Dis Is De Wae! (Mandalorian Spoilers) · 2:08am Jan 8th, 2020
Howdy, folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
"Hey, sugar cube! Appuls, man!"
Now then, I finally got around to watching The Mandalorian, and...
Huh... it was pretty good! There were a lot of things I liked, and some things I didn't, so let's get into it, shall we?
Let's start with the adorable baby elephant in the room. Since I don't live under a rock, nor suffer from brain damage, I had seen and heard of Baby Yoda. However, what I didn't know going in was that he was actually a plot point. Like, he's the plot point. Just surprised me, is all.
I really dig the vibe of the show. They're really pushing that Old-School Western/Lone Samurai feeling with the musical stings and tones. It's all I've really wanted out of Star Wars: going on adventures on distant planets. And all the while, they never let the show get too "super cereal, u guise!" They injected enough humor and levity into it to keep it lively, yet serious. I also liked how they handled Mando's face reveal. They made it a thing, but not a huge thing. Like, a lesser show would have saved it for several seasons and had it be some big huge emotional moment. But no. The droid needs to take the helmet off to heal him, he does, Mando has like two lines of dialogue, then it's back on in the next scene.
The casting was also excellent. Pedro Pascal does a great job of emoting without showing his face, letting his vocal intonations and body language tell us what he's thinking. Not even Darth Vader pulled that off. He was always stoic and static. There were a lot of great actors in lesser roles: Nick Nolte, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Werner Herzog, Richard Ayoade, Clancy Brown. Hell, even Bill Burr gave a really solid performance! However, I really want to highlight how pleased I am that they cast Gina Carano as Cara Dune. Sure, she's not the best actress in the world, but she does well enough with what the show asks of her. The big reason I'm happy with her casting is because of a problem I've had with Hollywood for a while now.
You see it all the time: a show or movie will have this super hardcore, ass-kicking female character... and they cast some 120 lbs waif to play her. Now in superhero stuff, like Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow or Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, it doesn't bother me as much, since they're, you know, superheroes. However, when we're dealing with more IRL-toned stuff, it just breaks immersion for me. In fact, one of my favorite TV shows of all time is guilty of this.
If you've never watched Burn Notice, go do so now. It was a fantastic show, very smartly written and incredibly acted. Jeffrey Donovan did such a great job in this show that you'll almost forget, or maybe even forgive, the fact that he was in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. You also have Bruce Campbell being... well, Bruce Campbell. It, too, had a revolving door of great character actors, and a plot that ran strong through seven seasons. Seriously, it's great. The only real problem I ever had with the cast was Fiona Glenanne.
Now, the actress they got to play Fi, Gabrielle Anwar, is a really talented actress. She did a great job with the role. Her dramatic performance was always excellent. It's the physicality of the role that was the issue. Fi was supposed to be this badass ex-IRA fighter who can go toe-to-toe with any man she comes across... but she's 5'3" and looks like she weighs 90 lbs soaking wet with bricks in her pockets. Now, this in and of itself isn't an issue. If you know what you're doing, you can punch above your weight class. I'm not denying this. The problem is that a lot of times, these shows or movies won't have them doing that. They don't show these women exploiting weak points and using their opponent's movement against them. They just punch really hard and win, and that just takes me out of it. Like, you expect me to believe that this woman with the physique of a nine-year old boy just hip tossed a 300 lbs dude? Uh-uh.
Now, contrast that to The Mandalorian. When Gina Carano decks a dude with her beastly fucking arms and he folds like wet origami, I watch that and go, "Hmm, yeah, that looks about right." I don't understand why this is a thing. I think it's just that good old-fashioned Hollywood sexism. They'll cast a woman because, "Okay, she may tip the scales at a buck-ten, but hey, she's hot! What more does she need?!" A lot! She needs a lot more than that! Plus, in my humble opinion, stonks women are hot. I mean, maybe it's just me, and maybe I'm letting on a little more than I should about my personal life, but man, there's just something about a woman who could kick my ass...
Wow, I got off track...
I also liked the overall plot of the season. The "Bounty Hunter who learns the value of life and how to love again" trope is pretty tired, but they handled it very well. Portraying Mando not as some heartless robot didn't let the show get bogged down. The setting is really nifty, too. Setting it just after Return of the Jedi gives us a glimpse of a galaxy in turmoil, but they very smartly kept the focus tight and narrow for this first season. It's something most movies never show. People like to think that once the war is won, that's it! Everybody pack it up and let's head home! Well... no. Look at the Weimar Republic in Germany after World War I, or Reconstruction in the South after the US Civil War for examples of how the last shot fired is far from an ending. Showing us the galaxy falling to lawlessness and tribal warlords fighting for power is really cool. I just hope they slowly expand the scope of the show as time goes on.
