Is a Mandalorian in any other helmet just as righteous? That’s the question posed in the penultimate episode of The Mandalorian’s second season, as Mando dons the armor of the enemy in order to go deep undercover at an Imperial rhydonium refinery on the jungle planet of Morak. He does so alongside Bill Burr’s Migs Mayfeld, a.k.a. Inmate 34667, who Mando put away at the end of “The Prisoner” back in season one. At the beginning of the episode, Mando and his crew arrive on a junkyard prison planet to draft Mayfeld into their mission to save The Child and thwart Moff Gideon’s evil plans. And where Mayfeld goes, moral relativism follows.
The Mandalorian hasn’t been as ambiguous this season in terms of good guys and bad guys, a change I attribute to Mando giving up the bounty hunter game in order to be a full-time dad who also keeps getting pulled away to do violent favors for people. There’s also the revelation that his particular version of the Way is downright fundamentalist, which makes him seem a little less, let’s say, flexible every time it comes up. That makes Mando “The Believer” of the title, and he dons a Stormtrooper’s helmet rather than show his face as he accompanies Mayfeld on a mission to obtain the coordinates of Moff Gideon’s ship from an Imperial console inside the refinery. Mayfeld, you see, used to be an Imperial sharpshooter, and still remembers their protocols. He remembers a lot of other things, too, as he explains to the sullen Mandalorian behind the wheel of an Imperial Combat Assault Transport.
“We’re all the same,” Mayfeld tells Mando, as Burr’s signature squawk shifts from mocking to genuinely angry. Imperials, Rebels, the New Republic, Mandalorians—does it really matter to their families what they died for? They’re dead. It’s a very cynical way of looking at the conflicts that fuel Star Wars lore—it’s not called Star Peace, now is it?—and a point of view that episode writer and director Rick Famuyiwa subtly ties in to the real-life futility of the Vietnam War. There’s the visual element of massive explosions rocking a jungle landscape, of course, imagery Famuyiwa blends with some very Indiana Jones-type punch-outs atop the transport vehicle, which could also blow at any time.
But the scene that drove the parallel home for me is the one where Mayfeld confronts his former commanding officer Valin Hess (Richard Brake) in the officers’ mess hall inside of the refinery. When Mando and Mayfeld arrive at the base, they’re greeted by cheering Stormtroopers, which must have felt weird. And the compromises don’t stop there. (I’m going to skim over this next part, since it’s a spoiler whose implications are covered elsewhere in the recap; feel free to discuss in the comments.) Anyway, they end up at a table with Hess, who pours them what looks like Alka-Seltzer but is presumably one of the many kinds of Star Wars hooch that have been invented over the years.
Finally sure that his old boss doesn’t recognize him, Mayfeld mentions that he was part of Operation: Cinder, a scorched-earth campaign in the final days of the Galactic Civil War where entire planets were razed—like the mining planet of Burnin Konn, where Mayfeld narrowly escaped joining between five and 10,000 of his fellow soldiers and an untold number of civilians in death. As Famuyiwa lays out in Mayfeld’s and Hess’ dialogue about the mission, what happened on Burnin Konn was much like Vietnam-era atrocities like the My Lai massacre, but on a larger scale. The commander talks about “difficult decisions,” but it’s the foot soldier whose dreams are haunted by what they did that day.
But Mayfeld soon gets his revenge, because even when Star Wars is going dark and gritty (see also: Rogue One), it absolutely cannot resist a redemption arc (see also: IG-11 last season). Mayfeld is the one whose conscience is unburdened at the end, while Mando is compromised in a way he’s never been before. It’s a serious-minded theme for an episode that once again strays from the overarching mission, and the first episode in the series where Grogu doesn’t appear at all. This was really Bill Burr’s week to shine, as Cara Dune, Fennec Shand, and Boba Fett all got a minimum of screen time. I have no doubt that they’ll all get their hero moment next week, when—hopefully—The Mandalorian will finally get to where it’s going. As far as detours go, this was a thought-provoking one.
Stray Observations
- The existence of Bill Burr in the Star Wars universe implies the existence of a Star Wars equivalent of Boston, a hive of scum and villainy like nowhere else in the galaxy. (I kid! Please don’t yell at me.)
- “The Believer” brings comic book and video-game lore into The Mandalorian universe: Operation: Cinder was first mentioned in Greg Rucka’s Star Wars: Shattered Empire and features prominently in Star Wars Battlefront II.
- I never thought about Imperials having families before this episode.
- This is Famuyiwa’s third spin around the Mandalorian track. He also directed the scene where Mando fights off Jawas while clinging to the side of a sandcrawler in episode 2—also a very Indiana Jones-esque sequence!
- Richard Brake is one of those character actors who has been in pretty much everything, but perhaps his most famous role was under heavy layers of makeup: He also played the Night King on Game Of Thrones.
- Star Wars also loves pairing up old frenemies: Mando and Mayfeld have a history, as I discussed at more length in the recap for “The Prisoner.”
- Speaking of, did you hear the news that Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor will appear in an Obi-Wan Kenobi live action series? IDK about all that, if I’m being honest, but I am an Old who doesn’t care for the prequels.
- In fact, there are 10 (!!) new Star Wars TV series in development at Disney+ right now, in case you were offline yesterday and missed the news tsunami.
- Hell yes to the classic Star Wars wipe towards the end of the episode.
- Along with its real-world parallels, this whole episode pays tribute to William Friendkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer, about four men with checkered pasts who reluctantly agree to drive a truck full of nitroglycerin through the jungle in exchange for their freedom. It’s a good one, check it out if you haven’t seen it (or maybe even watch it again).
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I’m pretty sure this marks the breaking of Mando’s fundamentalism – rumours abound that Pedro Pascal has been renegotiating away – presumably for a bit more face time.
Is that actually a real thing? Because it feels like a pretty natural arc for this character.
No. One of those comic sites that likes to publish articles based on YouTube/Twitch personalities ramblings kept pushing this non story. The article from a bit ago even said the proof of this is that later episodes in S2 hardly even feature Mando and you see more Rosario Dawson. This doesn’t seem to be the case at all. It’s speculation based on nothing.
Seriously gonna skim over Mando removing his helmet? There’s nothing he won’t do for that little green gremlin, including forsaking his “Way.”
Skimming over the helmet removal is certainly an odd choice in this review, along with calling it a spoiler… Like, this is an episode review, it’s gonna spoil the episode.
– Not a trace, of doubt in my mind
Now he’s the Believer, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah- I liked the Tie Fighters saving the day briefly for Mando and Mayfield. And then going into that facility to cheers and applause.
I felt the editing was slightly off in that moment. We were waiting for the TIEs to show up just a second or two too long, especially since it was a fairly predictable beat.
People will probably disagree but I thought this was a better episode than last week. I thought Bill Burr sucked before but he was alright here. Imperials with Southern accents wierd me out. I want evil British accents for my Star Wars bad guys.
Imperials with Southern accents wierd me outThe (Imperial) South will rise again!
Yeah, but the prequel seperatists were more like the confederates. They had those really offensive asian accents.
I’m not big on Burr but I thought he did a great job this episode. I’m glad it was just him though, the other members of the merc group he was with I found more obnoxious than entertaining. Imperials from the South and mercs from Southie! It’s a wicked pissah, y’all!
I agreee on the other Burr episode. Even Clancy Brown kind of sucked in that one. Clancy Brown never sucks.
I liked the prison break episode overall, but MAN was that a waste of Clancy Brown. . . !
Brown has never let me down!
I’m sorry, WHAT did you just say about Clancy Brown?
Yeah, it’s why it was so surprising that this episode was the best episode of this season so far, because “The Prisoner”, the last episode where Bill Burr’s character showed up, was the worst episode of the last season.
What’s particularly weird about that is Richard Brake IS British! Why he was doing his “3 From Hell” drawl I have no idea.
This reminds me of as Aiden Gillen as Littefinger in Game of Thrones. I was telling a friend how terrible his accent was on that show when he was so great as a Baltimorean on The Wire being that he is British. My friend explained that Gillen’s accent was actually how he really talked as he has some sort of rare British regional accent. He’s from an island called Englirescotwalerica. “Ahr shor, eesn’t it garayte to be baahck in the ole home tahn agun,” mused Gillen, drinking a pint of Guhrnursh in his local pub.“True that me and the lards would arlwars come to this purb to get a feew pie-ntsany tahm I’m in tahn… it’s just so march farn to be arble to cahm home everrah nar and then, whur everwan knows yar narm, but nobody annoys yar. Harleyward is garayte, it’s whar I larve, but sure it”ll never bee hooooome. This… this is hooooooome”.
