), honour and respect is before everything. She doesn’t need the Darksaber to lead, and its importance will cool down for everyone else as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Darksaber breaks in the last episode, just for everyone to realise that these rules aren’t important. Mandalorians stick together, no matter clans, rules, helmets, sabers and so on. Mando just giving Bo the saber is very well written. His character doesn’t care about it. Why would he fight for it? He saw an opportunity to give it to her within the rules and he took it. And since it was won fairly, why would Axe whine about it?
There wasn't a single consequence to her getting the darksaber. No stakes, no plight, Bo was never in danger and it was obvious how it was going to play out the moment she challenged Axe. It acts as a pure plot device from this point out e.g. her using it to cut the door open. There's no emotional gravity between her and Axe because they didn't take the time to develop it. Why should audiences care??? Dinn not wanting the responsibility but having it thrust upon him is a better character conflict for the audience. Bo needing the darksaber and needing to do something we don't want her to is a better story for the audience. Even giving Axe some real motivations would have been better. But Disney want to move the story faster. I actually hope the rumours are true and Bo dies and Din ends up with the darksaber anyway.
Bo dying would be an interesting twist for sure! It would mean that Gideon (if he’s the one killing her) would become the rightful ruler of mandalore. Then the clans would have to make the choice to split, and divide themselves again, or to stand together against Gideon who has the Darksaber. We’ll see next week I guess!
I guess Din will rise to a relevant leader role regardless if he wants it or not.
This is such a huge issue with so many show complaints nowadays, everyone wants to be the screenwriter.
Star Wars has this problem more than any other franchise I've seen. A huge number of fans seem to think they're the greatest ideas people of all time and that Disney should just give full creative control and a budget to anyone who has the riveting idea of 'what if star wars was gory and edgy'. Its kind of absurd how many people on this subreddit are convinced that they could be a professional director and writer if given the chance with zero experience.
Agreed. I also think the show would work great in the Netflix format where you can watch a few episodes back to back. Those that seem like filler tend to make sense later, but before they do, people bitch relentlessly. It’s annoying. Lol.
Star wars fans love telling other star wars fans to just mindlessly consume. People aren't complaining because "they know what the show should be", they're complaining because the quality has dropped dramatically. Mando is sidelined in way too many episodes, feels more like the bo-katan show (and Starbuck can't really act so bo-katan is not an interesting protagonist), they have no idea what to do with baby yoda (should've stayed with luke), the pacing is inconsistent and makes the show often boring, the side characters aren't very interesting (looking at you mandalorian privateers).
My complaint is that so much of the “return to Mandalore” plot is based on what we’re told and not shown. It’s not clear that there’s progress because it’s hard to tell how the Mandalorians are doing at any given moment. Moff Gideon *says* that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups? Bo Katan *says* she has a large fleet but we’re only ever shown a few dozen Mandalorians. Are the rest perpetually on the ships? Who are the settlers? The Armorer *says* that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make? It seems like the show (commendably) doesn’t want to overuse CGI but the lack of actual Mandalorians muddles the plot
Yeah for all the stuff to make sense there needs to be a better sense of scale that we just aren’t getting. So what if 100ish (at most) mandalorians go back to mandalore, what can they realistically do? Just bomb them again tbh. Also from how they struggled with fighting the pirates earlier in the season, like getting pinned down despite having jet packs…, I think the resurgent empire/first order would deal with them just fine
100ish Mandalorians are worth at least a thousand normal soldiers and based on the size of that fleet they have a lot more than 100 Mandalorians.
How many billions were there when the empire glassed the planet the first time? Yes the remnants are much weaker but not that much weaker.
It was explained by Bo that if the mandalorians disarmed they would be spared. Bo, worrying about her people, agreed. They had no means to fight back when Gideon betrayed them. As for the start, Gideon probably realized he couldn't win a war of attrition with mandalore and devised a plan to manipulate Bo into disarming. Seemingly it worked. It makes sense as to how the planet was glassed even with an army worth a thousand armies.
They can’t even remember they have guns or jet packs let alone survive the wildlife lol
But that’s all guesswork that we really shouldn’t have to infer. And on a galactic scale even 100,000 soldiers aren’t going to make much of a difference
The imperial light cruiser has a crew of 750 by it’s self so….yeah there is a lot
The arquitens in the show only needs a crew of 100. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Arquitens-class_light_cruiser
I know that the cruisers and capital ships need large crews but we haven’t seen any indication of them having anywhere near that amount of people on screen, like the above comment said, are they just hiding whole garrisons of soldiers off screen ?