They also did a really good job with the teasers of backstory and character motivations. By the end of the season, it left me wanting more in all the good ways. I really want to know more about the Code of Mandalor, how Cara ended up where she did, and who the hell Moff Gideon is and just what the hell that nega-saber thingy was!
However, it's not all good in the hood, baby. It seemed that for everything I did like about it, there was some minor issue that I didn't. One thing, that in all honesty is more a nitpick than anything else, is that none of the main characters seem to know what the Force is. Again, this takes place five years after Return of the Jedi, which means it takes place around thirty years after the whole "Execute Order 66" thing. How have they not even heard of the Jedi? According to Wikipedia, the Jedi Order dates back to about 25,000 years before The Phantom Menace. How does a super-competent and traveled bounty hunter like Mando not have even heard of the Force?
Also, Baby Yoda can use the Force because... uh, he's the same species as Yoda? Which means... his entire species are Force sensitive? Careful, show! We're flirting dangerously close to midichlorians here...
Also, the show had a big problem with filler, both in specific episodes and as a whole. Like, in episode seven, did we really need a two minute flashback of the droid relearning how to operate? Seems a throwaway line would have sufficed. Then, in episode eight, we spend like three minutes watching the storm troopers dicking around, the only purpose I could see being to work in a joke about "Hur hur storm troopers can't shoot!" In the season finale, that's time that could be better spent elsewhere.
It's not just individual episodes, like I said. Entire episodes seemed to just be... well, filler. Hell, my personal favorite episode, the one with Bill Burr and Clancy Brown on the prison transport, did nothing to advance the overall plot of the show. Now yeah, most shows that have overarching narratives have episodes that don't feed into that and feature a more self-contained story... but those are shows with 26 hour-long episodes. This leads me neatly into the biggest problem with the show.
Remember how I said it was "pretty good?" Well... that's all it is. Pretty good. It didn't blow my mind and have me on the edge of my seat. I never got a sense of, "Hooooo-ho-holy shit!" at the end of an episode, where I'm dying to know what comes next. I was just... entertained. Very entertained, mind you, but I wasn't blown away. Maybe this is just me falling victim to the "Internet Hype Machine," but I was actually kind of disappointed, though I must stress not necessarily in the show itself. It's more a sense of this is Disney's "killer app?" This is what they were banking on selling me a Disney+ subscription? No. I would never pay a subscription fee for this, especially seeing as how the entire season was eight 40-minute episodes.
Now, maybe this was intentional? As I explained in a previous blog, the Star Wars brand name doesn't exactly have the "punch" it used to. SO it's possible they were being more cautious, not wanting to invest a shit-ton of money until they knew it would be a hit. This sort of makes sense. I mean, you would think a company like Disney would have had shelves upon shelves of Baby Yoda toys ready for the Christmas season, but they didn't. They played him pretty close to the chest. I don't think they even used him at all in the marketing for the show. So it's possible that the next season will be longer?
One last thing. The question I know is on all of your minds: "Is it better than the Disney trilogy?" Well... it's not really a fair comparison. TV and film are two very different story-telling mediums, so it's not exactly an "Apple to Oranges" situation. Sure, I could say it felt much more fluid and planned out than the movies, but that's true of most TV shows.
So, all in all, I very much enjoyed The Mandalorian, and would easily recommend it to anyone who is in search of a solid adventure series. I would just recommend you either "take to the high seas," or do the week-long trial subscription to Disney+, then ditch it before you get charged. I sincerely hope they can deliver the goods with following seasons, and I really hope they expand the season run time to allow for more story telling goodness.
Now, have you seen it? What did you think, or if you haven't, are you curious about it? Let me know! Til next we meet stay safe, stay free, and stay metal! Jake The Army Guy out!
“Pretty good” is a step in the right direction after all of the shit along the way. It’s true that mediocrity shouldn’t be celebrated, but it’s important for a story-teller to know that they are going in a good direction anyway lest they backslide into trash.
Female character in good shape with big tits and a nice ass = unrealistic body expectations. 90 pound underwear model punches the shit out of a 250 pound muscle man = empowering. Makes sense doesn’t it? At least handwave it away as cybernetics or supernatural power, but it’s often not even that these days.