I guess I just always assumed he was Irish due to his name. I remember he played the villain in the horrible John Cena action movie, 12 Rounds, and if I recall correctly, his character was Irish in that one. Either way, I think his best accent work was definitely as Carcetti in The Wire. In season 3 you can almost tell he’s European but by Seasons 4 and 5 his accent was dead-on as a well-educated city guy from Baltimore
I was totally convice that John “Littlefinger” Carcetti was American. I was surprised by Stringer Bell and I think a couple other people were Brits, Lester too I believe. Dominic West’s accent would kind of come and go though. Over all just spectecular work with accents.
Clarke Peters (Lester) spent a lot of time in London and got his career started there but he is an American.
I just read he is a Welsh actor which is even weirder.
Totally agree – this was a great episode. Last week’s episode was adequate, but I feel like it leaned very heavily on the big Boba Fett reveal. And the action sequence on top of the transport was much more interesting to watch than Boba Fett clubbing stormtroopers for 30 minutes.
I think the episode last week was a “bottle” episode where they save on budget by sticking to just one location usually. I fidured they had blown the budget with just the first episode and the krayt dragon, and yeah the transport sequence looked much more expensive than the fight on the side of a hill from last week.
Also, Stormtroopers accomplishing something (albeit minimal, like gunning down those rebels) is always welcome. Every time Stormtroopers keep having a 0% hit rate and their armors get smashed by sticks and stones, I feel like Star Wars cross over into Saturday-morning cartoon territory, where the bad guys are a perfunctory presence carrying no real threat.
The only people with British accents are Coruscaunt & deep core natives, that isn’t every Imperial officer (just most of them)
The only people with British accents are the characters written to echo Nazi officers from World War II movies that gave Nazi officers British accents
This was the best episode of this season so far
even pretend accentslike Game of Thrones: each area has it’s accent even if Dinklage never stopped changing his
Totally agree. And I also think it was the best directed episode of the season, and it wasn’t particularly close.
This is probably my favorite episode for the season. Big credit to Famyuiwa direction and reminding us Mando can actually wipe the floor with anyone as opposed to just absorbing bullets (or i guess blaster fire) with magic armor. Burr knocked it out of the park what a great arc for a character that woulda been fine being a one-off. This was a good example of Star Wars asking bigger questions for the audience and observing the choices of characters and the beats hit well.Also shout out Space Boston
I liked how Mando instinctively raised his forearm to deflect a blow, but w/o his beskar, the stormtrooper armor he was wearing just fell apart.
Also, I’m dissapointed that with one episode left they are barely getting to take on Gideon and his bunch. I know that next week will be a longer episode but not long enough to really take him on.Were the Imperials on the planet they went to part of Gideon’s group? I don’t think so. They must have just been another remnant group?????
While this episode had its moments, it felt pretty disposable and that the time would have been better spent super-sizing the showdown with Gideon (as the last season did.)
better spent super-sizing the showdown with GideonAgreed. This is when I complain that I’ve grown accustomed to more long-form storytelling in my prestige TV. These short, oneoffs don’t necessarily do it for me.It seems like the most crucial story this year was the Ahsoka ep. but maybe I’m just associating the live action debut, a momentous thing, with the overall importance of the episode. Now it seems that it was just a backdoor for her spinoff. Which is definitely ok with me.
Other than giving some welcome and interesting backstory on Grogu (plus his name, of course), the Ahsoka episode was a wash for me. I don’t have very strong feelings about the character, so watching her show up in live action wasn’t particularly exciting and instead felt like “here we go again, more mining of the lore for no real reason.”The rest of that episode, fighting the warlord or whatever, felt utterly generic and thinly sketched in.Sadly, disposable episodes isn’t anything new for this show.
I unfortunately agree with this. I still really want to like this show, but it’s been a slow crawl down into being completely uninterested in any part of it
Were the Imperials on the planet they went to part of Gideon’s group? I don’t think so. They must have just been another remnant group?????The implication last season was that Gideon is one of various ex-Imperials acting as warlords. So, he’s acting as authority over some region of the galaxy that may or may not be defined. I guess it’s possible that they answer to him.
The warlords should start their own mini-wars.
Sounds like we have another spin-off for Disney+
I was just making a joke but that would make a good show.
The Vietnam vibe might also be a nod to how George Lucas was supposed to direct Apocalypse Now before he got way too busy with Star Wars (and quite a few contemporary reviews of Return of the Jedi pointed out that the Endor scenes were basically him finally making his Vietnam film).
I think we lucked out with Copolla getting the nod for Apocalypse Now.
George Lucas was supposed to direct Apocalypse NowNow that’s some fuel for nightmares coming right out of the Darkest Timeline.
Terry Gilliam was the director they wanted for Roger Rabbit. Since we’re on the topic of nightmares.
I would pay a lot of money to see that
Only if we can also get David Lynch’s Empire Strikes Back
I dont know Lucas take was pretty wild, a black and white documentary style film shot in Vietnam whilst the war was still going on.
Here’s a mind blower – Ridley Scott was supposed to do Dune, but bailed when his older brother died and resurfaced later for Blade Runner. David Lynch bailed on Return of the Jedi for Dune. Imagine a timeline where Scott does Dune and Lynch does Jedi. And you know who wasn’t bust around the time Blade Runner was being done? That’s right, Stanley Kubrick.
Scott’s Dune also ran into script issues, I believe. They even had Frank Herbert try a draft but he just couldn’t make it work.
Hell his early notes compare the Empire to the US in Vietnam (and he envisioned the Emperor as a more Nixonian figure.)
> the Endor scenes were basically him finally making his Vietnam filmYes, I’ve always pretty much though of Return of the Jedi as being Full Metal Jacket, except the Viet Cong is replaced with Pomeranians.
Line of the episode from Boba, “Let’s just say they’d recognize my face.”
Ha, I missed that, but now I’m wondering why they wouldn’t assume he’s just another stormtrooper.
They stopped using clones for clone troopers leading up to A New Hope. So there probably is a chance that maybe some old officers would have recognized him.Or people heard of and have seen the clones.Or they heard about Boba Fett before.
They’d be wondering what the hell an old clone was doing wandering around.
Ah okay. I didn’t know! Thanks for the info.
Plus there’s a good chance he’s still in the system just because they never bothered updating the files.
I would watch a Star Wars series about the Empire hiring admin clerks to update their records.
So what’s the in-universe explanation as to why they stopped using clones? I never quite understood that.
If I recall, it was just too expensive and it was easier to recruit regular people.
Especially since their primary enemy would just be other people. As opposed to legions of manufactured droids.
That makes a lot of sense, but also seems weirdly anti-climactic.
Recruit, or conscript. Not every stormtrooper is a volunteer.
Clone War-era clones were genetically modified so that they aged twice as fast as normal humans, and then they were discontinued. So that means they’re all dead by now, there aren’t millions of retired clonetroopers who look exactly like Temeura Morrison hanging around the galaxy. If Boba’s true significance and identity is known around the galaxy (which might well be the case, considering Jango must be an in-universe celebrity as the template for the clones), then he’d be immediately identifiable. But even if nobody really knows who Boba Fett is, a middle-aged clonetrooper would be highly suspicious ~30 years after they went extinct.
Not all of them are dead, though. Rex was (officially, in canon) fighting for the Rebels at Endor.
And Kix is currently in stasis as of this point in the timeline. He’ll be woken up shortly before Episode VII.
I didn’t know! Thanks for the info.
the Jedi were MONSTERS
I think all the clones are dead by now. They were produced with shorter lifespans than the average human
sonic depth charges FTW!
Love that sound effect. As soon as I saw it drop from Slave 1 I had a mini nerdgasm.
Same. Also brought back memories of rogue squadron 3
Love that sound effect. My favorite part of the prequels. Whn your favorite part of a film series is a sound effect then you know the series was troubled.
I hope they have them in the new Rogue Squadron movie. I need to hear that sound effect in a theater where it feels like a damn earthquake.
I had to go back at watch the asteroid field scene from Attack of the Clones as soon as the episode was over.
Damn that is a cool ass weapon. I forgot it was in AOTC. When it dropped on those two TIE Fighters, I was like what is that bomb doing!! Lol!
I forgot they were used in Attack of the Clones and had thought it was a nod to Empire at War. Woulda been cool to get another video game nod.