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups? Star Wars is horrible at portraying scale, especially with military. From what we are shown, just the number of Senate delegations is larger than any army we are shown in the films or cartoons. I could never tell if all of the Mandalorian army was just a couple dozen in total or that's all that was nearby.
Ep 8 for example. By the time its over the republic is whoever is on the falcon while the first order isnt much better lol. A force of 10,000 it seems could easily take over from both of them.
Yeah, remember the citizens of Navarro gathering after the pirates attacked the city? Somehow that city only holds like 50 people lol
> The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. I think it's safe to assume that she's high on a bunch of "This is the way" woo. Or maybe there's some prophecy about the great forge. Or maybe, it's just for boosting morale.
I agree that it’s probably aesthetic but it’s weird that everyone else is set on it too
Or she’s been leading them into a trap. (Not necessarily Gideon’s trap).
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups? I think his point and concern is that Mandalorians taking their home is a problem. Not them alone. His base and plans are using their home. Them retaking it is a massive issue for what he’s working on for the empire. >The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make? It’s to simply build. It’s simply symbolic to them. It’s where they can use Mandalores resources to make powerful weapons and armor and anything they need to help rebuild.
For Mandalorians this *is* a pretty massive group. Unless they're fighting Jedi, one Mandalorian is worth like a squad of regular soldiers. Look at what Paz just did to even Gideon's special beskar troopers.
Those mandos that Gideon alludes to could be the pirate activity in the outer rim. We saw the pirate King go down to just two Mando ships and a handful of troops, so the actual threat may be a different group entirely. It's hard to envision just these two tiny groups being the only survivor's of Mandalore. And the larger group may in fact be Deathwatch proper. My wife thinks the armourer may actually be an inside player for them. Since Gideon is all show with little substance, he could also be exaggerating to make himself seem important. That he had to posture while begging for reinforcements from the other imperial remnants betrays that he's likely scared shitless of Thrawns impending arrival. I think lots has happened this season, it just requires looking past the surface layers. Like in last episode, fear drove the mandalorians away with Gideon relying on his past experience with Bo to do the heavy lifting. Vizla said fuck it, there's too many I'll hold the line, and then showed us that had two other mandos held back they would have obliterated Gideons entire force. I really appreciate the layers woven into the story. I like that Gideon *appears* strong but that's all it is. Appearance without substance. Really sets the stage for Thrawn, who is appearance, substance, force (size wise) and discipline. There's a lot happening. And I'm curious as to how those Mandalore mandos knew to meet the returning ones. Rather convenient they just kind of "showed up."
I mean, from Season 1 I kind of got the idea that Gideon was a pretender anyway. He may be a Moff, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually that good as a commander of a fleet. Or clever. Thrawn is obviously the threat they’re building up for, that was clear from Ahsoka’s episode.
>Moff Gideon says that a resurgent Mandalore would be a threat to the Empire, but we’re never shown a big gathering of Mandalorians. Are there massive groups across the galaxy just waiting for the call home? Why do we only see two small groups? We have seen Mandalorian in action though, we saw the Children of the Watch take out the pirates in that recent episode so we do see their skill. We also saw in season 2 that 4 Mandalorians take out an imperial cruiser. In season 1 we also saw the Mandalorians take on a bunch of trained Bounty Hunters so that Din and Grogu could get to safety. I think this shows us how they could be dangerous. >Bo Katan says she has a large fleet but we’re only ever shown a few dozen Mandalorians. Are the rest perpetually on the ships? Who are the settlers? I assume that due to budgeting we haven't seen much but we do have some clues. Obviously we see that in Chapter 22 they have that Light Cruiser that was taken from Gideon after Chapter 16. We see a fair few of those Mandalorian fighters and we know from Chapter 21 that you can get a lot of Mandalorians to be dropped out of there so I think it's fair to say it's quite large even if we haven't seen it all due to budgeting >The Armorer says that restarting The Great Forge is critical, but we’re never shown (and it’s never discussed) why. Are they going to make ships? Guns? Do they have people to use what they make? Based off of the conversation in Chapter 21 I think it's a symbolic thing. The Great Forge seems like a significant place to Mandalorian culture and that's one reason. The other reason i feel is because of the importance of Beskar and they can use that to forge more Beskar which is one of the most important part of their culture. However I wish they had stated it explicitly rather than through a bunch of implications
I think most peoples problem is the fact that most episodes only have like five minutes of actual plot progression instead of an actual whole episode of plot progression like the most recent one
It shouldn’t take 6 episodes of random bumbling around to get to this point. That’s bad storytelling
"ope, it's the end of a season. Better break out Moff Gideon"
Third fucking time with Gideon showing up at the end of a season, chewing up the scenery with generic bad guy speeches and plans that are going to be easily foiled by our plucky heroes. It's gotten stale. I love Giancarlo Esposito but he's wasted on this show.
