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Let's hope that bounty hunter Mando never needs to have bed to sleep in while on journeys, an armoury to store weapons in, a space for keeping cargo (or, y'know... bounties), a cryogenic freezer, or a toilet - because his Naboo Starfighter certainly doesn't have any of those!

But we got to see Anakin's ship, and that random pole from the trash compactor scene (!) and I REMEMBER THOSE

Also lucky Mando melted down that spear (beskar isn't for weapons (except the whistling birds which the very same character made out of beskar in Mando S1...)) because he'd have to strap it to the outside of the ship!

On the topic of Boba and filling gaps, did you know they recently had a ~dozen (or more, I forget how long it took) issue big crossover event in the comics of Boba trying to deliver frozen Han to Jabba?

 LordofHats wrote:
Depends on what blanks we're talking about. Knowing Boba was hanging out with Tuskans wasn't much of a blank. We already knew that, and as interesting as seeing what it was like was it didn't really need as much screen time as it did. I daresay, that blank was massively overfilled and took desperately needed time away from other blanks that could have used a bit more context!

That and I still find the apparent desire to remake whole scenes from Dances with Wolves kind of bizarre >.>

In my opinion Boba and the Tuskens was fine and they should have had another episode or two of crime lord Boba to flesh things out in the present day.

If you leave out execution, his time with the Tuskens provided the motivation for his actions in the present, as somewhat explained in the blink or you miss it campfire conversation with Fennec.

1. He wasn't thrilled that crime lords got rich while/by getting his kind (bounty hunters) killed.
2. He lost basically everything in the wake of Jabba's death but managed to secure himself a new life with the Tuskens, and was willing to move on from bounty hunting.
3. He lost his life with the Tuskens because of crime lords getting rich while/by getting his kind (Tusken tribe) killed.
4. With nowhere else to go he got the idea that he could be a better crime lord.

The thing the show failed at is to establish his vision for point 4 with anything more than hints and the merest suggestion. He's not trying to be a better crime lord by being better at crime but by establishing an order that sees arbitrary violence curtailed because he experienced first hand what straight crime lording entails, and is not on board with it. It doesn't help that he frames it as taking over as a crime lord, rather than from a crime lord, which leads to a jarring depiction of the crime lord who isn't good at his job. The whole deal with ruling through respect rather than fear and seeing the people of Mos Espa as his people makes sense if he actually works towards reestablishing law and order, albeit in an authoritarian way, and to take out crime syndicates that do nothing but destroy lives for their own gain. He collects tribute nominally as a protection racket, but in effect he's just collecting taxes to finance his reign and by extension the protection of his taxpayers.

It's all in the show, but the present day story doesn't take the time to actually show his motivation. Instead it "relies" on hints and suggestion alone. I put that in quotes because since the framework seems mostly as an excuse for the action scenes and it doesn't seem like establishing it was given much priority when it comes to allotting screen time to it. Or, really, any at all, in spite of the hints in the show suggesting that somebody actually thought Boba's motivation through.

I don't think cutting short his screen time with the Tuskens would improve anything because it is the only time when Boba actually gets to develop. In my opinion present day Boba's development should have been brought up to that level. In this regard they could have just made Book of Boba an eight episode show/season like Mandalorian. They could have packed a lot of stuff in another thirty to fifty minutes without dropping anything from the Mandalorian detour they so obviously wanted to show.

I guess I went into execution a little after all...

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Let's hope that bounty hunter Mando never needs to have bed to sleep in while on journeys, an armoury to store weapons in, a space for keeping cargo (or, y'know... bounties), a cryogenic freezer, or a toilet - because his Naboo Starfighter certainly doesn't have any of those!

But we got to see Anakin's ship, and that random pole from the trash compactor scene (!) and I REMEMBER THOSE

Also lucky Mando melted down that spear (beskar isn't for weapons (except the whistling birds which the very same character made out of beskar in Mando S1...)) because he'd have to strap it to the outside of the ship!

I’m not sure the Whistling Birds themselves are Beskar. The launcher? Absolutely. But given how often we see him using them, and how little he’s visited The Armourer, it’s hard to conceive the darts/rockets/whatever being Beskar as well.