That was a very nostalgic moment for me, not gonna lie
So we’re not going to talk about Mando taking off his helmet?On a separate note, Dune, Shand and Mayfeld… Rangers??
“Well, we gotta get those TPS reports filled out!” Big laffs from me!
Mando having to take off the helmet felt very contrived. I knew it was coming after their conversation in the vehicle, but it felt really dumb the way it played out. Like a face scan would be a security check to make sure you are authorized for access, not just require any face. Feels like they could have come up with a better excuse.
I agree the “face scan not as a security measure to make sure you’re an imperial/who you say you are, but instead just to make sure you’re not an outlaw” is inherently dumb.I wonder though, if now the empire has Mando’s face/identity. Obviously from Season 1, Gideon already knows his name, but now he has his face too. Maybe some fallout from that?But yeah, the scan doesn’t make any sense except as a way to let us see Mando’s face. I don’t have a problem with the overall way they’re handling his “okay, maybe I don’t need to NEVER show my face” deprogramming as he’s meeting other Mandalorians. And there were plenty of rumors online that Mando would need to remove his helmet to save Grogu. This was kind of the least interesting/lowest stakes way to get there.
It would have been far more impactful had he not taken it off until he saved the kid, basically his acknowledgment they are now family.
The revelation that Mando is basically a Hasidic Mandalorian, and most Mandalorians are a bit more secular and don’t take the Way too literally, was a pretty brilliant twist. Mando appears to be struggling with his faith in the same way one of my old Orthodox Jewish coworkers did after a divorce — he eventually adopted a more secular identity, but it was a gradual thing, where it took him a few months to work his way up to eating bacon. When he finally did a lot of previously forbidden things, it would happen in an offhand way, without a lot of premeditation.I kind of like the decision to have Mando remove his helmet for such a low-stakes trivial reason, as opposed to an operatic Grogu-is-my-true-son type of scene. Season 1 Mando would have considered this a massive existential crisis (he didn’t even want to remove the helmet in front of a robot), but after seeing other Mandalorians take their helmets on and off like a winter beanie and act like “you really keep the helmet on *all* the time? that shit is stupid!”, it’s not that big a deal for him.
It’s not that the other Mandalorians don’t take the Way too seriously, though. It’s that their Way is different from Mando’s Way, since their “denomination” is not radicalized. From their point of view, they respect the rules as devoutly as Mando is.
It’s an interesting theological discussion I suppose: are people from more “reform” type mainline denominations simply more secular than those from more conservative/devout/fundamentalist ones or, as you suggest, do they simply see themselves as equally religiously observant but just belonging to a different sect?
Seems easy to answer. Roman Catholics don’t see themselves as “less observant” than Christian fundamentalists. Of course the opposite is true, fundamentalists see themselves as the better, more correct version of any faith. But practicing non-fundamentalists don’t feel like they’re doing and believing anything less than 100% of what they should be doing and believing (and might see fundamentalists as nuts at best, dangerous deviants at worst). If they do, that’s when they convert.
I agree with you for the most part, but I think it matters that the character makes the compromise during such a trivial part of something necessary to save the kid exactly because it is still a big deal to the show’s title character, just in a different way than it would have been a big deal before. It’s a problem that could have been approached in another way with better planning and more time, but in the moment, there’s a path to where the character needs to be and that’s the shortest route to it. So he takes it, and it’s meaningful in context of the earlier episode you describe.One reason why this is the best episode so far this season is because that part of it shows, in stages that advance slowly enough to have impact for the audience but rapidly enough to be too fast for the character under fire, that the guy is going to have to look at the people he barely accepted as his own very recently—the people who told him his way was not “the” way—and see them instead as marking acceptable bounds for his behavior. He’s also going to have to deal with something obvious but that he hasn’t yet had to admit: that his quest to help the child is his quest first and foremost for reasons other than how he was “quested” by a Mandalorian superior.That is a big step for him as his character develops, maybe even bigger than if he took his helmet off in front of others and gave up his national identity and creed forever for that reason, because that would itself be an affirmation of the values with which he’d been raised. This makes him not quite one of “his” Mandalorians, but also not quite one of “the other” Mandalorians, since it wouldn’t have bothered them at all. He’s got more allies backing him up in the moment than he usually does, but he’s also more alone than he’s ever been.
But how would they be able to link the two? Din’s name was never used anywhere that it could be paired with that face scan, & his adult face has never been seen by anybody who knows his name. Even Mayfeld has never heard his name, so that can’t be tortured out of him if he gets caught later or something.
– “I wonder though, if now the empire has Mando’s face/identity”
Oh, you better believe it, baby. It’s going to be bounty-bait all over the galaxy in connection to the refinery explosion. Although you’ve reminded me that they have a name to go with that face, and it just remains to be seen if the two events will be connected.
My favorite CYA explanation is that it’s Star Wars Captcha, and it’s literally just making sure you’re not a robot.
“Click on each photo that has an Ewok.”
And the one photo they have has some wookiee’s paw just inside the frame, and you keep clicking it, and it ain’t an Ewok.
Literal spit take, at work, thanks for that.
“Urgh. There’s part of his spear in this frame. Does that count?”
“Only if it’s been recently used to stab another Ewok.”
It should have included Mando having to identify which pictures didn’t include traffic lights.
*sigh* yeah ok I’ll buy into this. This especially makes sense if you consider the anti-droid attitudes you see in the post Clone-Wars era.
My favorite CYA explanation is that it’s Star Wars Captcha, and it’s literally just making sure you’re not a robot.
That’s how you get droids wearing cutoff faces or carrying around severed heads in their tool kits.
Turns out, nobody serves droids.
Check this box, “I am not a droid.”
Or a droid.
Robots like astromechs use their connectors to access data terminals, not faces.
It’s definitely silly nonsense, but my interpretation was that the face scan was analogous to how an ATM records images of its users so that security can refer to it if there’s an issue, rather than a biometric security system.The technology of Star Wars in general makes no sense and never has and has always required a huge amount of suspension of disbelief. I just kind of blinked twice at the nonsensical face scan and then waved it off. I also waved off the fact that Mando uses his new knowledge of Moff Gideon’s whereabouts to immediately send him a threatening message, when, couldn’t Gideon respond by simply changing his position, rendering useless the information Mando just betrayed a central tenet of his ethos to steal? But, it was fun to see Mando making Gideon sweat a little bit, so, whatever.
I think they explained it’s to check and make sure you’re not in their New Republic database.
You can’t access the imperial mainframe unless you have a face
Look, they’re just trying to prevent Braavosi assassins from finding out where Moff Gideon is.
Yeah, I could have made it 10 times better and more believable. All they had to do was have Valin Hess bring them out in front of everyone and commend them for being the only transport to make it. And then the second in command tells Mando to show some respect and remove his helmet. With everyone standing around looking at them, he either removes it or blows the mission and a chance to get his kid.
Maybe they’re literal racists. Like you gotta prove you’re human under there and not, like, a short Wookie. Or three Jawas in a Stormtrooper suit.
It’s well established in the world of Star Wars that the Empire is very racist towards non-humans. This was a belief of the Emperor’s, and his subordinates followed his example.This is likely a way for the Empire to ensure that a non-human isn’t able to access this workstation.
I bought it because one thing I’ve been conditioned by nearly all the movies is the Empire is riddled with hubris and incompetence. The Mandalorian has also done a great job indicating how utterly disposable cannon fodder Stormtroopers are to Imperial officers.Small wonder by the time we get to Rise of Skywalker, Palpatine has resolved to literally do the whole job by himself.
I had more trouble with the access point being in the mess hall like a vintage video game instead of a secure office.
More explanations were needed for that whole face scan thing. It was too important to half assed it.Episodf was still great though
am i supposed to believe a Killer With a Heart of Gold is so vain that he has a tiny pair a scissors to trim his Pimp-Stache?is that just me?does he have a Stache Droid?
My thought was that Din/Mando/whatever knew that his face would be in the imperial database and would give him access for some reason that will be explained down the road. It can’t have just accepted any face. I agree that that would be pretty stupid if it’s the case
This was my read on it. For some reason Mando is in the database with some kind of security clearance. Because anything else would be beyond stupid.Of course, being able to approach this high security planet makes no sense. A spaceship can’t sneak up on an entire planet. I’m enjoying this show, but often it requires suspension of disbelief bordering on brain death.
