The Mandalorian 1x03-04
Feb. 16th, 2022 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsThe Mandalorian 1x03
By and large I would say that was a much better episode than the last two have been. Which I suppose is why I’m bothering to do a review, although it likely won’t be that long.
This episode is better both in terms of what I want the show to be, and what it wants to be. While maintaining the mostly silent protagonist, it does do a better job at conveying character through action. We see a little bit of strategy from our protagonist, have some insight into motivation, and he has to make actual choices instead of just being completely dragged along by the plot. We even get at least some world building in this one, even if bounty hunting seems to be a much more common profession than I would have expected.
All of that said, there is a fairly sizable asterisk on my praise for this episode. Because way too much of it was an extended action scene in the dark. As well as it ending in a deus ex machina resolution with the other Mandalorians coming in. It’s not very clear why, after the clunky exposition that only one of them goes out at any given same time. Maybe main-Mando sent a message before he went on his little rescue op, but that’s definitely not clear even if I bought it.
In terms of the show’s limited dialog, this isn’t much better than the previous episodes. It’s all very clunky and pretty forced. And that may be the fault of the show having so little dialog, when they do let themselves write it, they try and jam as much exposition into it as possible.
I’m also not sure what to make of the Mandalorian clan we see here. They’re very different from the Mandalorians we saw on the other shows; and mostly that’s okay, there can be different attitudes in a whole culture. But again, because of the limited dialog, it’s hard to tell if this group is just different or if things are different since the purge of Mandalor or what. I’m willing to go with it for now, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
The Mandalorian 1x04
I’m not sure how to sort my thoughts on this one. Most of the thoughts of on the positive side, but it’s seeming easier to pin down the somewhat more negative ones.
So we’ll do that first, and see if I can figure out how to word some of the other thoughts after.
For one, this is a very familiar episode structure that I think we’ve seen three times at least between TCW and Rebels. And this is where the mixed feelings come in, because this is a different scenario than most of the others because we don’t have Jedi in the mix this time. And it changes the dynamics when there’s fighting with blasters instead of lightsabers.
But then I flip back around and am bothered by the training montage. But problems with it are just pretty standard ones to have for this kind of thing. It’s not clear how much time passes to give people time to train. And, while it is a fairly normal thing, and probably based on some real stuff, I did fencing long enough in college to always feel a little put off when people train with sticks to get better with swords. They’re weighted very differently, no matter what kind of swords we’re talking about.
I’m not too keen on Mando’s clue-finding helmet, I find that to be a bit too convenient; especially when he’s kind of dumb at interpreting the clues. Footprints end randomly, maybe you should look up and see if the person jumped onto something, or is hanging there waiting to take you on.
I’ve been thinking on and off through the episodes so far that Mando is not-unlike a video game protagonist. He’s generic and not too defined so the player/viewer can view him however they want to. His gadgets are very akin to video game inventory; plus they never seem to run out. We definitely aren’t seeing him go shopping for ammo, and while I can accept that the blasters can be recharged (at least I’m willing to give that too them even if it doesn’t quite track in my head), his disintegration charges and lighter fuel for the flame-thrower, etc. seem like things that should be considered in this (superficially) very grounded end of the Star Wars universe.
Even if I ignore the forced early fight between Mando and Cara, I’m a little iffy on her introduction. I feel like we’re missing some core information that would likely have been covered in the time the episode covers. She has potential as a character, arguably more than Mando with his vague genericness, but so far I don’t know her any better than I know Mando.
And that’s where I get into a lot of confusion with this one. In a lot of ways this is a good episode for Mando, it’s probably the most character driven episode so far and I do like what we get. But again, we don’t spend enough time with what’s developing here for this to have the punch that it could. This isn’t a Mando or Mandalorian specific problem, as this is a problem anytime a show brings in a new setting and set of characters for a single episode, but it feels more pronounced here because there’s no reason we couldn’t have had an extra five minutes of character stuff in these short episodes.
Every time we watch the kid eating, I think about Farscape (this also kind of a Farscape plot), because I remember the writers there determined early on the Rygel looks really dynamic when he’s eating which helps sell him as not just a puppet. This a net neutral comment, as I like Farscape and am glad the Kid is a mostly practical effect.
I do refuse to call him Baby Yoda the way so many people did. It works as a quick shorthand in certain situations, but it’s not a name. And since there’s little chance of getting confused in my reviews, I’ll stick with the Kid. Maybe about the time they finally give him a name I’ll stop finding it annoying that they don’t give him a more interesting nickname.
And, I know it’s Cara *Dune*, but occasionally I would hear it is Cara *Dume*, which would have had to be a deliberate choice by the writers to hint at a tie to Kanan. Since that’s not what they were saying I won’t make anything of it, but she could have slightly modified her last name as she was on the run, so it wouldn’t be out of possibility for her and Kanan to be related.
I really don’t understand the tracking fobs. What are they tracking and what’s the range on them? I also doubt it will ever really be explained and we’ll just be expected to go with it, but it wouldn’t hurt to know the rules. As is, I wonder why Mando would ever think the kid was safe from people coming after him, he can clearly be tracked. And going to a backwater planet could make you stand out more than on a more populated one.
Ultimately I still can’t nail down what it was that worked about this one, but it did more than it didn’t. Which, considering I’ve pointed out several things that didn’t, must be saying something. But I think as a catch-all description, I feel like it knows what it is in this episode, even if I’m still sort of warming to what it is. It’s doing better than the animated shows usually did in that regard.