The whole reason for the nit-picking of the show is explicitly because it's so bad IMO. The pacing is glacially slow at the start, Fett comes across as largely clueless and waits for the plot to happen to him and the only redeeming features of the series were 2 episodes that may as well be Mando season 2.9. Even those have weird issues like the impracticalities of a bounty hunter in a single-seat starfighter and the whole "Mando goes to see Grogu but doesn't see him" element of the Jedi episode. Then the final episode features even more bad decisions and terrible writing/editing with the weirdly inaccurate droids, stupid plan and bizarre decisions.

Better shows get a pass when they do something a little bit stupid or weird. Firstly, by definition, they don't do that very often. Secondly, they've often generated enough goodwill and faith in the writing that you can expect things you don't quite understand to be paid off later. BoBF doesn't get either of those benefits. Nonsensical things happen for no reason and continue to happen time after time. It's possible to write a spectacular showpiece finale and still maintain some sense of believability and consistency of narrative and character.

Speaking of believability, I do have to pick chaosxomega up on their comment about not allowing for suspension of disbelief, mainly because it annoys me every time people try to use this as an excuse not to criticise speculative fiction. Suspension of disbelief is not a get out of jail free card to do whatever the hell you want just because you're writing a sci-fi TV show. It merely refers to the requirement to accept certain conceits within the setting, such as the idea that the Force exists in SW, or FTL travel is possible in BSG. The exact reasons why these things exist don't matter, but once established it's important that the writers follow their own rules, otherwise it really does make it look like you're making it up as you go. It's not an excuse for characters (or writers) making stupid decisions.

Slipspace wrote:
The whole reason for the nit-picking of the show is explicitly because it's so bad IMO.

I've observed that just about any show can be nitpicked to death.

The thing is that indeed people tend to forgive a lot when a show is good. When it's bad and they're bored, people are more likely to start picking at things because they've been given nothing else to do while sitting down and watching. Some people are just aholes, but more often than not if people are nitpicking something to death it's because it's not very good in their eyes.

Slipspace wrote:
.

Speaking of believability, I do have to pick chaosxomega up on their comment about not allowing for suspension of disbelief, mainly because it annoys me every time people try to use this as an excuse not to criticise speculative fiction. Suspension of disbelief is not a get out of jail free card to do whatever the hell you want just because you're writing a sci-fi TV show. It merely refers to the requirement to accept certain conceits within the setting, such as the idea that the Force exists in SW, or FTL travel is possible in BSG. The exact reasons why these things exist don't matter, but once established it's important that the writers follow their own rules, otherwise it really does make it look like you're making it up as you go. It's not an excuse for characters (or writers) making stupid decisions.

It is one thing to ask that I suspend my disbelief, it is quite another to ask me to hang it by the neck until dead. This show often asks the latter

 LordofHats wrote:

That and I still find the apparent desire to remake whole scenes from Dances with Wolves kind of bizarre

But not that they used the Rancor to remake whole scenes from King Kong?

You've got people in this thread mocking the franchise for the fact that this idea doesn't sound that outlandish. That it's not shocking as an idea isn't really related to the opinion that such a thing is completely unnecessary. About as unnecessary as spending a whole 4 part tie in comic on something that probably only compromised a fifteen to thirty-minute conversation. They could totally do it in a 10-12 panel web comic and it would be much better!

Its literally the point of framing the narrative this way. Its very intentional and deliberately crafted to mislead the audience into believing something, with the intent to later subvert that belief by revealing an unexpected twist. The degree to how obvious it is in this one specific scene is astounding. The insistence by some here that its plane jane straightforward sequence of events with no other explanation, and that any further exploration of what occurred between Grogu and Luke, etc. would be unnecessary gap-filling is presupposing a lot in terms of authorial intent.

Next, this show isn't premised on filling in blanks. It was premised on seeing what happened next after Boba killed Bib Fortuna and sat in the chair at the end of Mandos post credit scene.