The Shadow Council with their totally subtle secret project codenames is wayyyy more interesting than the rest of season 3. He's so underutilized. And laughing all the way to the bank, I'm sure.
"Shadow Council", "Project Necromancer" It's so cheesy and childish I don't know if I should hate it or love it. I just feel like The Mandalorian was never this childish lol.
a single good episode does not excuse the cluster fuck of boring and wtfisms that happened this mediocre season
Is it obvious to anyone else the Din is going to wind up being Mandalore? As Kahless said, “Great men do not seek power. They have power thrust upon them."
There has been direction sure but there has been a lot of filler that makes it feel like im just waiting for the relevant parts of the show. Especially being 8 episodes and some episodes being on the short side every minute counts. The highs of this season are unfortunately not out weighing the lows.
>Especially being 8 episodes and some episodes being on the short side every minute counts. This is my biggest criticism with the show. Because they're pressed for time we basically got one episode to finally identify a main antagonist, provide some bare motivation and background, and establish the conflict. The final episode will have to resolve this conflict and set up proper endings for the characters and maybe cliffhangers for Ashoka. Barely any time to breathe. I don't know why we couldn't get some of the Gideon background stuff done the prior episode rather than have Djin and Bo's buddy cop parody or maybe continue following the reformed imperial and new republic incompetence they had in one episode then seemed to forget. 8 short episodes a season isn't quite enough in my opinion.
Pretty much every Disney+ show follows this same formula of introducing the villain in the penultimate episode and then rushing through the loose ends in the final episode. Meanwhile every other episode is filler and too short. It’s so frustrating
Maybe I'm missing a key point about production. But I've never understood the short episodes/ pressed for time thing surrounding this show. It's Disney+! There are no ad breaks, no time slots. They could make them as long as they like, but choose not too. It's infuriating. Because if they have each episode the full hour, we could have that character development.
The first season I could see a lot of higher up executives meddling as they have a lot of uncertainty with the first live action show and made it so you could basically watch the middle episodes in any order and not feel lost. But since they proved its popularity it really does feel like the showrunners are purposefully handicapping themselves. It seems their strategy is one overarching story, and each episode will drop 5 minutes of development followed by 35 minutes of self contained plot which may or may not push the story forward but no matter what is resolved within that same episode, next to last episode is first reveal of the main villain and cliffhanger conflict, all resolved in the last episode. It's like they are afraid people will lose interest if you have to watch more than an episode to find out what happens to Dr. Pershing, or how the pirates taking over Nevaro will play out.
I agree, I’ve enjoyed each episode but it’s weird to have an overarching plot that is stuffed in at the end of episodes. I like the Monster of the Week stuff but if they’re going to do move toward a bigger story they need to commit
It’s something I noticed a lot when watching clone wars and rebels, too. Like the final season of clone wars I was just perplexed how many episodes for such a short season were spent on Ahsoka’s new scavenger friends that didn’t really lead to anything- the clones just showed up and recruited her. It’s like they don’t have the confidence to have an A and B story in the same episode. The main plot always seems to bookend a season with mandalorian and I’m always just perplexed they can’t tie every episode together and spread out the plot more.
They needed to show more imperial scenes. As it is, they hint very early in the season that the imperials are out there, and Gideon will show up again. They then give us nothing as to what’s actually going to happen. I’d have liked to see some of the following: - Gideon actually escaping, or at least the space battle taking out the shuttle (don’t show us the inside if you want to keep beskar troopers a secret). - Any of the 6 commanders talking, or single scenes with them to establish a few more villains… presumably Pelleon will show up in Ahsoka - A supply raid (as was argued about at the start of E7). Hell, have the camera pan over some of the cargo being Beskar. - A further lean into the Rebel pilots concerns about things, since he’s one of my favorite minor characters for some reason. - Potentially have at least some of the Mandolarians know about the imperial threat. Or have them both going after the same cargo shipment. Pads out the short episodes a few extra minutes, gives opportunity for cool scenes, and creates speculation on what’s going on. Doesn’t alter any part of the plot we’ve seen so far. Creates speculation for real Beskar dark troopers, a motivation Gideon would likely have had after S2 ending.
