The Mandalorian - Star Wars webseries from Jon Favreau

[Seto Kaiba]

Hrm... it's not the worst idea Disney's had for the Star Wars brand.

After nine movies of the Jedi order's baggage, the last few of which have been incredibly tedious, the idea of Star Wars taking its setting to some new and different places without handcuffing itself to the agency-less glowstick fetishists definitely has some appeal.  I'm not sure Mando and Grogu are the right vehicle for it, though.

It's different, but it's not that different.  Mando spends most of his time in the franchise's trademark Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy or in remote rural areas populated only by dirt farmers, alien raiders, and space monsters.  They even issued him his own glowstick by the end of the second season and he rubs shoulders with the few remaining Jedi.  For my money, I'd rather see a story that explores more of what the setting has to offer.  It can't be ALL wretched hives and remote farming villages.  Generic space cowboy adventure can be fun and exciting, but IMO it doesn't make for particularly memorable or impactful storytelling. 

If it gets made, I suspect The Mandalorian & Grogu will be an all-right-but-not-great summer action movie... kind of like the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies.  Maybe this is their saving throw for the guaranteed-to-be-controversial Rey movie.

Edited January 12 by Seto Kaiba

[Mog]

Don’t forget that you still have a little Force-wielding maniac in the green kiddo.  So, Jedi stuff will always be lurking on the sides, if not the forefront.

Thrawn’s also lurking as the “big bad,” but not sure how to incorporate him into a Mando and Grogu-focused story.

[Roy Focker]

It's a little too late for a movie.

What else is there to tell? He grew as a character by putting baby Yoda above his cult's code, did what was best for baby Yoda's welfare, got kick out of his cult, got back in his cult, got back with baby Yoda, defeated the big bad twice and returned his people to their home world.

The end.

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

27 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

It's a little too late for a movie.

What else is there to tell? He grew as a character by putting baby Yoda above his cult's code, did what was best for baby Yoda's welfare, got kick out of his cult, got back in his cult, got back with baby Yoda, defeated the big bad twice and returned his people to their home world.

The end.

I can see it now...

"Somehow, Moff Gideon returned..." and then the Empire invades/bombs Mandalore again.

[Mog]

So, it bears repeating:  they need a good story.

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Mog said:

So, it bears repeating:  they need a good story.

They don’t need a good story as much as good writing. Season 3had an ok story, but bad writing and most recent Star Wars like Ahsoka had bad stories and bad writing. They have great actors and the visuals are usually ok for the most part, but if you keep writing Mando as the guy whose always captured and treated like trash and needing a constant rescue, then it’s gonna be another Boba show.

[Thom]

I think there is always going to a Force-wielder in there somewhere. For me anyway, that is intrinsically part of Star Wars.

[derex3592]

I'll prob check it out in the theater. Maybe.

[Seto Kaiba]

30 minutes ago, Thom said:

I think there is always going to a Force-wielder in there somewhere. For me anyway, that is intrinsically part of Star Wars.

Hrm... I don't know about that.  Andor has, thus far, been refreshingly free of any members of the glowstick society and season two is likely to be the same.  Rogue One IMO left it at least debatable whether that one monk was actually a force user or just working with blindness-heightened senses, and Darth Vader only shows up very briefly.

IIRC, Solo: a Star Wars Story was generally free of them as well except for that brief cameo at the end.

IMO, the sequel trilogy and The Mandalorian are fantastic examples of how treating the presence of force users as a narrative obligation can backfire horribly.

[Mog]

For me personally, I think the latest offerings have lack some psychological/emotional punch.  Or the creative team have pulled back on their punches for my personal tastes.

With the Obi series, Obi and Vader should have been throwing verbal nukes at each other (Vader to break Obi completely.  Obi to bring back the good in Anakin).  The big fight (with more rocks) didn’t do much for me.  

In Ahsoka, both Ahsoka and Sabine are too good at hiding their emotions.  Just because they’re Jedi now doesn’t mean they’re at peace and all their inner conflicts and emotional baggage are magically resolved.  We’ve gotten bits and some resolution with Ahsoka, but nothing yet with Sabine.

Bringing it back to Mando, there’s potential for a story there (I got an idea brewing).  But would it work for a theatrical release?  Not sure.

 

[azrael]

I’m against a movie. As mentioned, there’s been too much baggage built up over the past 3 seasons to summarize that for a movie and a TV series shouldn’t be a requirement to watch a movie. Other issues as mentioned above are also a concern. 

[Thom]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Hrm... I don't know about that.  Andor has, thus far, been refreshingly free of any members of the glowstick society and season two is likely to be the same.  Rogue One IMO left it at least debatable whether that one monk was actually a force user or just working with blindness-heightened senses, and Darth Vader only shows up very briefly.