You mean, literally the blank of "where does he go to from here"? Which is premised on the blank of "why did mando kill Fortuna and take over Jabbas old operation"? Which is in turn premised on the blank of "what events in Bobas back story would motivate him to make this move instead of continuing on as a gun for hire?" Which is itself premised on the blank of "How did he survive the saarlac anyway?". The entire show exists to tell a story that only exists because there was a big multi-year blank between "Boba falls into the Sarl[/u]aac pit and presumably dies" and "Boba is suddenly alive but without his armor, helps out Mando in exchange for getting his armor back, and ends off sitting on Jabbas throne".

Finally, the fact that I know they are going to cover the event in detail is the thing I am mocking them, and the fandom, for. Again, it's the WORST thing about SW. And the people who fee[/u]d it by eating up every little shred of unneeded dross backstory are mostly to blame. Them and Dave Filoni.

Then stop watching and consuming Star Wars media. Clearly it isn't for you if you dislike the people making it and the manner in which it is being written and produced. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Its probably not going to ever change to your liking, but its definitely not going to change if you continue to feed it by watching/consuming it. If you legitimately dislike it as much as you claim to, then theres no sense in continuing to engage with it and the fandom, as it seems to make you fairly miserable (or, you're just a miserable person by nature, either/or).

But beyond that, to state that this would be "unneeded dross backstory" vs a deliberately crafted plot twist to be explored and expanded utimepon at a future is a pretty big miss in terms of understanding how storytelling works (and goes back to my presupposition statement previously). If narrative was always as straightforward as you insist upon it being, then there would never be any sort of plot twist and entire genres of film and literature would cease to exist.

Geifer 802684 11312016 a416a6541a6c9d2f1e wrote:

In my opinion Boba and the Tuskens was fine and they should have had another episode or two of crime lord Boba to flesh things out in the present day.

If you leave out execution, his time with the Tuskens provided the motivation for his actions in the present, as somewhat explained in the blink or you miss it campfire conversation with Fennec.

1. He wasn't thrilled that crime lords got rich while/by getting his kind (bounty hunters) killed.
2. He lost basically everything in the wake of Jabba's death but managed to secure himself a new life with the Tuskens, and was willing to move on from bounty hunting.
3. He lost his life with the Tuskens because of crime lords getting rich while/by getting his kind (Tusken tribe) killed.
4. With nowhere else to go he got the idea that he could be a better crime lord.

The thing the show failed at is to establish his vision for point 4 with anything more than hints and the merest suggestion. He's not trying to be a better crime lord by being better at crime but by establishing an order that sees arbitrary violence curtailed because he experienced first hand what straight crime lording entails, and is not on board with it. It doesn't help that he frames it as taking over as a crime lord, rather than from a crime lord, which leads to a jarring depiction of the crime lord who isn't good at his job. The whole deal with ruling through respect rather than fear and seeing the people of Mos Espa as his people makes sense if he actually works towards reestablishing law and order, albeit in an authoritarian way, and to take out crime syndicates that do nothing but destroy lives for their own gain. He collects tribute nominally as a protection racket, but in effect he's just collecting taxes to finance his reign and by extension the protection of his taxpayers.
It's all in the show, but the present day story doesn't take the time to actually show his motivation. Instead it "relies" on hints and suggestion alone. I put that in quotes because since the framework seems mostly as an excuse for the action scenes and it doesn't seem like establishing it was given much priority when it comes to allotting screen time to it. Or, really, any at all, in spite of the hints in the show suggesting that somebody actually thought Boba's motivation through.

I don't think cutting short his screen time with the Tuskens would improve anything because it is the only time when Boba actually gets to develop. In my opinion present day Boba's development should have been brought up to that level. In this regard they could have just made Book of Boba an eight episode show/season like Mandalorian. They could have packed a lot of stuff in another thirty to fifty minutes without dropping anything from the Mandalorian detour they so obviously wanted to show.

I guess I went into execution a little after all...

This guy gets it.

The whole reason for the nit-picking of the show is explicitly because it's so bad IMO.