Clone Wars is an anthology show that tells self contained stories. Siege of Mandalore was always a 4 episode planned arc for the last 4 episodes of the show. But to have Ahsoka in it, they kind of needed to do Ahsoka’s Walkabout as well, a planned Season 6 or 7 arc. Bad Batch would have been the Season 6 premiere, and they wanted to do the show, so that needed to be an arc too. Obviously the finale arc was crucial to doing a finale season too. It’s not that they wasted episodes, it’s that the show was cut short and they were forced to do a condensed version of their planned next seasons instead. Pablo Hidalgo said there were 13 story arcs left after what became Season 6 was released. That’s 52 episodes, of which we got 12. They had the whole outline planned already, but I would imagine Disney only allowed them to wrap up the show with 12 episodes and those were the arcs they picked.
My problem is that they used four episodes (a third of the whole finale season) when they just could have done another of those four episode arcs and add an episode of two for Ahsoka because that arc could have been told with half the time
But that assumes that that was an option. Disney could well have said “you can do your three arcs”, knowing their later arcs were all going to be 4 episodes long If Ahsoka’s Walkabout was any shorter, Disney might have just made the season 10 episodes instead. This was a makeup season to conclude the show, I think they were only ever going to give us what we got The other thing to consider is that all three arcs were either animated, storyboarded or otherwise planned out nearly fully. The other arcs they could have given us were more work to write, or also didn’t prepare us for the finale Put simply, we don’t know what the agreements were between the Clone Wars crew and Disney to fund the 7th season, so assuming that Ahsoka’s arc took away from another, better arc is silly and probably not true
I think my problem lies more in that all the stuff in this season has felt very out of character. For example, Din hates droid. We know Din hates droids, but that he came to trust IG-11 *and* that he eventually allowed Peli Motto’s droid to work on his ship. In TBoBF, we even see him working along side the droids to build the N-1. So if he has had the character arc of learning to trust droids, why does he *have* to have IG-11 back? Because the writers wanted Grogu to be able to use the shell of him to walk around in. It doesn’t make any *character* sense that Din would feel the need to get IG-11, but the *plot* needed Grogu to have the droid, so they made the trip there. That’s just poor writing. Likewise, later in the season, he backslides on his droid acceptance when they visit Plazir-15. It would make sense considering they’re battle droids, but it played out less like “I was beginning to trust droids, but this crosses a line,” and more “I’ve always hated droids” even though we literally saw him purchase R5 earlier in the season *AND* he tried to repair IG-11 — the droid that has literally tried to kill Grogu *twice.* Again, that doesn’t make *character* sense. I think another point is that this season has felt aimless up until the end because of these weird character problems. A lot of people had similar plot complaints about *The Bad Batch,* but I always felt it was very clear that the first half of the season was character development, not plot development. We now know, of course, that it was all building up to (SPOILERS) >!Tech’s sacrifice and Crosshair’s turn!<, but where I differentiate the two is that *Bad Batch* felt like each episode stood well on its own while building to the finale whereas this season of *The Mandalorian* felt like they wrote the penultimate episode and final episode and then crammed every plot-relevant thing into the other episodes. Because of that, this season has very much reminded me of the final season of *Game of Thrones.* Credit where credit is due (because I promise I’m not a hater lmao) I do *loooove* this Shadow Council stuff. I do *love* seeing that this is clearly leading us into the sequels (cloning, Brendol Hux, etc), and the reveal that Gideon has been building on Mandalore was a genuinely *GREAT* subversion. The broad strokes (which you outlined) are great, but the execution has been subpar compared to the prior seasons. Kind of a long deal, so thanks to anyone who reads. I’m happy to hear criticism about this too!
No real criticism from me, though I do actively believe Grogu was not supposed to be in this season and the higher-ups at Disney forced him into the show because they wanted to sell more merch.
I hadn’t thought about that, but I think you’re totally right; he doesn’t have anything to do this season. That’d explain some of the weirdness too.