The idea that a security system only checks facial scans for wanted criminals but let’s anyone else through, just seems like another one of those Agile things where we’ll get some something up and running first ( we already have a database of wanted criminals to check data with, let’s just get it up and running with that! ) and we’ll fully implement the rest later.Otherwise, I feel like whole reams of legal material could be written about how poorly the Star Wars universe is really built.You are looking a essentially a galactic corporation who puts important access consoles at the top of giant spires inside (what I presume ) are endless exhaust port pits without any guard railings. Which isn’t even just an Empire thing…the palace on Naboo seems to be run on some kind of plasma generator that creates some kind of energy beams ACROSS THE DAMN ACCESS HALLWAY.
The SW universe is what happens when you have no safety regulations or ethics committees. You get all kinds of wonderful but dubious technologies.
OHSHA would be pissed.
Agreed. I kept waiting for some previously undisclosed back story, where somehow Mando or someone who looked just like him, a twin perhaps, was part of the empire.
Maybe the imperials are so arrogant they cant conceive that anybody who wasn’t supposed to be at the base would get in so they just want to keep track of who was looking at what file.
Oh I didn’t realize that. I thought the implication was that mando had at one time done a stint for the empire and was maybe more of a hypocrite then he was letting on
It also seemed stupid that Burr’s character wouldn’t simply put on his helmet, walk over there, and then take it back off. My kid kept asking why he wouldn’t put his helmet back on…and now we know it was only so Mando would have to take off his helmet. That kind of stuff seems to happen a lot in this show.
The workstation wasn’t scanning your identity, it was making sure that you were a human and not (a) an alien, or (b) a droid.It’s well established that the Empire (particularly the Emperor) is racist towards non-humans. It fits in that the Emperor would have workstations that would ensure only humans would be able to access their information.
Great recap of an overall good, fun episode, but you failed to mention Mayfeld’s Office Space reference when he tried to rescue Mando from Hess: “C’mon, let’s go fill out those TPS reports, so we can go recharge the power coils!” TPS reports!
Haha yeah caught that too
Imperials would be the type to send managers to cubicles saying “Now did you see the memo?”
I prefer to think that Mayfield saw Office Space, and that it’s now officially part of the SWEU. Peter Gibbons is fucking CANON!And Milton!
And of course, the ring on Gary Cole’s right hand there was a prop from Crusade that he kept after the show was cancelled – so that’s a graduate of EarthForce academy there…
TPS reports? Is that like TK-421 references in other movies? I know they made that Don Cheadle used that when seeling steros in Boogie Nights. I thought I caught it somewhere else as well. In Boogie Nights, Don Cheadle’s Buck Swope desperately tries to up-sell the TK-421 modified stereo. TK-421 is also the designation of the stormtrooper whose armor Luke steals in Star Wars: A New Hope.
It’s the shameful version, I suppose
The face scanning machine should have gave a “PC Load Letter” error
Buzzkill Alert:I understand that Office Space placed that term into pop culture and this very well may be an Office Space reference , but a TPS (test procedure specification) report is a real thing.
Okay yeah but Star Wars is NOT a real thing so that was absolutely a reference to Office Space.
Buzzkill-kill alert: Any pop-culture production that mentions TPS reports as a throwaway line for make-work is aware that it will be read by nearly everyone as a reference to Office Space, and so their choice is to either make the reference or not use that term in that way. In this case, the people behind The Mandalorian chose to make a reference to Office Space. Q.E.D.
Did you get the memo? 😂
Maybe the writer was being polite. I know I wouldn’t bring up something that embarrassing.
When Bill Burr is on the show, we call it Stahh Wars.
YA FAKKIN QUAHHEN
Not Staah Waaahs?
The Prequels suck. I am also old, they are just shit movies.
I watched AOTC today because I hadn’t seen it in forever. I couldn’t bring myself to watch TPM because any way you slice it, it was atrocious. AOTC wasn’t as terrible, and although I didn’t hate it as much as I used to, it definitely wasn’t good. I still yell at C-3PO, “GAH, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!” after he makes those terrible, terrible puns, which is like a thousand times. Awful, just so, so awful.
The prequels were a giant pile of miscalculations. Some caused by Lucas’s own flaws, like his over-excitement for new film technology (“We have CGI now! I’m gonna use it! In every frame!”) and his admitted lack of ability at directing actors. Others more baffling, like re-targeting the whole thing towards young kids, when the original audience was now 20 years older; and at the same time giving a ton of screen time to dull, fake-adult-oriented plot points like the freaking taxation of trade routes. All juxtaposed to the greatest miscalculation of all: that we’d be interested in seeing Darth Vader, one of the most iconic villains in film history, as a happy little kid first, then as a petulant teenage boy (with the casting of both not being given any real consideration).Attack of the Clones specifically is mostly Obi-Wan starring in cinematic history’s blandest, most pointless detective story ever.
Hayden Christensen’s acting was really held back by the dialogue though, I think he was actually pretty well-cast and would have been a lot better with better writing. There are scenes in AOTC where his skill comes through, like on Tatooine where he goes from fear to anger to hate to suffering in two scenes, losing his mother, killing the sandpeople then dealing with the feelings of loss and regret after. I’m excited to see what he does with the Vader role in the Obi-Wan series.
the greatest miscalculation of all: that we’d be interested in seeing Darth Vader, one of the most iconic villains in film history, as a happy little kid first, then as a petulant teenage boyIn better hands, the story of how a happy little kid turns to evil could have been very interesting (and would have been told in a lot less than seven hours…)
Attack of the Clones specifically is mostly Obi-Wan starring in cinematic history’s blandest, most pointless detective story ever.Which makes it extra frustrating, because on rewatching that movie, the concept of an Obi-Wan detective story actually sounds fucking awesome. But then you see what Lucas actually made and it’s somehow ultra-boring
I’m particularly fond of the scene where Obi-Wan goes review old Jedi newspapers at the Jedi library.
Also, doesn’t he figure out just from old newspapers that a secret planet exists? And no one else made that connection from…reading the same papers he just did
They deleted the planet from the maps! Leaving a planet-shaped hole in its place.Also, remember when Obi-Wan retrieved one of Jango Fett’s bullets, and took it to a bartender, who told him, “Oh, I know this stuff. They only make it in that secret planet you’re seeking. I’ll tell you how to get there.”And then Obi-Wan reached the secret planet, where he found the aliens from Close Encounters, and they were like, “Welcome to our secret cloning facility! We’ve been secretly building this secret army in secret for years. Do you want a guided tour?”
“Yes! Yes!! Great story logic there, George, what else, what else?”lol I really don’t remember how any of the pieces fit together, just that they…didn’t. And yeah the guided tour of the cloning facility always seemed odd, like were they expecting him? Shouldn’t he be more concerned how chill they are about this?
Do those aliens even play any role at all in the following events of that film and its sequel?
hell nah
It wasn’t exactly a secret facility or a secret army, though. The planet was removed from the Jedi records so nobody would go looking for it (which is a separate silly issue), but the planet and cloning facility were just out of the way and not widely known. The army, though, was ordered by the Jedi with the approval of the council (as far as they knew, at least) and so they had no reason to not show it off to their new Jedi visitor. That movie had a lot of issues, but I didn’t see the cloning facility tour as one of them.
ah, thanks for clearing that up. I wasn’t going to watch the movie again to find out what the deal was. I forgot it was the jedi (Dooku?) that decided to go through wiht the clone idea to begin with. I always thought the good guys using a cloning farm was creepy af
“Welcome, Master Kenobi. The secret Jedi/Sith that we’re not supposed to talk about, let me guess, he sent you here to this secret planet where we’re secretly building a secret clone army?”
“That’s… why I’m here!”
As far as the Clone tour guide knows, the Jedi asked him to create this Clone army. If a Jedi shows up, he logically assumes that they’re there to check in on this project that they ordered.It *is* a secret, but not to the Jedi, as far as that alien thinks.
hey, i wanted an entire Bonfire of the Vanities sub plot but…..
I love how all of the pro-arguments for the prequels usually boil down to “Well Lucas had a clear vision of the story and he did it his way unlike the “committee driven” sequel trilogy!” like that means it excuses the films being overall boring and having underwritten characters and plot just like the sequel trilogy suffered from. Honestly I think both trilogies can serve as critiques for on one side: how letting one person steamhead a franchise can be a bad thing and the other: how having too many hands in and out of the pot can be a bad thing. And its certainly more nuanced than that but there is still not much fun to rewatch the prequels from a star wars standpoint or a film appreciation standpoint.