Underlined the important bit. I would argue that your opinion of the show is that its bad because you are nit-picking. I and everyone else I know in the real world really loved and enjoyed the show and think its good - we didn't spend hours sitting around dissecting every moment and scene and line of dialogue and looking for plot holes and logical gaps.

mainly because it annoys me every time people try to use this as an excuse not to criticise speculative fiction

Star Wars isn't speculative fiction, you would do well to remember that. Speculative fiction is a very specific genre, which Star Wars most definitely is not.

chaos0xomega wrote:

The whole reason for the nit-picking of the show is explicitly because it's so bad IMO.

Underlined the important bit. I would argue that your opinion of the show is that its bad because you are nit-picking. I and everyone else I know in the real world really loved and enjoyed the show and think its good - we didn't spend hours sitting around dissecting every moment and scene and line of dialogue and looking for plot holes and logical gaps.

No, my opinion is the show is bad because it's poorly paced, lacks narrative drive and coherence, has a central character that doesn't seem to have any real purpose and is generally poorly written. I know quite a few people in the real world who's opinions echo the general feel here of BoBF being a bad show but trading anecdotes doesn't really get us anywhere. As I explained in the post you took that quote from, better shows tend to get more leeway when it comes to things like this. When a show is already making me question whether to keep watching it, it's simply more likely I'll find more to take issue with and that seems to hold true for a large number of people here.

chaos0xomega wrote:

mainly because it annoys me every time people try to use this as an excuse not to criticise speculative fiction

Star Wars isn't speculative fiction, you would do well to remember that. Speculative fiction is a very specific genre, which Star Wars most definitely is not.

I love the irony of how in a long post decrying nit-picking you pull out this one poorly worded phrase to highlight rather than engaging with the substance of the argument.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Let's hope that bounty hunter Mando never needs to have bed to sleep in while on journeys, an armoury to store weapons in, a space for keeping cargo (or, y'know... bounties), a cryogenic freezer, or a toilet - because his Naboo Starfighter certainly doesn't have any of those!

But we got to see Anakin's ship, and that random pole from the trash compactor scene (!) and I REMEMBER THOSE

Also lucky Mando melted down that spear (beskar isn't for weapons (except the whistling birds which the very same character made out of beskar in Mando S1...)) because he'd have to strap it to the outside of the ship!

I’m not sure the Whistling Birds themselves are Beskar. The launcher? Absolutely. But given how often we see him using them, and how little he’s visited The Armourer, it’s hard to conceive the darts/rockets/whatever being Beskar as well.

There's no benefit in that, however. If the projectiles are Beskar, they pierce armor better, because magic metal. If the launcher is Beskar and the projectiles are not then... feth all. It doesn't matter. Its like making a gun magazine (and action) out of depleted uranium, but it holds iron shot projectiles.


-----
So, I was thinking about Mando Season 2.5 here (and the end of Season 2), and it occurs to me that the Mando Cult of Mando Ur-Culture did a shockingly bad job of teaching Din (and by extension, other foundlings) the history and culture of the Mandolorians. I get that part of it is simply the convenience of the other characters having someone to explain things to (for the benefit of the audience); but he knew nothing absolutely nothing about his culture's equivalent of Excalibur, the fact that he lived with the heir of Merlin and/or Arthur and the woman he met in a bar was effectively Lancelot or Mordred (depending on the version of the story) who personally brought Camelot to ruin and wanted that mystical sword back.

This seems like a really bad brainwashing job by the Cult of the One True Way.
Or the directors making it up as they go along, but given how explicitly they introduced the major characters in the fall of Camelot, the holy relic itself, and the expulsion of the main character from the cult, it kind of has to be deliberate. But its jarring that he knows... none of that. And a fair chunk happened around the same time he was orphaned and rescued and indoctrinated.

 AduroT wrote:
On the topic of Boba and filling gaps, did you know they recently had a ~dozen (or more, I forget how long it took) issue big crossover event in the comics of Boba trying to deliver frozen Han to Jabba?

Yeah. And how many characters did he Starwars street along the way? Completely wasted terrible waste. Just more evidence of how broken the whole thing is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Geifer wrote:

I don't think cutting short his screen time with the Tuskens would improve anything because it is the only time when Boba actually gets to develop. In my opinion present day Boba's development should have been brought up to that level. In this regard they could have just made Book of Boba an eight episode show/season like Mandalorian. They could have packed a lot of stuff in another thirty to fifty minutes without dropping anything from the Mandalorian detour they so obviously wanted to show.