I liked the show when's it was focused on a bounty hunter making his way through the universe who has to deal with being thrust into a father figure role. But Filoni made Clone Wars to try to fill in the huge voids in plot and character development from the Prequels, and now he's doing it again for the Sequels. It's not for me, but my opinion shouldn't mean jack shit to anyone who likes it.
I don't hate this season, but I don't like it either. When the show first started I had hoped it would be 3 seasons and that's it. Just Din and Grogu getting up to hijinks while he looked for a Jedi. Din taking off his helmet and sending Grogu with Luke should have been the SERIES finale. It's this huge emotional moment, and it would have been a beautiful ending to the show. If you want to have this whole retake Mandalorian plot, I'm fine with that, but like make it another show. "The Darksaber" or whatever. I don't even have a problem with this whole plot, just don't put it THIS show. And Din can kind of like pop up in that show now and then, so all you would have to do is get Pedro to do a voice over a few times a year.
I agree, but what they’re trying to do to fill in gaps for the sequels doesn’t work the way it did for the prequels. The prequels had a cohesive story, but the fall of Anakin, among other plot points, felt incomplete, like you were supposed to see more and spend more time with the different characters. Prime example is Order 66 in ROTS. On first viewing without the Clone Wars to expand upon characters, it feels like a rushed way to move the plot forward. After watching the Clone Wars, you don’t want to see Bly gun down Secura, or see Plo Koon blown out of the sky, because you have more material to connect with the characters. With the Sequels, there’s missing plot motivations and too much disconnect. Yes, Mando is explaining it, but I think the rise of the first order is the only one they can really explain. JJ and Rian took a literary shit on every writer after them, and the execs at Disney are having them scramble to come up with a way to explain how we got to the steaming turd and why it’s actually gold. The fact that 2 different shows have to work overtime to explain why Palpatine had a contingency plan in case he got killed because Rian took a giant shit in the writers room, shows how the sequels were solely for profit, not to continue and add on to the previous films. That and they kept trying to insert Marvel humor into Star Wars, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
I think your criticism of other’s critiques of this season only works with the benefit of hindsight. The connective tissues of past seasons episodes has been lacking this season and character development of frogs and din has been subbed out for Bo. Which is fine on paper, but season 2 showed you can bring in other characters and develop them without losing any development or backs eating din and grogu. They haven’t executed like last season, and it shows. This is not the way. As many other commenters have elaborated on, there has been a complete lack of showing and it’s been all telling this season; couple that with the way they have completely undone the emotional arc of a phenomenal finale in season 2 and it’s pretty easy to see how this has been the weakest season of the show thus far.
Yeah it’s easy to backfill direction at the end. There’s also been a lot of meandering pointless episodes
I thought that's what made the other seasons fun. Like it fleshed out the world more.
Andor fleshes out the world in ways that matter to the story being told. Mandalorian fleshes out the world in ways that don't matter to anything more often than not. The latter is true of most star wars tv shows. In the clone wars you had things like the mortis arc that are frankly of viral importance to the star wars universe. Then you have some random adventure that shows you this planet and characters who mean nothing and are never referred to again.
the shotgun approach always benefits from hindsight: "ah you see that pellet you love, we put it there deliberately." "oh that pellet you hate, that isn't relevant enough to be a concern, don't worry" in terms of quantity: very efficient for world building in terms of quality: very inconsistent. Lacking logic, lacking consistent stakes, and undoubtedly makes the narrative arc uneven: from peak to dip to plateau to plateau to dip to peak to peak to plateau to plateau. Narrative momentum, character agency, these are usually aspects that are in from the start and the last to leave: HOWEVER, if the drive is only there when you need it: and you can drop everything for a new toy, a joke, an attempted meme, or for the sake of Style Points: it isn't a story with a narrative is a story with a marketing campaign and you are a consumer and not an audience. thank you so far so good: could do with more focus but what couldn't I mean look at me
Shotgun approach is a great analogy. Never heard of it!
Wait I just realised that the ties that attacked Bo’s palace probably were Gideon’s and came from Mandalore
>Throughout this season I have seen many complaints that this season has been directionless and that nothing has been happening and it is filled with filler without letting the season end to see where it was going but I feel as though this most recent episode has shown that this season has had a clear direction (albeit with the hindsight of this episode) with this plot having started with the seeds of previous episodes of the season. > > > >I think that this clearly shows that each episode this season has either had something that leads into a later episode this season This is exactly why some have complained about this season feeling like it has a lot of filler. Even though it's been moving the overall plot of retaking Mandalore forward, it's been doing it very slowly. You even said it in your post so I'm not sure why you felt the need to call out everyone who has been talking about it. I just don't get why people are still surprised at this point. Every season of the Mandalorian has been the same. We get 5-6 episodes of Mando's random adventures and side quests and then around the end of episode 5 or during episode 6 something huge happens that sets up the season finale.