I completely agree with your assessment of Gina Carano as Cara Dune. Finally a realistic casting for a female fighter who could go toe-to-fist against the usual male muscle-bound exomorph. Overall, the story could have used a bit more verisimilitude in the fire-fights, but professional stormtroopers who couldn’t hit the ground by dropping a brick are a trope we cannot avoid in any Star Wars related media. So is the enemy commander who can calmly walk through a raging firefight without a worry - sans helmet or other protective gear - and this despite being shot at by the good guys who are otherwise uncannily accurate shots, at least when targeting the previously mentioned poor stormtroopers.
5181942 One word. Ok, two. Gwendoline Christie or as many of you know her, Brienne of (censored) Tarth. Six foot three, decked out in armor and a big (censored) sword. Put her next to Peter Dinklage and he practically vanishes. Just about the only actress I could see actually kicking Rory McCann's rear (The Hound).
5181963
And that's another thing! I lay many sins at the feet of the Disney trilogy, but one that irks me the most is the complete and total waste of Captain Phasma. Like, I thought one of the goals for these movies was female empowerment! Here you have this absolutely badass and intimidating female antagonist... and she gets like ten minutes of screen time between two movies, and then she dies.
I've seen it, and you can probably guess how I feel about it.
The "killer who learns the value of life and how to love again" setup is something I've seen mastered here on Fimfiction for years, although usually with a soldier, morally grey warfighters, killing machine monster, or some defeated villain from a crossover. Maybe that's why I had a hard time getting invested in the Mandalorian himself. I watched the first three episodes with some friends who have a Disney+ account, and it was just thanks to the mystery of baby Yoda that made me want to go to the next. I've never watched a show where I'm unattached to the title character.
I'll watch it again if given the chance, but part of me can't help but kind of look down on the concept. Our two leads are ready-to-print toy products. Mando is a giant poseable action figure, taking care of Star Wars's version of Tickle-Me-Elmo (I'll bet anything we get some kind of interactive plush in the works). I'm not opposed to the concept of armored up protagonists. I've loved Master Chief, Alcatraz from Crisis, and loads of Adeptus Astartes from Warhammer 40k. I also absolutely love transhuman stories about characters who are by DEFINITION killing machines, like Terminator, Robo-Cop, the Zerg, and Alex Mercer. But Mando didn't mean much to me. Although he's light years ahead of Boba Fett (from the original movies), he's clearly in the same vein of "look cool while silently killing things" that's guaranteed to make boys project onto him. Baby Yoda, meanwhile relies partly on the hardwired failsafes in our brains to make us care about infants. And look, I've spent thousands of hours watching My Little freakin' Pony and reading associated fanfiction. I obviously like cute stuff. But the Mane 6, the CMC, the Young 6? They're actual characters.
5181968
Right, not on the antagonist side, but still plenty. I suppose it works fine that way with the whole "liberty vs. oppression" theme of Star Wars. Normally to find female villains of any note, like Asaj Ventress, your only shot is to look at tertiary media.
The Mando doesn't know about the Force because there are people watching the show who will not have heard of the Force. This way, the show can explain basic concepts of the franchise all over again to introduce a new generation of consumers to a new generation of Star Wars stuff. It's all in the marking.
I'm so tired of Star Wars and how no matter where in the timeline it is, there must be the marketable action figure/trailer-ready elements that still hearken back to the old 70s design aesthetics. A ship that looks like an X-Wing or some other iconic ship. A guy in Mandalorian armor. Yoda. The Force. A lightsaber or two. There must always be the Force. There must always be Jedi. There must always be an Empire, and there must always be a Rebellion against the Empire. There must always Star Wars, the same Star Wars, again and again and again. I am so tired of Star Wars. I miss KOTOR 2 and Kreia talking up how maybe you shouldn't live in a galaxy obsessed with a brutally simple dichotomy that forces galactic war on everyone every weekend.
Honestly, despite my feelings on how MLP Gen 4 changed so drastically, it was still light years ahead of Star Wars in creativity. Gen 4 looked nothing like Gen 3, which looked nothing like Gen 1. All different characters, concepts, takes on the entire universe. Can we get more of that, please?
That... was the Darksaber. It figures quite a bit in The Clone Wars series and Star Wars Rebels.
What makes a Disney+ subscription worth it for is I get to binge watch Gargoyles now.