I guess I went into execution a little after all...

What you are not getting is that if they cut out all that time with the Tuskens we could have gotten that development with him in the present. You literally lost about 2 hours of story telling to it. In the modern day you could have had a 10 minute conversation between Fennec and Fett instead of the "blink and you miss it" bit. He could have really hammered home his losses that we have already seen. Talked about his struggles in the desert. All the stuff with the Tuskens could have been handled in a a bit of dialog just like "When I met your father he was a great pilot." Was that background improved by seeing little Anny accidentally blow up a space station? Boba could have said "When Jabba's barge was destroyed and I fell into the Sarlac I barely survived. I lost my armor. I was taken captive by the Tusken's. I Survived. I learned. I grew. And when I saw more people killed by the gangs I thought of a better way. I am tired of seeing our kind die for their greed. It's time they answered to us."

2 hours. 2 freakin hours could have been given back to the current day actual story of the show where Fett could have actually developed. The antagonists could have actually developed. And Bobas actual plans could have been explained at all. The development they gave us was misused and misplaced.

I'd counter that by asking what about the present day story that we did get makes you think any time cut from the Tusken part would have been meaningfully added back to the present?

I don't see an interest from the makers in what you would have liked to see. Even episode runtime is variable and not constricted by TV programming of yore. If they had wanted to add a few minutes of conversations, they wouldn't have had to cut out anything else. Similarly, Book of Boba is not a masterpiece of pacing. The end result doesn't hit the sweet spot in such a way that added material would have been detrimental.

I agree that the people in charge of making this show would have screwed it up either way.

That is a 100% fair point to make given what we got.

Voss wrote:

So, I was thinking about Mando Season 2.5 here (and the end of Season 2), and it occurs to me that the Mando Cult of Mando Ur-Culture did a shockingly bad job of teaching Din (and by extension, other foundlings) the history and culture of the Mandolorians. I get that part of it is simply the convenience of the other characters having someone to explain things to (for the benefit of the audience); but he knew nothing absolutely nothing about his culture's equivalent of Excalibur, the fact that he lived with the heir of Merlin and/or Arthur and the woman he met in a bar was effectively Lancelot or Mordred (depending on the version of the story) who personally brought Camelot to ruin and wanted that mystical sword back.

Everything about the Cult is weird. As far as I can tell there are only 2 left now that Din got kicked out, which is at least an accurate depiction of ultra-fanatical fringe groups. But I am left wondering what exactly their creed is, other than "don't take off your helmet" and what they teach. Also, what do they want and how do they plan to achieve it now? Din seems clueless about pretty much anything to do with Mandalore and its history. He even seems shocked other Mandalorians exist when Bo Katan shows up in season 2.

Voss wrote:

This seems like a really bad brainwashing job by the Cult of the One True Way.
Or the directors making it up as they go along, but given how explicitly they introduced the major characters in the fall of Camelot, the holy relic itself, and the expulsion of the main character from the cult, it kind of has to be deliberate. But its jarring that he knows... none of that. And a fair chunk happened around the same time he was orphaned and rescued and indoctrinated.

I'm pretty sure almost all the Mandalorian background in Mando was established before the show, especially the stuff not related to the Cult. Doesn't mean the writers need to stay consistent, of course.

One other issue I'm thinking they may have to deal with is we now have some really important plot and character development for Mandalorian season 3 happening in the middle of a different show. They'll probably just assume everyone will have seen BoBF, but with how bad it was at the start I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people stopped watching right before the Mandalorian episodes. I know I was in that position and only kept watching because I already knew Mando would make an appearance in the next episode.

"I've known you for a long time Boba. One thing I can't figure: What's your angle?"

"Well, I'm a bad guy character that became very popular with the fanbase. Back in the 90's I could be safely turned into an anti-hero, but now that we're all owned by Disney, I have to become a good guy, because Disney is to Star Wars what the Comics Code Authority was to the comics industry back in the day. Now I have to protect people, act nobly, protect indigenous populations for some reason, identify with the citizens here who I don't know from Adam but are apparently 'my people' now because the script says so, disallow all crime whilst saying that I'm the new 'crime lord' at the same time. It's all very confusing."