IIRC, Solo: a Star Wars Story was generally free of them as well except for that brief cameo at the end.

IMO, the sequel trilogy and The Mandalorian are fantastic examples of how treating the presence of force users as a narrative obligation can backfire horribly.

Yeah, it's just my own personal preference. To me, Star Wars and the Force go hand in hand.

[Big s]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Hrm... I don't know about that.  Andor has, thus far, been refreshingly free of any members of the glowstick society and season two is likely to be the same.  Rogue One IMO left it at least debatable whether that one monk was actually a force user or just working with blindness-heightened senses, and Darth Vader only shows up very briefly.

As far as Andor and the glowsticks, there was a dude flying a ship with giant glowsticks that did an equivalent same of several Jedi. And I didn’t know there ever was a debate about the monk in Rogue One at all.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, azrael said:

I’m against a movie. As mentioned, there’s been too much baggage built up over the past 3 seasons to summarize that for a movie and a TV series shouldn’t be a requirement to watch a movie. Other issues as mentioned above are also a concern. 

Isn't it kind of the norm for a lot of properties, though?  

I mean, Star Trek has had what... ten movies and counting that follow on from the events of a TV series and there are supposedly two more in development.  Doctor Who, Firefly, The X-Files, the 60's Batman series, a whole mess of kid's shows like Power Rangers, Pokemon, Transformers, etc.  Most, if not all, wouldn't make a lick of sense if you weren't following the TV series that spawned 'em beforehand.

 

2 hours ago, Big s said:

As far as Andor and the glowsticks, there was a dude flying a ship with giant glowsticks that did an equivalent same of several Jedi. And I didn’t know there ever was a debate about the monk in Rogue One at all.

A fair point, and well made... though my issue is less with the glowsticks themselves than the spacky twits who are usually found waving them about and making proclamations about Destiny and The Chosen One.  Call me picky if you like, but to me there are few surer ways to make a character boring than establishing that they are almost literally being railroaded by Fate.  It makes it less The Hero's Journey and more The MacGuffin's Sightseeing Tour.

To me, a character like Mando or Cassian Andor is far more interesting because their choices actually matter.  They're not some smug super who can see the future and solo a small army.  They're ordinary people - well equipped sometimes but ordinary nevertheless - who can and do misjudge situations and screw up in potentially fatal ways.  They're able to occupy moral shades of gray instead of the world of black-and-white moral absolutes the Jedi and Sith exist in. 

As a result, I'm vastly more interested in something like a Mandalorian movie than I could ever be for something like the semi-recently announced Rey movie about founding a new Jedi order.

[electric indigo]

I would have loved a movie when it still had a chance to become "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly IN SPACE", but with all the story already told in the series, I don't see how it could be anything other than more of the same.

The entropy continues...

[Seto Kaiba]

Finally getting back to this one after a couple months off.

Watched the first couple episodes of The Mandalorian season three last night, and I'm still having a pretty good time with it despite not being entirely conversant in the lore behind the Mandos.  The visual effects are as stunning as ever, but I'm a bit disappointed how quickly Din managed to deal with last season's big talking point of being excommunicated from his little fundamentalist cult.

Spoiler

Din and Bo-Katan get in and out of the Living Waters beneath the Mines of Mandalore so quickly and so easily at the start of the season that it begs the question why every other Mandalorian in the galaxy seems to believe that the planet is an uninhabitable toxic rock and that the mines are collapsed and impassible.  

I'm hoping a more cogent explanation of that point comes along later.

Many jokes were had in my watch group that the Mythosaur that is apparently central to their symbology is...

Spoiler

... really more of a Factosaur after Bo-Katan sees one in the Living Waters.

The day in the life segment for that one Imperial scientist from season one was a nice touch too.  It makes the galaxy feel much more lived in when we get to see things besides the crystal spires of the elite and the wretched hives of scum and villainy (TM).  The spacecraft boneyard is a magnificent VFX sequence and it's weirdly charming to see something like an in-universe tourist trap when they visit the peak of the tallest mountain on Coruscant and it's just... a rock sticking out of the floor of a plaza.

Grogu's inclusion still feels kinda forced and unnecessary, but he's not really getting in the way of the plot yet.  It just feels like we get periodic reminders that he's still around because they want to sell more dolls.

[sh9000]

The Mandalorian & Grogu is set to release in theaters on 5/22/26.

[Bolt]

Hmm. So the movie will be May 2026. 

[Seto Kaiba]

I know I'm terribly late to the party as I'm just finishing up season three... but really, what's left to tell story-wise for the movie?