By and large I would say that was a much better episode than the last two have been. Which I suppose is why I’m bothering to do a review, although it likely won’t be that long.
This episode is better both in terms of what I want the show to be, and what it wants to be. While maintaining the mostly silent protagonist, it does do a better job at conveying character through action. We see a little bit of strategy from our protagonist, have some insight into motivation, and he has to make actual choices instead of just being completely dragged along by the plot. We even get at least some world building in this one, even if bounty hunting seems to be a much more common profession than I would have expected.
All of that said, there is a fairly sizable asterisk on my praise for this episode. Because way too much of it was an extended action scene in the dark. As well as it ending in a deus ex machina resolution with the other Mandalorians coming in. It’s not very clear why, after the clunky exposition that only one of them goes out at any given same time. Maybe main-Mando sent a message before he went on his little rescue op, but that’s definitely not clear even if I bought it.
In terms of the show’s limited dialog, this isn’t much better than the previous episodes. It’s all very clunky and pretty forced. And that may be the fault of the show having so little dialog, when they do let themselves write it, they try and jam as much exposition into it as possible.
I’m also not sure what to make of the Mandalorian clan we see here. They’re very different from the Mandalorians we saw on the other shows; and mostly that’s okay, there can be different attitudes in a whole culture. But again, because of the limited dialog, it’s hard to tell if this group is just different or if things are different since the purge of Mandalor or what. I’m willing to go with it for now, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
The Mandalorian 1x04
I’m not sure how to sort my thoughts on this one. Most of the thoughts of on the positive side, but it’s seeming easier to pin down the somewhat more negative ones.
So we’ll do that first, and see if I can figure out how to word some of the other thoughts after.
For one, this is a very familiar episode structure that I think we’ve seen three times at least between TCW and Rebels. And this is where the mixed feelings come in, because this is a different scenario than most of the others because we don’t have Jedi in the mix this time. And it changes the dynamics when there’s fighting with blasters instead of lightsabers.
But then I flip back around and am bothered by the training montage. But problems with it are just pretty standard ones to have for this kind of thing. It’s not clear how much time passes to give people time to train. And, while it is a fairly normal thing, and probably based on some real stuff, I did fencing long enough in college to always feel a little put off when people train with sticks to get better with swords. They’re weighted very differently, no matter what kind of swords we’re talking about.
I’m not too keen on Mando’s clue-finding helmet, I find that to be a bit too convenient; especially when he’s kind of dumb at interpreting the clues. Footprints end randomly, maybe you should look up and see if the person jumped onto something, or is hanging there waiting to take you on.
I’ve been thinking on and off through the episodes so far that Mando is not-unlike a video game protagonist. He’s generic and not too defined so the player/viewer can view him however they want to. His gadgets are very akin to video game inventory; plus they never seem to run out. We definitely aren’t seeing him go shopping for ammo, and while I can accept that the blasters can be recharged (at least I’m willing to give that too them even if it doesn’t quite track in my head), his disintegration charges and lighter fuel for the flame-thrower, etc. seem like things that should be considered in this (superficially) very grounded end of the Star Wars universe.
Even if I ignore the forced early fight between Mando and Cara, I’m a little iffy on her introduction. I feel like we’re missing some core information that would likely have been covered in the time the episode covers. She has potential as a character, arguably more than Mando with his vague genericness, but so far I don’t know her any better than I know Mando.
And that’s where I get into a lot of confusion with this one. In a lot of ways this is a good episode for Mando, it’s probably the most character driven episode so far and I do like what we get. But again, we don’t spend enough time with what’s developing here for this to have the punch that it could. This isn’t a Mando or Mandalorian specific problem, as this is a problem anytime a show brings in a new setting and set of characters for a single episode, but it feels more pronounced here because there’s no reason we couldn’t have had an extra five minutes of character stuff in these short episodes.
Every time we watch the kid eating, I think about Farscape (this also kind of a Farscape plot), because I remember the writers there determined early on the Rygel looks really dynamic when he’s eating which helps sell him as not just a puppet. This a net neutral comment, as I like Farscape and am glad the Kid is a mostly practical effect.
I do refuse to call him Baby Yoda the way so many people did. It works as a quick shorthand in certain situations, but it’s not a name. And since there’s little chance of getting confused in my reviews, I’ll stick with the Kid. Maybe about the time they finally give him a name I’ll stop finding it annoying that they don’t give him a more interesting nickname.
And, I know it’s Cara *Dune*, but occasionally I would hear it is Cara *Dume*, which would have had to be a deliberate choice by the writers to hint at a tie to Kanan. Since that’s not what they were saying I won’t make anything of it, but she could have slightly modified her last name as she was on the run, so it wouldn’t be out of possibility for her and Kanan to be related.
I really don’t understand the tracking fobs. What are they tracking and what’s the range on them? I also doubt it will ever really be explained and we’ll just be expected to go with it, but it wouldn’t hurt to know the rules. As is, I wonder why Mando would ever think the kid was safe from people coming after him, he can clearly be tracked. And going to a backwater planet could make you stand out more than on a more populated one.
Ultimately I still can’t nail down what it was that worked about this one, but it did more than it didn’t. Which, considering I’ve pointed out several things that didn’t, must be saying something. But I think as a catch-all description, I feel like it knows what it is in this episode, even if I’m still sort of warming to what it is. It’s doing better than the animated shows usually did in that regard.