"That sounds awful. Best kill me quickly and waste my character's entire potential."

"Done!"

*stab*

Honestly, I don't think you can blame Boba's benevolent nature solely on Disney. It's the direction that they were already taking the character with Clone Wars, where he was trying to be a bad-ass and proving to not be very good at it.

It's also not that different from the treatment that Karen Traviss and co gave him in the later EU books, when he became Mandalore.

 Lance845 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
On the topic of Boba and filling gaps, did you know they recently had a ~dozen (or more, I forget how long it took) issue big crossover event in the comics of Boba trying to deliver frozen Han to Jabba?

Yeah. And how many characters did he Starwars street along the way? Completely wasted terrible waste. Just more evidence of how broken the whole thing is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Geifer wrote:

I don't think cutting short his screen time with the Tuskens would improve anything because it is the only time when Boba actually gets to develop. In my opinion present day Boba's development should have been brought up to that level. In this regard they could have just made Book of Boba an eight episode show/season like Mandalorian. They could have packed a lot of stuff in another thirty to fifty minutes without dropping anything from the Mandalorian detour they so obviously wanted to show.

I guess I went into execution a little after all...

What you are not getting is that if they cut out all that time with the Tuskens we could have gotten that development with him in the present. You literally lost about 2 hours of story telling to it. In the modern day you could have had a 10 minute conversation between Fennec and Fett instead of the "blink and you miss it" bit. He could have really hammered home his losses that we have already seen. Talked about his struggles in the desert. All the stuff with the Tuskens could have been handled in a a bit of dialog just like "When I met your father he was a great pilot." Was that background improved by seeing little Anny accidentally blow up a space station? Boba could have said "When Jabba's barge was destroyed and I fell into the Sarlac I barely survived. I lost my armor. I was taken captive by the Tusken's. I Survived. I learned. I grew. And when I saw more people killed by the gangs I thought of a better way. I am tired of seeing our kind die for their greed. It's time they answered to us."

2 hours. 2 freakin hours could have been given back to the current day actual story of the show where Fett could have actually developed. The antagonists could have actually developed. And Bobas actual plans could have been explained at all. The development they gave us was misused and misplaced.

If you had your way, most Star Wars content essentially would not exist and there would be no worldbuilding or lore to speak of.

 Geifer wrote:
I'd counter that by asking what about the present day story that we did get makes you think any time cut from the Tusken part would have been meaningfully added back to the present?
I don't see an interest from the makers in what you would have liked to see. Even episode runtime is variable and not constricted by TV programming of yore. If they had wanted to add a few minutes of conversations, they wouldn't have had to cut out anything else. Similarly, Book of Boba is not a masterpiece of pacing. The end result doesn't hit the sweet spot in such a way that added material would have been detrimental.

Agreed. Someone seems to be operating under the assumption that story and exposition is somehow more meaningful or valid if its set in the "present" as opposed to the "past". I wonder to what extent perceptions might differ if the Tusken sequences were presented chronologically rather than as flashbacks/dream sequences. Would have been the same story and plot, just presented in a slightly different order.

 insaniak wrote:
Honestly, I don't think you can blame Boba's benevolent nature solely on Disney. It's the direction that they were already taking the character with Clone Wars, where he was trying to be a bad-ass and proving to not be very good at it.
It's also not that different from the treatment that Karen Traviss and co gave him in the later EU books, when he became Mandalore.

Correct. Towards the tail end of the pre-Disney era Boba had already developed into a straight-shooter and a good guy who came to the rescue of the New Republic in its war with the Yuuzhan Vong, had kids/grandchildren, etc. who he trained and went on adventures with, and teamed up with Han Solo and his kid in order to kill Hans other kid who went evil (long story), etc. Disney doesn't have much to do with softening him up, rather it seems they are simply re-establishing the nature of his character as it was in the pre-Disney era, just on an accelerated timeline and cutting out the 80s/90s era content where he was initially developed as an absolute bastard before shifting him in a different direction. In general, The Mandalorian and TBoBF seem to be set on re-Travissing the Mandalorians in general and moving the Mandos away from the George Lucas pacifist interpretation of their society.