[jvmacross]

24 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I know I'm terribly late to the party as I'm just finishing up season three... but really, what's left to tell story-wise for the movie?

Don't you want to know how the Mandoverse ultimately leads to the Sequel Trilogy? 

[Mog]

Sabine teaching Grogu how to be a Mando-Jedi? 😜

Thrawn plotting and scheming with Nevarro (Carl Weathers’ planet) in the middle of it all?

There are some potential story ideas they could build up.  But the question is how well will it work for a theatrical release. 🤷🏽‍♂️

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Don't you want to know how the Mandoverse ultimately leads to the Sequel Trilogy? 

I'd say The Mandalorian season three already did a pretty decent job of laying the groundwork there.

They already had two or three episodes in there devoted to showing just how incredibly dysfunctional and doomed the New Republic already was just a few years after Return of the Jedi.  They don't need to hammer that one home any further.

 

3 minutes ago, Mog said:

Sabine teaching Grogu how to be a Mando-Jedi? 😜

Thrawn plotting and scheming with Nevarro (Carl Weathers’ planet) in the middle of it all?

There are some potential story ideas they could build up.  But the question is how well will it work for a theatrical release. 🤷🏽‍♂️

It feels to me like they were already reaching pretty hard bringing Gideon back for a third go.

[Bolt]

Season 3 ended well enough we don't need a movie. But there were certainly some threads that could be tugged on. And besides, Grogu is important enough, that one is left to wonder what his next story arc will be. 
(Before he shows up in the Rey movie )

[shazam]

The Mandalorian finished at the end of season 2 for me. The Mandalorian season 3 does not exist. There won't be a Mandalorian movie. 😞

What am I looking at here? 

Don't forget to consume product and get excited for next product.

 

 

Edited April 10 by shazam

[Thom]

15 hours ago, shazam said:

...

Don't forget to consume product and get excited for next product.

 

Can't wait! I just love consuming new product!

As for a new movie, surely the Mando Cannot Rest! Sure, there were some low points is S3, and I'm sure S2 and S1 as well, but that was mostly when they were wandering off plot. A movie should have a far tighter story line without so much time to fill. I'm hoping it'll shine with what made the Mandalorian so good.

[Big s]

The question isn’t whether The Mandalorian has anywhere story wise to go, but if Disney can give him a story worth watching. I could easily watch a bunch of episodes of him doing the whole bounty hunter thing to earn cash or rescuing a random village from whatever. I just don’t want a story that’s written badly and I really don’t want to waste my time seeing him constantly getting captured and needing rescue constantly.

[electric indigo]

Just adapt any of Clint Eastwood's Spaghetti Western movies already.

[Roy Focker]

Only place they could take his story is somewhere really dark. Kill off baby Yoda and goes off of a murderous revenge killing spree. Using all of his suits weapon inventive ways.

But I don't think Disney would do that.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 4/10/2024 at 6:28 PM, Big s said:

The question isn’t whether The Mandalorian has anywhere story wise to go, but if Disney can give him a story worth watching.

... but those are two ways of saying the exact same thing, though.  You just said "No, except yes".

For a story to work, it has to have events proceeding towards a conclusion.  A sense of direction.  It may be a figurative, rather than literal, destination but the story has to be going somewhere in order to progress in any way.

The Mandalorian's third season ties off almost every plot thread in Din's story.  He's been redeemed in the eyes of his people, he's brought the Mandalorians together and back to Mandalore, he's defeated his people's nemesis for the last time.  What's left for him to do that isn't just starting over?

[Bolt]

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Mandalorian's third season ties off almost every plot thread in Din's story.  He's been redeemed in the eyes of his people, he's brought the Mandalorians together and back to Mandalore, he's defeated his people's nemesis for the last time.  What's left for him to do that isn't just starting over?

The fate of Grogu ,and the Mandalorians in general , is the main drive for the story to continue. Both are too powerful and too important to be left out of what's to come..

[Mog]

Protecting “home” and family.

[Big s]

15 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... but those are two ways of saying the exact same thing, though.  You just said "No, except yes".

For a story to work, it has to have events proceeding towards a conclusion.  A sense of direction.  It may be a figurative, rather than literal, destination but the story has to be going somewhere in order to progress in any way.

The Mandalorian's third season ties off almost every plot thread in Din's story.  He's been redeemed in the eyes of his people, he's brought the Mandalorians together and back to Mandalore, he's defeated his people's nemesis for the last time.  What's left for him to do that isn't just starting over?