One thing that Attack of the Clones has going for it is the music. I think it’s one of Williams’ best scores in his entire catalog. (Obviously not beating out the real biggies like JAWS, ET, Schindler’s List, or the first Star Wars, but damn good.)
Yes, John Williams gave his all in the prequels – people forget that “Duel of the Fates” is from Phantom Menace! Also, the costume design in the prequels definitely holds up and partly even surpasses the originals (Amidala’s outfits in particular are gorgeous, much better than Leia’s; Darth Maul, of course, was also a great character design). Credit where credit’s due, but it goes to show that a movie is nothing without a decent script.
There is a version of Phantom Menace where the racist and annoying alien voices are redubbed with general alien gibberish, and Anakin’s awful quips are cut out entirely. It’s not great, but much more watchable than the original.
It’s amazing how much better the movie is when Jar Jar’s dialog is replaced with alien speak. I mean, still not good, but much better.
I just rewatched AOTC to bring myself back up to speed for watching Clone Wars (which I am just getting to), and it is horribly apparent that there is only one actor in that entire film that isn’t just collecting a check, and that’s Christopher Lee. Jackson, MacGregor, Portman… all just heavily phoning it in. And Christensen is such a terrible actor that I am legitimately surprised they didn’t recast him after a week.
They got Samuel L. Jackson and he is bland and uncharismatic in all three films. Thats kinda impressive in an anarchist sense.
Really! He shows up on screen and starts talking and I’m like… did you forget how to act? This is just bad! It’s like Hayden Christensen infected them all!
“It’s like poetry, they rhyme”
When Windu shows up on Geonosis and tells Dooku “This party’s over.”, for that moment he stopped being Mace Windu and was Samuel L. Jackson.
McGregor’s Obi Wan in TPM is weird and has no presence whatsoever. In AOTC he has a strong presence, but you can tell he hates the fact that he’s acting against tennis balls and not actual people. He’s so much better in ROTS when he gets to play off Anakin for most of the movie.
That’s kind of the point of Obi-Wan in TPM though. Qui-Jon is the protagonist and the main Jedi there, with Obi-Wan as his apprentice. OW is only there to follow QJ and do what he says, and learn from him – he is not supposed to be the driving force of the story in that film. It is QJ’s death in TPM that elevates OW to the QJ role in AotC and RotS.
I enjoy the Obi Wan quest of going to a 1950s diner and looking for evidence of the clone army. It feels like a space film noir and could’ve made for a fun movie if the rest of the film had that same kind of tone. Instead we get “I don’t like sand” and all that other BS.
It’s funny and infuriating how people try to vindicate them as if they were cult movies.
People get mad at The Last Jedi, or disappointed by The Rise of Skywalker, but the prequels were outright offensive. They crapped over the original trilogy in so many ways, turning the entire IP toxic for years (except for Filoni’s little TV turf, which manage to keep the fire alive under the scorched ruins).
Please start getting mad at things in real life instead of fictional stories,otherwise start writing your own!
one word: ewoksdefend it.
The prequels to me are oh that’s pretty, what’s going on? Oh nothing whatever, when’s the next fun costume or alien thing?
They at least had a somewhat coherent plot that carried over from movie to movie. Which is more than can be said about the last 3. I enjoyed them all as someone who can remember seeing ANH in a theater it was cool to see the prequels as new Star Wars on the big screen. It was also cool to see the last 3 with my own kids in the theater. That being said all 6 could have been so much better.
The prequels were far better than the sequels.
I’m the target age for the prequels. They blow. Aneurysm-inducing lines delivered in first-take cadence toward a tennis ball or something… and then the scene is manhandled in post-production, so the actors are always first-take-acting off an imaginary spot that’s about 30-45 degrees wrong from whatever cartoon they’re supposed to be addressing. My favorite is when Samuel L. Jackson decapitates a villain in the second prequel, and it’s supposed to be a big moment… but Jackson played off some cue they abandoned in post, so he had no idea where they were going to CG in the guy he was supposed to be killing (how could he?) and it would have been all but impossible to draw the villain in where Jackson was looking (something that the ancient tablets say would be the director’s job to notice). So it becomes instant accidental comedy.Instead of staring the villain down, or looking purposely in a drastically different direction like he’s some sort of cartoon samurai who just cut a guy in half, Jackson’s just staring off-camera with this lost look in his eyes, at that magic 45-degree-wrong angle. It’s like he suddenly remembered he forgot to pick up dry-cleaning at the very moment this dude’s head flies off and rolls across the ground slightly to his left.
The prequels were more than worth it for 3 reasons.
-Revenge of the Sith gave us a real Vader
-They fostered a new generation of star wars fans that keep making the franchise bigger: This show is 1/4 prequels and animated shows.
-Made Lucas go crazy and sell off Star Wars so we get Mando 🙂
technically I guess Rogue One was a prequel. I loved Rogue One. Would like to see them do more “stand alone” stories like that.
Sure, Indiana Jones, but I was also getting some real A-Team vibes from this episode.Actually, now I want a reboot series of the A-Team starring four women, if only because I want Ming-Na Wen to play Hannibal.
As cool as that sounds, ya know it will get shit on just like the female Ghostbusters. Or anything starring a bunch of strong females kicking cis white men’s asses.
We need Mando to say “I love it when a plan comes together.”
The existence of Bill Burr in the Star Wars universe implies the existence of a Star Wars equivalent of Boston, a hive of scum and villainy like nowhere else in the galaxy.
The rumor that the Obi-Wan show would be filming in Boston probably doesn’t help matters … but it did get the locals excited!
I went to college with 0:17. That’s all I’ve got.
Jesus Christ! I read all the remaining posts in a Boston accent.
Don’t you know about all the deserts of Baahston?!
Does this mean there’s a Star Wars NKOTB?
Us old-school fans still prefer to use the full name, thank you: New Kids On The Bossk!
Now I really want to see a full-on Cheers-style sitcom set in a Star Wars cantina, and I need Ted Danson and Kelsey Grammar to be a part of it
Besides the sonic depth-charge weapon callback I liked that the microphone set-up in the hauler was the same as the one Han uses in the prison control room on the Death Star during the raid to free Leia. Same sub-contractor probably. It’s those tiny little design easter-eggs that make me smile every time I watch Mandalorian.
I thought the same thing about the microphone. “Everything’s fine. We’re fine… How are you?” and “Boring conversation, anyway,” after Han shoots the terminal might be my biggest laugh in the entire original trilogy.
Allegedly ad-libbed by Ford since he thought most of the dialogue Lucas actually wrote was garbage.
Oh 100%. Nothing Lucas ever wrote felt as naturally funny as that line, so I don’t doubt that Ford came up with that on the spot.
I swear I haven’t heard Fennec Shand say anything deeper than some directions and look at things. Ming-Na Wen had more to do in one episode last year than these two. Don’t be wasting one of the few talents from “The Single Guy” to have an eclectic career, Lucasfilm!
Eh, she really didn’t have much to do last year, either. Fett and Shand were utterly superfluous here, which is a shame.
Gonna be especially sad when Fett like for sure dies next episode. The Razor Crest isn’t coming back and Djarin can’t keep riding around in the passenger seat in season 3, so law of cool writing dictates he’s gonna clean the old man stink out of Slave-1 and fly it around for the forseeable future.
Sure, they’ll kill off Boba Fett right after they brought him back.
At the same time, Disney will set fire to a gigantic pile of dollar bills, just for the hell of it.
That would be horrible but never underestimate this show’s ability to pander.
Fun fact about Sorcerer, since this week’s episode paid it a small homage: That’s the movie that came out the week after Star Wars, and got completely vaporized at the box office.
Also seems weird to call it an homage to Sorcerer instead of Wages of Fear.
No kidding. Sorcerer is good (that bridge scene, wow!) but Wages of Fear is an absolute classic.
True, although Sorcerer has become known enough and influential enough in its own right (especially due to the stunning cinematography and action shots) that it can become easier to separate the two. It’s also more interesting to think about how the passages of time and corporate consolidation led to such a moment, since it wasn’t Wages of Fear that has been written up for decades as being seen off by Star Wars.
I think it’s because of Sorcerer’s jungle setting rather than Wages of Fear’s mountain dirt roads, that the comparison was made.
I came here for this and posted it, but two days too late. Tip of the hat, Sir.
William Friedkin’s thoughts about Star Wars and its effects not only on his own movie but the entire film industry are well documented. Spoiler: he is not a fan.
Oddly enough, the reason Star Wars had its iconic run at Grauman’s Chinese in LA was because Sorcerer was delayed a few weeks.