I do love when people blame Disney for making Star Wars kid friendly. Like Ewoks weren't a thing or even Yoda to a degree. Like we didn't have three movies that couldn't bring themselves to make Darth Vader anything shy of a hero until the very last minute possible.

The only place Star Wars has ever really been allowed to be dark is the novels. Any form a mass media has always been pretty light and kid friendly. It's definitely not something that started with Disney.

X may always have been bad, but that isn't an excuse for X continuing to be bad.

It's not a question of good and bad, its a question of tone and people being surprised that the hero of a Star Wars story isn't a ruthless loner. The best story arc of the original film is "ruthless loner finds value in others" and for better or worse, the franchise continues to try and chase that high.

Slipspace wrote:

Voss wrote:

So, I was thinking about Mando Season 2.5 here (and the end of Season 2), and it occurs to me that the Mando Cult of Mando Ur-Culture did a shockingly bad job of teaching Din (and by extension, other foundlings) the history and culture of the Mandolorians. I get that part of it is simply the convenience of the other characters having someone to explain things to (for the benefit of the audience); but he knew nothing absolutely nothing about his culture's equivalent of Excalibur, the fact that he lived with the heir of Merlin and/or Arthur and the woman he met in a bar was effectively Lancelot or Mordred (depending on the version of the story) who personally brought Camelot to ruin and wanted that mystical sword back.

Everything about the Cult is weird. As far as I can tell there are only 2 left now that Din got kicked out, which is at least an accurate depiction of ultra-fanatical fringe groups. But I am left wondering what exactly their creed is, other than "don't take off your helmet" and what they teach. Also, what do they want and how do they plan to achieve it now? Din seems clueless about pretty much anything to do with Mandalore and its history. He even seems shocked other Mandalorians exist when Bo Katan shows up in season 2.

Well, he's specifically looking for other Mandalorians, so that isn't a surprise. He is surprised they don't follow his 'true way,' which is actually consistent with being raised by a cult.
The shock (for me) is that he wasn't raised to think of Bo-Katan specifically as the Devil, who lost them Mandalore. That's where its weird that they didn't teach him (and other foundlings) at least a twisted version of Mandalorian culture and history, and he knows basically nothing about their holy relic, its creator, said creator's successors and that its specifically Bob over there on the other side of the room under the sewers.
Other than the super-inconvenient (borderline unlivable) helmet doctrine, 'the way' (however nebulous), scooping up kids and collecting/tithing beskar, the cult doesn't seem to have... goals?

I presume they're going to be at least partial antagonists for season3, but other than showing up to fight him over the sabre, I don't know why. Other than pathos for Din to be fighting his original found family, but that doesn't translate into a motive for them.

One other issue I'm thinking they may have to deal with is we now have some really important plot and character development for Mandalorian season 3 happening in the middle of a different show. They'll probably just assume everyone will have seen BoBF, but with how bad it was at the start I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people stopped watching right before the Mandalorian episodes. I know I was in that position and only kept watching because I already knew Mando would make an appearance in the next episode.

Its the opposite MCU treatment (at least early MCU, where other than easter eggs, it didn't matter if you didn't see another film). Though Wandavision, Strange2 and Spider3 seem to inverting that for the MCU going forward as well.
Know that they have their universes established, they want the audience to attend all of it.

 LunarSol wrote:
I do love when people blame Disney for making Star Wars kid friendly.

Don't believe I ever said "kid friendly".

It says something when the best scenes of the entire series are scenes the main character isn't in.

The spectacle at the end of the show was fun when I could turn off my brain. Sometimes during it it was so bad my brain turned back on and then RANCOR!!!!

But seriously, this was the weakest disney+ offering to date.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
On the topic of Boba and filling gaps, did you know they recently had a ~dozen (or more, I forget how long it took) issue big crossover event in the comics of Boba trying to deliver frozen Han to Jabba?

Yeah. And how many characters did he Starwars street along the way? Completely wasted terrible waste. Just more evidence of how broken the whole thing is.