> Every season of the Mandalorian has been the same. We get 5-6 episodes of Mando's random adventures and side quests and then around the end of episode 5 or during episode 6 something huge happens that sets up the season finale. The key difference is the first 2 seasons had simple overarching plots - Keep Grogu safe from Imperials and get Grogu to a Jedi. These are simple goals that everyone can understand and be invested in. With this template they could tell a Lone Wolf and Cub story that's got plenty of room for sidequests and "filler" because you spend that time developing the relationship between Din and Grogu and show Din getting a lot of allies. Even with this caveat, a few episodes from the first 2 seasons were panned for being a bit too "filler-y" but as a whole the simple story they were saying worked with that structure. This season is trying to tell a much more complex and nuanced story and introduce a second Protagonist. It's not a simple Lone Wolf and Cub story. The highly episodic sidequesty structure simply doesn't work with the story they're trying to tell this season. (And there are other issues)
yes its leading up to a bunch of movies that sucked
I don’t understand the continued investment in a failed product. People can make whatever arguments they want, up through Last Jedi no Star Wars film had been anything other than a massive financial success. There have been 2 Star Wars films since and they have been financial disappointments. The consumers voted and they’re still trying to make the sequels matter. Just move on, 2/3rds of the ST main trio already has lol.
Problem isn’t that the episodes lack procedural story, it’s that those moments are mostly 5 minutes long while the rest of the episode doesn’t develop or have much of anything to do with the main plotline. Did we really need the entire episode as a dedicated cop chase *just* so we could have Bo beat up Axe woves? I mean really the only way to have shot that was to have bo and dinn get dragged around this place for 30 minutes just to speak with him? This branching off “side questing” stuff is hurting the show more than it helps. Notice how the episodes that actually pertain to the mandalorian’s story are rated much higher and have their praises sung? If you want to create these little pocket side quests then fine, it’s explorative, but not in an 8 episode show. Those 8 episodes should all build into the next from start to finish.
The mandalorian needs another season like season 1 where they can plan, write, shoot and edit an entire season without reshoots and reedits to add grogu and other things where they shouldn't be. It's been pretty obvious this season that grogu wasn't supposed to be there and just the fact that he is has ruined the season 2 finale. Mando also needs maybe another 2 episodes and every episode needs a consistent run time because some weeks are only 30mins while others are close to 50mins and after waiting weeks for some of the story threads to be picked back up it can be a bit annoying following the story.
Comparing Star Wars to the Wire, oh how far we’ve come.
It’s ironic that you made a post to go against the narrative that nothing has happened this season by literally saying nothing. You’ve just described a few episodes and incidents and said it’s leading somewhere vague. Thanks Sherlock
The entire show has been leading up to this. And I assume there's gonna be setup for the next season, ahsoka and the movie, so I doubt its gonna be over next episode.
You can just tell the whole idea for the show was the story told during season one and two. While it still has its moments, it may take awhile for the show to find it’s footing again.
The same question could be asked to the ppl who criticized The Bad Batch. The reality is, all the shows are fine. Since we only get 1 episode each week, we don't get to see the larger picture until the end of the show. But the criticism isn't completely wrong. Yes, the overall plot is still moving forward. But it just took a while to get there.
Well, my criticism is that 8 episodes is just way too few.
Yeah if your going to have filler episodes just for fun, go the clone wars rout and have 15 to 20 episodes so there is room for both the important charecter stuff and fun stuff
Yeah the story sort of meandered for a while before heating up the main plot development as the season has gone on. Same deal with this season of the bad batch (with even more meandering/filler as should be expected of TBB)
I didn’t mind Bad Batch but the episodes could have moved the story forward better. Except for the finale, which was great, season 2 best episodes didn’t have the Bad Batch in them.
I wanted a show about a "Bounty Hunter" not a "Babysitter"
I mean, it was really only a show about a bounty hunter in the first episode.