Interesting reading the comments on the face-scanning… I assumed it was revealing a hitherto unknown past connection between Mando and the Empire. But all those saying “it just needed a face” has left me feeling a bit deflated.
I think it’s just that the Empire wants to make sure that non-humans and droids don’t use these workstations to look at Empire information.The Empire is very much a humans-first organization.
That brief table showdown scene gave me Tarantino vibes.
Same. I thought of the bar scene from Inglorious Basterds.
It was honeslty hard not to think that, and this one doesn’t really hold a candle to Inglorious Basterds
Well, that’s one of the best scenes in cinema history, IMO, so kind of a high bar to top
I was waiting for Mando to order 3 drinks using the wrong hand gesture that gave him away as a Mandalorian and not an Imperial fighter
I did like Migs’ explanation that Mando had hearing-loss problems (although that doesn’t explain how Mando heard every thing that officer said before Migs came over), and how he played into it during that table conversation.
For me it crossed the line from homage to ripoff.
What, no mention of the TPS Reports?
“Along with its real-world parallels, this whole episode pays tribute to William Friendkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer”Which itself was a remake of Wages of Fear. How do I turn off these italics?
Assuming you’re not joking, Ctrl + I.
I never joke!Oh my god, you’ve unlocked the secrets of italics, and bold! I wonder what else this thing can do…
You could say it was a… bold move.
So he wears a helmet all the time, but bothers to have a mustache?shrug emoji
People with moustaches should hide their faces.
So he wears a helmet all the time, but bothers to have a mustache?I had a similar thought except it was how does he cut his hair?
He takes off his helmet in private, so that he can eat/drink. It comes up in the first season in the episode where he/Grogu are staying in the village with the lady who liked him.
Well, why does he wear it at all in private? That’s some cult fundamentalist shit right there.
Maybe it’s a comfort thing.Maybe he’s the type of guy who looks to sleep in enclosed spaces, too.Poor guy just wants to be comfortable and look good for himself and people are all over him. Mando life is a rough one. Everyone is a critic.
Maybe it’s a comfort thing.I’m sure you are wrong and it chafes. Ufff, can you imagine razor burn under that thing?
Maybe it’s padded with memory foam and has sweet AC in there.I mean if beskar can stop a lightsaber, it can do anything!
Sweet AC, memory foam and smells like a daisy. A fresh mountain field. Or even better fresh laundary.
Thus the ‘stache.
I think that hit the nail on the head. What Pedro Pascal played very well was Mando’s extreme discomfort and feeling of vulnerability. It wasn’t so much that he was in the lion’s den, in danger of being found out, but that he was helmetless and exposed in front of people. To him it would have to be similar to the average person disrobing for the first time at a nudist camp.
tbf, we don’t really see Mando on his own that often. He might take it off if Grogu wasn’t always around.
To be fair, we’ve only had 2 episodes (S1E1 & 2) where he had scenes where he was completely alone (i.e. Grogu was not with him). And even in those episodes there were not a lot of scenes of him alone where he could remove the helmet without fear of someone coming by and seeing his face.
Knife? Space Flowbee? Who knows.
I wanted Burr to ask him that just before they parted ways.“Hey Mando, jus’ between you an’ me… What’s with the ‘stache?”
For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure that’s as scruffy as Pedro’s face gets – he’s said in interviews before that he just can’t try to grow a beard without it looking patchy. I think Din making the effort to be clean-shaven isn’t realistic (when would he have the time to shave everyday?)
Then again, maybe Din just likes how it looks for himself – he has to look at his own face in the mirror, after all.
They must not have the phrase “hat on a hat” in his reality.
Mando’s facial hair does bring to mind that “Mad Max” episode of Rick and Morty. “Do you guys have the phrase ‘hat on a hat’?”
Have you ever seen the way some women who wear burqas are dressed underneath, or talked to women who wear them about how they dress? There’s often some high fashion going on under there, all of which goes unseen by everybody else out in the world.Sometimes, people make aesthetic choices for themselves, not because of what other people might think about them. shrug emoji redux
Also, it’s not like Mando had some well-groomed mustache. He looks like type of guy whose facial hair grows unevenly, so the mustache hair comes in thicker and quicker, while the beard hair is thinner and takes longer to fill out. He wasn’t completely clean-shaven aside from the mustache, he had stubble all over his face. I just assumed he’s been busy and hasn’t made time to take the helmet off and shave in private.
It’s for him. It’s like when people wear sexy underwear even though nobody’s gonna see it.
No Grogu and Mando’s face. It was a nice bit of diversion but I’m ready to take care of business.
TPS reports, . . ummm yeah. . . .
I enjoy having Boba Fett back. It’s pretty cool. But I gotta say something. If he’s sticking around for next season, can they please redo his armor? It looks like some cheaply painted bad cosplay armor. Maybe its the fact that he’s still wearing a robe underneath or maybe its that the colors look sorta off. But it sticks out like a sore thumb to me every time I see him. I’m not asking for something immaculate like Mando’s armor. Just something that doesn’t look so low budget.
Poor Boba.. his armor was made in the 70s and he’s stuck with that iconic look forever.
One of the best bits from The Force Awakens is that the Millennium Falcon’s onboard computer still has a 1970s-looking graphic display. Because it’s from that era, you know.
At least the other ships also had old school onboard computers even in the newer movies, though.But Mando and the other Not Made in the 70s Mandos? Left poor Boba in the dust.
The helmet looked cleaner this episode, I think the idea is that he cleaned it up after finally getting it back and it looks weird because we’ve never seen Boba wearing pristine armor.
Yeah I noticed how clean his armor looked too. Looks like he took some Star Wars version of the Mr. Clean eraser on that armor.
Get it refitted. A Mando’s gotta show some class.
He did redo it. He painted it between episodes.
I hate seeing this “it looks like cheap cosplay” argument that pops up all through genre entertainment these days. Does the multi-million dollar production costume department do such shoddy work? or maaaaaaaybe, has the standard of cosplay gotten ridiculously good over the years? Exactly how much “better” could it look than some of the more serious efforts out there?
The robe is definitely not a complimentary look, but I think its likely a necessity due to Temura being a bit too large for the Boba Fett armor these days.Though I liked the cleaned up look of the armor this episode.
Reminds me of this:
I loved that during the flight Boba broke out the spray-paint on Slave 1 to get his armor in shape. I would’ve loved a little Fett montage of him breaking out the blue masking tape, digging out the stencils for the graphics, etc.
To be fair, Boba’s armor has been inside a Sarlaac’s stomach. It would be unrealistic if it didn’t look banged up, burned, etc.
When I saw the truck under siege I immediately thought of Mad Max.
So was that planet Bracca at the beginning?
This episode was very hardcore. Espeically in visual detail regarding atrocities. like Jesus Christ lol. I went from clone wars “missi ouch my fingersa!” to “the smell of space-naplam on their space-flesh is something i’ll never forget”.
Filoni’s Clone Wars series is often about the devastating consequences of war on regular people. The prequels were just dumb.
There were some Jar Jar-centric episodes of Clone Wars that were also dumb.
They may not have done it deliberately but I also heard a quick ‘Silence of the Lambs’ shout-out when Cara Dune promises Mayfield not freedom but “a better view”.I agree that Mando unmasking was handled less skillfully than most things are, but it was nice to see Pedro Pascal for a few minutes.There seems to be a delightful pattern of people who don’t like Mando or are neutral towards him becoming allies after they’ve undergone some adventure or trouble with him. I really like this.We’re getting Giancarlo Esposito by the teaspoonful, aren’t we?
“I also heard a quick ‘Silence of the Lambs’ shout-out when Cara Dune promises Mayfield not freedom but ‘a better view’.”Well, Mayfield’s first name is “Migs”.
Burnin Konn , aka BurninCon , aka Fyre Fest. That’s pretty broad, even for Star Wars.
It’s very telling that Hess has no idea who Mayfeld is. Mayfeld, and all the other members of the imperial army, are under the impression that their superiors will ever give a damn. I think that’s what we saw happen towards the end of this episode. And I’m glad they didn’t spell it out.
I love that Mayfeld’s disdain for Hess only grew more and more intense as he realized, “This guy doesn’t remember me and doesn’t give a fuck about me or the 10,000 people we lost.” Burr was legitimately great in that scene.
You put my thoughts into better words than I did.
As far as Migs was concerned, Hess would instantly recognize him, because Hess is someone that he remembers, so he assumes Hess remembers him too. But Hess has had hundreds (?) of Imperial subordinates under him, so to him Migs is just another random face. I liked that Hess never recognized him.