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 Geifer wrote:

I don't think cutting short his screen time with the Tuskens would improve anything because it is the only time when Boba actually gets to develop. In my opinion present day Boba's development should have been brought up to that level. In this regard they could have just made Book of Boba an eight episode show/season like Mandalorian. They could have packed a lot of stuff in another thirty to fifty minutes without dropping anything from the Mandalorian detour they so obviously wanted to show.

I guess I went into execution a little after all...

What you are not getting is that if they cut out all that time with the Tuskens we could have gotten that development with him in the present. You literally lost about 2 hours of story telling to it. In the modern day you could have had a 10 minute conversation between Fennec and Fett instead of the "blink and you miss it" bit. He could have really hammered home his losses that we have already seen. Talked about his struggles in the desert. All the stuff with the Tuskens could have been handled in a a bit of dialog just like "When I met your father he was a great pilot." Was that background improved by seeing little Anny accidentally blow up a space station? Boba could have said "When Jabba's barge was destroyed and I fell into the Sarlac I barely survived. I lost my armor. I was taken captive by the Tusken's. I Survived. I learned. I grew. And when I saw more people killed by the gangs I thought of a better way. I am tired of seeing our kind die for their greed. It's time they answered to us."

2 hours. 2 freakin hours could have been given back to the current day actual story of the show where Fett could have actually developed. The antagonists could have actually developed. And Bobas actual plans could have been explained at all. The development they gave us was misused and misplaced.

If you had your way, most Star Wars content essentially would not exist and there would be no worldbuilding or lore to speak of.

If I had things my way we would have more content like the original trilogy. Jam packed with lore and world building and stories worth telling.

Remember when Mobius revealed that Loki was D.B. Cooper and Loki said "I lost a bet with Thor".

I don't need a comic, a cartoon, or a tv show to show me the bet they made that he lost. The world is built and fleshed out with the single line of dialog and the story can keep moving forward. SW would 100% make a movie or show or comic and show me that bet. And it would be a waste of everyones time.

 LunarSol wrote:
I do love when people blame Disney for making Star Wars kid friendly. Like Ewoks weren't a thing or even Yoda to a degree. Like we didn't have three movies that couldn't bring themselves to make Darth Vader anything shy of a hero until the very last minute possible.

The only place Star Wars has ever really been allowed to be dark is the novels. Any form a mass media has always been pretty light and kid friendly. It's definitely not something that started with Disney.

Which is fine, but it makes it even more baffling they'd try to tell the story of a bounty hunter becoming a crime lord given those limitations. There are an infinite number of stories they could tell, so why choose one that doesn't work within their self-imposed guidelines?

Slipspace wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I do love when people blame Disney for making Star Wars kid friendly. Like Ewoks weren't a thing or even Yoda to a degree. Like we didn't have three movies that couldn't bring themselves to make Darth Vader anything shy of a hero until the very last minute possible.

The only place Star Wars has ever really been allowed to be dark is the novels. Any form a mass media has always been pretty light and kid friendly. It's definitely not something that started with Disney.

Which is fine, but it makes it even more baffling they'd try to tell the story of a bounty hunter becoming a crime lord given those limitations. There are an infinite number of stories they could tell, so why choose one that doesn't work within their self-imposed guidelines?

It makes more sense if you consider it probably started as part of the Solo film plan. They put a bunch of money into developing a movie, probably made sure to get Morrison on board, etc only for Solo to disappoint and the yearly film plan to get scrapped. After Mandalorian proved to be a success, someone likely just figured they could get something out of it by bolting it onto that production instead.

Anyways, he says changing the subject because a thought is relating around in his head….

How long until we see Live Action Hondo Ohnaka?

I’m well up for it.

Giving up his life of crime and just trying to help the poor orphans?

He's a side character, so as shown in Rebels he's allowed to scam people a little. Well, as long as the people he scams are the bad guys.

And given his appearances in Rebels I assume if he does show up anywhere it'll be in Ahsoka, since she's searching for Ezra and that's a cause Hondo could be won for.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How long until we see Live Action Hondo Ohnaka?

That would be nice.