Wasn’t the goal. I have literally heard nothing about this show but love so my question was whether I’m missing something or if I just have bad taste in at least this specific regard. I guess I have bad taste in at least this specific regard. I don’t believe that constitutes a virtue or reverse-virtue, signalled or otherwise. I also missed that the thread was supposed to be about our collective love for The Mandalorian so I am sorry that I was off-topic.
So, so good. I’m still not quite sold on the hand-waving that people apparently forgot about the Jedi in five minutes, but when that’s the biggest hang-up, they’re doing a lot right.
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Thanks, The Lone Wolf and Cub movies are on HBO Max. Maybe I’ll try rewatching those.
I call it “Lone Wolf and Yoda”.
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I thought some of the middle episodes were of the filler variety. In a Zena Warrior Princess / Hercules sort of way. But - the episodes that fired on all cylinders really fired. I appreciated the lack of dialogue and the tangibility of the scenes - despite being filmed in the VR.
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If a decade ago you’d told me I’d be excited by season 2 of a remake of “Kung Fu” with a muppet I would have laughed.
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I do wonder about how much of this show is engineered to appeal to fans versus tell a good story. I admit - with certain aspects (ahem The Child) I felt a tiny bit manipulated, though compared to the recent SW films the tone feels like a dramatic/welcome departure.
I guess in the end it’s all about entertainment - so it will appeal to some and leave others cold.
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Unless you are a total cinematic universe nerd, the Mandalorian may not entirely work for you. You had to have watched all of Clone Wars and Rebels (on top of the movies) to get it all. A lot of adults skipped the Dave Filoni produced cartoons, but I happen to have a perfectly aged kid (just shy of 11.5 years of age), which has led me to watch ALL the Star Wars things (often multiple times - all of Clone Wars 6 times, Rebels 4 times). Repeat watchings were never my idea, but, hey, didn’t need to go back to figure out minor plot points, eh?
Spoiler, ahoy, maybe (for those who didn’t watch either cartoon series): Our major WTF moment came in the final scene of: How dafuq did Giddeon get the Dark Saber?
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It’s on both Hulu and HBO Max last I checked. Really is a beautiful piece of work.
Though I can’t really be sure about other countries, apparently HBO Max is US only till some time next year, and the rights and clearances on HBO and Cartoon Network material is super jacked up too. With UK HBO exclusively controlled by a competitor at this point. This particular show didn’t seem to get a ton of support after the initial excitement about it release either, so it should be on whatever or whoever controls HBO or Cartoon Network material locally. But who really knows. Some of CNs stuff is still locked exclusively to Hulu till noone knows when in the US. And you’d figure if anything was gonna be handled it’d be that.
I have concerns in that direction but not neccisarily over those specific things. The episodes tying it more to the animated material, and some of the more direct references to “hey star wars stuff” feel a bit too much like just another EU thing or a live action continuation of the recent cartoons. Like it is intended to cater to those fans specifically, rather than telling it’s own story as well as it can. Or even appealing to a more general group of fans.
It’s interesting that a lot of that stuff is in the episodes written mostly by Filoni, and they seem to have garnered the most mixed reactions among critics and in online discussion. Until that end reveal anyway. I’m still not sure where I’m at on that, but it seems to have gotten a positive reaction even among people who didn’t recognize it. Some of those same episodes are the ones people pegged as filler. I’m not so sure that approach fits particularly well with what Favreau is doing over all. And there’s a bit of a tonal split going on.
I like the cartoons just fine. But I am not particularly interested in a live action version of that, and I don’t really see how tying the show deeply into that continuity is a recipe for long term success. “Hello millions of global viewers, please watch these hundreds of hours of children’s entertainment to understand what’s going on” isn’t exactly a great pitch.
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Yeah - watched Clone Wars - of which I thought the final season was perhaps the best Star Wars since Jedi.
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I haven’t seen most of that stuff and was able to follow the Mandalorian just fine. Yes, the people who did watch the full run of The Clone Wars probably nerded out harder than I did when they saw the Darksaber in the end of the last episode, but all you really need is the same basic working knowledge of the Star Wars universe you’d need to enjoy the movies.
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Don’t forget that you also need to shell out serious money to go visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at a Disney theme park in order to fully appreciate L3-37’s line “you couldn’t get from here to Black Spire without me…” in Solo.
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Absolutely nothing wrong with a monster of the week episode. In fact I wish not every single TV series these days felt the need to exclusively have season-long story arcs.
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