As far as a movie, it needs a bit more focus, if it were a series not so much. Disney unfortunately isn’t great at story telling these days, so I don’t expect much out of them. But there’s plenty of room for more Din’n Grogu. They didn’t die and they didn’t seem like the types to just sit back and do nothing just because certain goals were met.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

As far as a movie, it needs a bit more focus, if it were a series not so much. Disney unfortunately isn’t great at story telling these days, so I don’t expect much out of them. But there’s plenty of room for more Din’n Grogu. They didn’t die and they didn’t seem like the types to just sit back and do nothing just because certain goals were met.

It's not a question of whether there's "room" for more... but a question of whether it makes sense for there to be more.

The Mandalorian is a serialized story, not an episodic one.  It's a single story rather than a loose collection of unrelated stories featuring the same characters.  It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it flows from beginning to end based on its protagonist's interactions with the plot's central conflict.  A story is all about the protagonist having a goal that they have to meet.  Just because a character is still alive after their story ended doesn't mean there are more stories about those characters that are worth telling.

(That point is something on prominent display in Macross, for example.  Rather than drag the same characters back and force them into new stories after their own has reached a satisfying conclusion, it lets them go and moves on to tell new stories with new characters.  We've had no shortage of examples lately that show exactly what a bad idea it is to try and force the return of characters whose stories are over... Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Star Trek: Picard, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc.)

The story of Din Djarin reached what is unmistakably a conclusion at the end of season three.  He's always been driven by The Quest, but he's fresh out of those.  He completed his quest to capture the child for the bounty, his quest to deliver the child back to its people, his quest to rescue the child from Moff Gideon, his quest to restore his honor after having dishonored himself on his quest to rescue the child, and then his quest to reunite his people and restore his people to their homeworld.  What's left?  

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

What's left?  

His quest to raise a child to be self sufficient. There’s still plenty of room for more, I’m not saying it needs to be done or that it will be good to watch. Macross is a good example as you mentioned about ending a story, but there’s plenty of anime that just don’t quit and carry on like Dragon Ball for example that take a child and he grows into adulthood has his own children and even grandchildren. Is Dragon Ball a great anime, that depends on who you ask. Starwars for years before the sequels tried to continue Luke’s story in book and comic form and eventually movie form. I never read any of it other than maybe a comic or two when I was younger, but it definitely happens for better or most of the time worse. 
It would take a good writing team to make any further stories with Din’n Grogu work and that’s probably not what Disney hired, but they definitely have other things and further adventures that are possible.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 minutes ago, Big s said:

His quest to raise a child to be self sufficient.

Putting aside the fact that that's not exactly movie-worthy...

We're talking about a child who is more than 50 years old and is still essentially a toddler.  The kid's unlikely to even hit adolescence in Din Djarin's lifetime.

 

16 minutes ago, Big s said:

There’s still plenty of room for more, I’m not saying it needs to be done or that it will be good to watch. Macross is a good example as you mentioned about ending a story, but there’s plenty of anime that just don’t quit and carry on like Dragon Ball for example that take a child and he grows into adulthood has his own children and even grandchildren. Is Dragon Ball a great anime, that depends on who you ask.

Remember a few posts back when I mentioned how there's really nothing left for Din Djarin and Grogu to do that wouldn't just be starting over?  You just provided an example of my point.

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are effectively separate stories.  Kid Goku's adventures come to an end with the defeat of the second Piccolo and running off with Chi-Chi.  That's the end of the conflict driving the story.  Dragon Ball Z's story picks up five years later with a completely different conflict and a completely different context for basically everything the series had established up to that point.  It wasn't a segue, it was a hard stop and a complete change of direction.

Season three's ending was the payoff for all the buildup we've had in the three seasons of the TV series.  The hero's quest is over.  It's either gotta be a whole new quest, with new stakes, or it's gonna be something unnecessary that just feels tacked on... like Solo: a Star Wars Story.  

 

16 minutes ago, Big s said:

Starwars for years before the sequels tried to continue Luke’s story in book and comic form and eventually movie form. I never read any of it other than maybe a comic or two when I was younger, but it definitely happens for better or most of the time worse. 

That was the problem.  The story had what was every definitely an ending - and a happy one at that - and then because they couldn't bring themselves to make a clean break and develop new characters the Original Trilogy's cast had their happy ending invalidated in the name of unnecessary continuations.  The franchise ground them down into miserable broken stubs of the characters they once were.  Then Disney bought the franchise and threw all of that out... but only so they could speedrun that sh*t themselves and give us a very similar pack of miserable burnouts in the sequel trilogy.

Sometimes... the best thing an author can do to their story is end it.  

Din Djarin's story came to a natural and satisfying end in The Mandalorian season three.  There's nothing left in the story that merits a movie to resolve.