I never thought about Imperials having families before this episode.
What would have been the funniest Mando hairstyle reveal? The Anton Chigur? The Rachel?
Extra short hipster lady bangs.
combover
The Bob Ross.
Leia hair buns.
Great… I couldn’t get Mando with a Rachel out of my head… so I had to fire up PS…
Clara Bow cut.
Alderaanian princess buns.
A man bun!!
The Karen.
Though “This is the Way” would need to be replaced with “I need to speak to your manager.”
The Sean Connery in The Name Of The Rose monk-type look
As a fellow old you ought to know that Friedkin’s film was a lesser adaptation of the very grimy French film Wages Of Fear and that the visual references are in part a reference to that, including the bridge. It follows then that the Imperial Remnant here is also a French reference, to the Foreign Legion, as well as the French military involvement in Viet Nam.I like that the Juggernauts continue the Thunderbirds nods that started with The Clone Wars v.2. Someone in design got their Derek Meddings on there, but hardly a surprise as the whole sequence is Thunderbirds in a Wages Of Fear sandwich.
“Lesser” is arguable, they’re both excellent films with different takes on the same source material (a brilliant novel, which really could use an English-language reprint.)
This episode was…..fine. Surprisingly good character work for Mayfeld and the tense showdown with the Imperial office was good.The rest was merely competent. Felt like they could have used the real estate of this episode better. When you only have 8, it feels like a waste to just throw one away, especially when it could have been part of a two-part finale as Mando confronts Gideon.
The reference to TPS Reports cracked me up. Famuyiwa for the win.
“Yeah, Mando, if you could finish those TPS reports, that would be great. I’ll also need you to come in tomorrow.”
After we had the Seven (two) Samurai episode, the prison break episode and the ‘kill the beast plaguing the town’ episode, I wandered what other action archetypes we’d get. I must admit, I’d have been guessing a long time before I got to Wages of Fear.
Regarding those 10 new Star Wars shows, I’m getting a bad feeling we are reaching a point of over-saturation again.
A lot of these, going by concept alone, sound too similar to each other.
While I’m interested in watching a solo Ahsoka adventure, I don’t think there will be too much general appeal in watching a ‘New Republic’ show (Cara Dune or no Cara Dune).Also, I really liked Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan but I don’t really know what story they are going to do with him that’s not going to feel too much like the Mandalorian show. (and I REALLY don’t want more Christensen as baby Vader)
I’m at least a tiny bit hopeful that Obi-Wan will be what Revenge of the Sith should have been: Vader stomping around the galaxy dutifully murdering Jedi survivors. Maybe Obi-Wan mostly tries and fails to help them escape.
Isn’t the whole point is that Obi-Wan stayed on Tatooine for all that time to keep a low profile and watch over Luke?! (with the brilliant choice of changing his name from Obi-Wan Kenobi to BEN Kenobi)
I’m sure he gets right on that after the events of this show.
So on that Christensen playing Vader again, is he going to use his own voice or are they going to have James Earl Jones do it? If that’s the case why even have Hayden play Vader. Just get a stunt guy.
I’m assuming we’ll have a few scenes of Vader in his meditation chamber without his helmet looking all fucked-up like Christiansen after the battle with Obi-Wan in ROTS. Who WANTS to look at that hideous being? Not me, but that would be the only time it would make sense to have his “normal” voice.Also, A New Hope kind of implies that Obi-Wan had no contact with Vader after Vader “killed” Anakin. Now this show is almost certainly going to go against that, which I’m skeptical about.
“We need to stop on the way and pick up some green paint somewhere! This armour is a mess”“Boba, were’ in a bit of a hurry…”“My ship, my rules!”
Slave-1 is roughly Falcon sized, he’s probably got room for a little airbrush setup in there.
Suddenly when shooting at pirates Stormtroopers can shoot like assassins.
Hey there Super Dave, what do you call the opposite of “plot armor”?
I am an Old who has warmed to the prequels over time, except Attack of the Clones. There’s no warming to that movie.
I keep saying that Attack of the Clones was worse than the Phantom Menace but most people don’t agree
I agree. It took me three or four tries to get all the way through Menace (on DVD), but I never completed Clones. I’m not sure I made it past the snakes in the bedroom scene and the subsequent very stupid chase. After that I gave up for good. And I never watched the last one. Although I did once see the very stupid fight scene at the end.Rise of Skywalker brought it all full circle. In three attempts, I made it about forty or so minutes deep. So JJ continued George’s tradition.It’s like poetry that way.
Attack of the Clones is not great but the last scene, where Anakin and Padme marry with the droids as witnesses, almost redeems it. It’s beautifully underscored with a sweeping, melancholy theme by Williams, Portman looks gorgeous in a lacy, old-fashioned wedding dress and veil, and the money shot is Anakin reaching for her hand with his new prosthetic hand.
I really go back and forth on these a lot. I rewatched both last year around this time and I was expecting to enjoy AOTC more, and I think I still did. I don’t agree that TPM is the abysmal piece of garbage that a lot of people think it is, but the first 1/3rd of TPM, god, is just SO boring and feels like there are no stakes at all. Which, I get it, it’s the “first” chapter of a Star Wars story, but it’s just not good. The last 1/3rd is pretty great though.
This was one of those episodes that started off “OH GOD, NOT ANOTHER FUCKING DETOUR EPISODE” just one episode away from the season finale but then redeemed itself, mostly, by giving Burr’s Mayfield the spotlight.This also surprised me because after episode 6, I honestly wasn’t really looking forward to seeing that character again. Mayfield was fun for ‘The Prisoner’ but didn’t want another goofy hijinks episode. They smartly went in a more serious direction.Going into season 3?, can we please change up the formula a little bit and cut back on the side quests?
If Giancarlo Espocito’s statements are any indication, Season 3 will be even more serialized than the first two seasons.
This episode was fun when looking at it from a “good guys” versus “bad guys” perspective. We should theoritically be rooting for the pirates, but at the same time, Mando is our hero so we’re rooting against the pirates and we’re relieved when the tie fighters show up.
“this whole episode pays tribute to William Friendkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer” which is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 ‘Wages of Fear’.
I never thought about Imperials having families before this episode.That’s literally the entire motivation for Rouge One.
I don’t know which was more unsettling in this episode; not seeing Grogu for the first time since the series began, or witnessing actual Storm Troopers hitting actual targets.
“a Star Wars equivalent of Boston, a hive of scum and villainy like nowhere else in the galaxy.”so…Tatooine 😅😅
The pirate attack was cool, but it felt super-arbitrary, didn’t it? Like, “oh hey, there hasn’t been a fight scene yet this week, so let’s have them run into *throws dart* pirates.”Also, why would pirates want to blow up the valuable resource instead of stealing it?
Going with the themes of the episode, I think he just assumed they were pirates when they were probably actually people fighting to sabotage the Imperial guys who were invading their land/planet.
Which is why I was a little surprised in retrospect that the downtrodden villagers were human and not whatever alien species attacked the truck.
That would have been much better (so much better that I wonder if it happened in an early draft of the script.) But we’re explicitly told these are pirates, not rebels, and they’re not the same species as the natives.
true, could’ve been clearer. Maybe for the imps “rebels” conjures up the New Republic and pirates are just whoever else. I’m sure stuff get’s lost in translation between Galactic Basic or whatever and English.
The pirate attack was cool, but it felt super-arbitrary, didn’t it? Like, “oh hey, there hasn’t been a fight scene yet this week, so let’s have them run into *throws dart* pirates.”Kinda like The Walking Dead. No matter what is going on there is always the obligatory zombie fight.
They were likely natives fight back, with the other Vietnam connections.
It’s only valuable if you have the means to refine it and/or fence it. These are freedom fighters without any outside support. All they have is a pure-destruction offensive strategy to make the mining endeavor non-viable.
Seeing as how that stuff was so volatile that a little jostling would set it off, I didn’t really understand why the pirates were trying to climb aboard to put a thermal detonator right on top of it instead of just chucking a couple up ahead to knock the transport off the road (which would have made it blow). I know why the show had them do it, but it didn’t make much logical sense for the pirates.