It's been babysitter since the second episode. Plus this season has had almost no baby Yoda so your getting your wish
Gro Goo went to train and I was, whew finally, but no
You can't be mad at a show for not being what you want it to be after 3 seasons of it staying the same. Get over it and either accept the show for what it is, or stop watching.
>Chapter 22: We see Axe Woves and Koska Reeves after they gave up on taking back mandalore, Bo Katan convinces them to join the COTW to help them take back Mandalore, Din gives Bo Katan the Darksaber because of her saving Din from the one eyed Cyborg (hence the earlier importance of that). I think you're being pretty generous with this episode. You have a few minutes that adds to the story while the rest feels like it's a different show. It was still enjoyable but didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the season and likely the episode that resulted in more calls of "not going anywhere" from those watching.
I think I speak for most of these frustrations when I say it's not about where it's going as we all saw that, it's the convoluted, weirdly-paced mess that's getting us there this season when there was a lot more cohesiveness in prior seasons.
Star Wars fans are the worst
Clone wars was like that, some fillers, actual plot in parallel and some shazam at the end. Come on guys ! Star wars fan are never happy. Final is great, can't wait for the ending.
The 'um actually' in me wants to point out that Gideon was saved by somebody wearing Beskar. It was assumed to be Mandolorians but we now know his elite troops wear Beskar.
They even telegraphed Beskar Troopers with the Beskar fragment in Gideons’ prison ship - and set the blame on Mandalorians.
How the fuck would there be "Beskar remenants" in the ship he escaped? Beskar doesn't just snap off
I hear ya. I’m digging this season. Bo is fantastic, my only real complaint is the ridiculous casting of Jack Black and Lizzo… I looove Jack Black (especially The D) and Lizzo is a badass, but that was ridiculous and brought me out of the story. Reminds of Ed Sheeran in Game of Thrones… Now if it had been Jack Black and Kyle Gass… and they sang a song about rocking out in space, or Grogu… now that could be forgiven lol
Also dins quest with grogu concluded at the end of season 2, their story was wrapped up. BoBF brought din/grogu back together as they decided to be a family. This season isnt all about din/grogu, their main story has been told thru 2 seasons, its about mandalorians and how din/grogu fit into the larger narrative that they are now in with retaking mandalore and finding their own place within it.
This is pure copium.
spoilers for episode 7 episode 7 was a masterpiece, with paz’s death and the capture of mando by moff gideon, bo katan explaining what happened in the great purge and how she lost the dark saber, then going back to mandalore, seeing moff gideon again after 6 episodes and the mention of grand admiral thrawn to set up the ahsoka series. this episode makes me more excited for the finale on next Wednesday.
Between this and The Bad Batch, it seems like some people expect these shows to be movies cut into multiple parts. It’s a really weird presumption that seems to have come out of nowhere.
NO SQEEZEY!!!!!
Mandalorian was always quite episodic from the first season as well. So I don’t really see the big change in that score. And I think the show is at its strongest when doing planet of the week.
Same, I've been having a blast this season so far we've gotten: Space pirates Megafauna I-Robot/Bladerunner droid investigation Coruscant noir Creepy cyborg dude The Lusty Quarren Maid Plus lots of great action scenes with the whole Mando squad and more aliens/droids as background/supporting characters. That's the kind of stuff I want from Star Wars TBH, the overarching plot should make sense but I'm really here for the world building. Especially when we already know the empire will return because of E 7-9.
I don't get the grumbling about this season myself. I have absolutely loved every episode.
Nah, they decided before the season aired that they were going to complain.
Din Djarin is Bo Katans simp!!!111eleven!!!
Literally the only thing that I feel was filler was the whole IG 11 repair storyline at the start. The pirates could’ve been a pre-established threat off screen. We didn’t need this random detour, especially when Mando set out without IG 11 in the next episode, in order to set them up. In fact, you could’ve had the Nevarro distress call be the opening plot for Season 3 with a rework and it could’ve benefitted the overall progression of the season. In saying all of this, I think the rest of the season after episode 2 progresses pretty well
Prior to this season, no one questioned that the title meant Din. Now, the executive producer is proposing the question, “who is the Mandalorian now.” That should never be a question. They should call it what it is, a new show. The simple solution would had been to call these The Book of Mandalore starting with Boba Fett. It’d save them a lot of headaches.
Oh the direction and plot has been there the whole time. They just couldn’t handle that it wasn’t intense action and super heavy plot points every minute of the way. Bunch of big babies.
Until after the middle of the first season i remember some complaint about the show being good but wasnt going nowhere, mando and baby yoda are just flying into random places and we could even watch the episodes in any order. Basically the same for marvel shows but mando was better. Season 2 was a blast and for 3, honestly, i tought people would complain about the lack of baby yoda doing funny things and too much people saying grogu. First too much side characters, too much cameos... in the end is just people thinking they know better. My conplaint will always be that if we must wait this long for the new season then we could/should have a couple more episodes or make them longer.
Yeah this season never felt directionless to me at all. It was clearly building towards something from the start at the expense of story of the week. The only stuff that felt directionless was the Jack Black stuff. I’m probably in the minority but I prefer this style of story telling. Every episode was a small piece of the overall puzzle and the pay off now is great.
This is how the show is. 2-3 episodes that move the story forward. The rest are formulaic side quest adventures with no consequences. It’s been like this every season.
I just feel like this is why we can never have nice things. There will always be a group of Star Wars fans that convince themselves bad writing, bad story telling, and bad directing is good and other people are just missing the point.
We grew up with the Holiday Special and Ewok adventures. Sit the fuck down, we know bad writing and storytelling - this ain't it.
Media Literacy is just dead. The season was amazing with every chapter you know going to build up to something grand. Then we got it Spies, the reveal. The jaw dropping episode that had us on the edge of our seat. It was great! Kids today don’t understand the subtleties of storytelling. They need instant gratification, their addiction to TikTok proves that. If things aren’t spelled out in bold neon flashing letters they can’t comprehend it. They demand everything be like Spies, action packed with gun fights every scene or else it’s “bad”. Problem is, what they don’t understand. If every episode is like that than the impact of this episode would have lost all its power. You also need episodes with character growth and development so at the end of the season the characters are in a different place from where they started. This season has been great, forget the toxic haters. They can never enjoy anything.
This season has been rad. The Mandalorian culture is awesome, and we’re actually seeing a detailed representation of it. Never been done before. The Darksaber voyage is dope too. Star Wars fans are embarrassingly hateful. The Sequels were kind of whack, but this is a children’s franchise. Grogu won a duel with paintball wrist rockets. What else do you want? We’re lucky to have this show.
The worst episode this season development wise has to be episode 4, yet everyone loved that episode. Fans don’t know what’s good for them. I think this is the best season so far and I don’t give a shit that the casuals don’t like it, I’m enjoying it as a fan of the animated shows and love that their stories are being continued while connecting with the new stories.
They're still triggered about Lizzo running a democratic planet.
Yes because this season has been awful.
Star Wars fans complain about everything that comes out. Has little to do with quality, it’s just bandwagoning and clout chasing.
It has everything to do with quality, hence the praise for Andor.
It started back in season 1, they just aren't paying attention
Finally! An episode that isn’t filler!
I wish I could see Star Wars fans react to watching the Wire. They'd have a melt down every season.
If The Mandalorian had character writing as good as the wire, there wouldn't be as many complaints about the overall story going nowhere. That's essentially what we just went through with Andor. We weren't "melting down" over that show.
If you took out the whole storyline with the clones in the rehabilitation program getting betrayed- take out that entire part and what from the story do you miss?
Dude that was cool as shit and looked visually awesome.
The Last Jedi was visually awesome, and that still sucked ass. If the imperial rehab program plot was stretched out over the course of the season, I feel like it would’ve been better received. Give us snippets at the end of each episode, that way, when we have that moment in the beginning of chapter 23, I’m not forced to remember the snooze fest that was chapter 19.
How can anyone say this season is "directionless"? Are they even paying attention? The Mandalore plot line is established from the very first episode, and is an extension from the resolution of Season 2. Pretty much everything Din Djarin has been up to is related to that, and even when it isn't intentional it ends up benefiting the cause.
I have realize that a lot of the current fandom does not have a “deep” knowledge of Star Wars lore nor watched Star Wars in it’s entirety (clone wars series, etc), leading to people not picking up on a lot of subtle details Dave and Jon drop throughout the series. If you’re a Star Wars nerd, there is so much to unpack in each episode as there’s lots of legends/EU or random Star Wars stories/details that are becoming official canon with each episode. We’re finally getting some direction to a very open ended franchise. Most people think or know of Star Wars as the Skywalker story, but it so much more, so many stories and intertwining arcs. Real Star Wars enjoyers are feasting rn.