This was the best written and directed episode of the entire series with the possible exception of the S1 finale. It had great character moments, thought-provoking takes on the existing lore, two excellent action sequences, and even though I don’t completely buy Mando sending a hologram threat to Moff Gideon , the ending was satisfying as a whole.Where many of the episodes do one or two things really well (The Jedi), this one actually did several things well and was able to balance characters, action, story, and thematic resonance. It was also just well fucking directed with none of the awkward and long expository conversations the series seems to fall prey to. I have to hand it to Bill Burr who improved vastly upon his more one-note character in S1. I think this episode cements the idea that if Din Djarin is not going to be the most interesting character (that’s fine, he’s mostly a cool plot vehicle), then the strength really has to come from the stories he finds himself dropped into–the strength of which is determined by the recurring and guest actors they get and the writers attached to the episode. Rick Famuyiwa gets all the praise for this one
ugh why did they have to bring bill burr back. so god damn annoying. the complete lack of grogu really emphasizes how empty this show is without a cute little green guy to gawk at. all you have left is a bunch of uninteresting smirking characters (cara dune), fan service characters (boba) and a mando who suddenly becomes a bumbling idiot without his helmet.
Pretty unispired dialogue coupled with equally unispired acting: asking Bill Burr to carry clumsy maudlin dialogue simply isn’t fair to the comedian, and the whole “wear a helmet, not wear a helmet” vex only comes across as casual, and, ultimately, distracting – a tone left undefined.Friedkin’s “Sorcerer” opened the same weekend as “Star Wars” – predictably flopped. “Sorcerer” was itself a remake of the superior “Wages of Fear.”— Matty Ballgame
There are 160 comments and I have not read them all, but Sorceror itself was a remake of Wages Of Fear.
but I am an Old who doesn’t care for the prequels.The first time I’ve seen someone give these objectively bad movies an implicit pass because of someone else’s childhood nostalgia. It’s pretty funny being the supposed target age for those movies when they came out and knowing that most people my age also think they’re terrible
Shame about all those Rebel sympathizing “pirates” that Mando had to slaughter.
I feel like the “pirates” line and changing the rebels to unnamed aliens when they were clearly meant to be the same race as the villagers screamed “STUDIO NOTE!”
Has some over nerd in this mess of comments noted that Sorcerer is itself a remake of the vastly superior “The Wages of Fear”?If so, good.
I was hoping for more pushback on the whole, “aren’t they All the Saaaame” false equivalency garbage – I’m going to guess the New Republic doesn’t blow up as many planets out of existence, so you know, there’s That – but then Mayfield’s actions… *Chef’s kiss*!
am i supposed to think Pascal is a good actor?what is his stylistic choice? the school of Non-Realism? Photo Wooden?what was his direction for those dialogue scenes? don’t be too human?and the mustacheam i supposed to believe a Killer With a Heart of Gold is so vain that he has a tiny pair a scissors to trim his Pimp-Stache?is that just me?does he have a Stache Droid?
This was one of my favorite episodes this season. Mainly because of Barr and the writing. Rarely does the question of why Stormtroopers do what they do come up, though it may be a problem going forward. These guys see their friends and comrades are VERY disposable – why do they keep following orders? Is it just a feeling of loyalty to their fellow troopers? How many Mayfields are out there? Maybe this has been explored in the EU (my knowledge of the EU is limited to the Thrawn trilogy and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye) but now it has me wondering. That and now I have two more films to put on my ever-expanding “to watch” list.
Love the series, and the episode. But there’s a major – I don’t know what to call it, a plot hole, or a missed opportunity, I don’t know. Bill Burr and Mando’s transport is attacked; Mando quickly takes a glance and assesses they are being pursued by “pirates” and goes out to do battleThese “pirates” (all non-human) are desperately trying to… plant a bomb on the super valuable fuel Burr and Mando are transporting…. I’m sorry, what? Can we pause for a second here – if they were truly pirates, wouldn’t they be trying to steal the fuel, not blow it up?Let examine the behavior of these “pirates” further. They are equipped with land cruisers, IEDs, and… spears. That’s a whole other issue. But what really bothers me is this – these pirates are near suicidal. They are leaping through mid-air between moving vehicles to fight with spears against an armored opponent armed with a blaster. Despite witnessing numerous of their compatriots die – get shot, crushed under the wheels of the transport, etc – they keep coming. These pirates are pretty goddamn brave, as pirates go, willing to scarifice themselves to… again … blow up the fuel of the transport.I almost forgot to mention – they were also armed with grenades. Why don’t they just throw the grenades at the transport? Why does it need to be planted directly on the fuel? We see several of the “pirates” have these grenades in the last ship coming up the transport; Burr and Mando are saved at the last second by TIE fighters. So… what am I getting at here? These were not pirates. These were freedom fighters. Mando killed like a dozen freedom fighters struggling to overthrow the yoke of the Empire. I get why the show wants us to believe they’re “pirates”, as well as why they’re some nameless alien race and not human or wookies or whatever. But in doing so the show misses an opportunity to go really dark and create a really fascinating grey zone for Mando.
Yes. I think this was implied
I don’t think the show is necessarily doing much to dissuade the idea that they weren’t pirates. They are called pirates by a character, likely to prevent the show from going too dark for younger viewers by outright having Mando kill dozens of freedom fighters.
There was a thematic reason IMO that the armor they swapped into to drive the truck was gray.
It’s gets worse if you think of them as the the gunfighters who the villagers hired in the Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai.“MANDO JUST KILLED YUL BRYNNER!”
I’m pretty sure Bill Burr said they were pirates, not Mando.
Which is a natural assumption to make. You’re carrying something valuable, someone attacking you would naturally be trying to steal that something valuable.
But nope, they’re the good guys, trying to stop the Empire from doing terrible things with an incredibly destructive material. They’re their planet’s version of Luke and co making the trench run on the Death Star.
this also probably helped influence mayfeld’s decision to blow the whole place at the end as well.
The problem is that the show wants to introduce the theme of, “Mando kills a bunch of anti-Empire Rebels to save the kid, that’s kind of fucked up huh?” but they’re also too cowardly to actually risk the audience not liking Mando for half an episode, thus making the rebels all non-human aliens.If they had any confidence in their story, they woulda had the attack come before the pass through village & made all the rebels humans, so we more closely link the cargo attack to the little kid who glares at Mando, (ie, Mando just killed that kid’s dad). As it is, it’s just a wash.
I really like the idea of the attack coming before they ride through the village. And yea, the “trick” of making high casualty groups either non-human (and usually not even an alien race we’re fond of, like wookies) or completely masked anonymous humans is a pet peeve of mine.
Don’t forget that Friendkin’s ‘Sorcerer’ was also a kind of remake of ‘The Wages of Fear’.
I feel like the pirates could have used this guy.
Sorcerer is a remake of 1953s Wages of Fear. Just saying.
Watching Madalorian to Dr. Dre
And you don’t stop
‘cus it’s 187 on an undercover imperial trooper
Again, watching this show with kids is the way to do it. We’ve had actual conversations about violence in the name of duty, why soldiers have to do things that are morally wrong (one of their uncles is in the military), and moral relativism. It’s not Better Call Saul, but for family viewing it often offers just enough classical mythology mixed with modern day moral and political issues that kids have something to think about other than baby yoda and explosions. I like that, and I sort of feel sorry for my peers who are not experiencing the thing that makes Star Wars special – seeing it through a kid’s eyes.
Mayfield to Boba Fett: So is it true that a blind guy knocked you into a sarlaac pit?
The Sorcerer tribute was a great touch – One of the reasons Sorcerer failed at the box office was because it came out the same week as the first Star Wars. A great movie was denied the audience it deserved.
That makes Mando “The Believer” of the titleThe episode also contains a diehard stay-behind officer from the franchise’s Third Reich who soundly believes the defeat of the evil empire has proven its eternal victory… so it’s possible meaning in stories, even on TV, is more complex than connect-the-dots.
Now that was an entertaining piece of TV. I’m watching a lot of Bake Off these days, and this episode made me think of a particularly great cake, one with a host of ingredients that you’d think would be just too much, and yet somehow work beautifully together. If I were Paul Hollywood I’d shake this episode by the hand.
Bill Burr is a delight
Am I only the only who caught the Office Space TPS report joke? I felt like the show was trolling us. Does the Empire really use TPS Reports? Is that a multiverse joke from the Bill Burr using a reference real world office humor? Too bad the Empire commander wasn’t named Lundberg then we could all know they’re just trolling us.
It seems this is the second interesting original character that will not be returning (after Kuiil was killed off). Instead, we get Boba Fett back from the dead, the original Mulan standing around doing nothing, and the woman from Haywire glaring. It’s kinda fun, but it’s not very good.