Friday, November 29, 2019

The Mandalorian (2019) (i.e. The Boba Fett show)

The concept of this series gives me impression they wanted to make a Boba Fett series, but were unable to do so, due to the character dying in Return of the Jedi, and perhaps they didn't want to be limited to his backstory as told in the prequels.  One other thing of note, is the tone of his voice in reminiscent of the original voice of Boba Fett.

Still, this character does seem to be dominated by concepts that have occurred over the years and in other series about the mandalorians.  And the way he seems to be solely motivated by getting metal for his armor, seems rather odd.  What would motive him, once his armor is complete (as it now seems to be)

Also, it is rather odd to have him be unable to show his face to anyone.  Hiding your face all of the time servers no purpse, as your mask would effectively be the face you are recognized by. 
I have had the idea that Boba Fett would get out of his armor to take part in an undercover mission, or for intelligence gathering, or at least leave his costume at home when he went on vacation.

I do have a bit of a complaint about the choice of the name for this series, as it uses a world only know to diehard Star Wars fans, but the attachment of this series to Star Wars was more than enough to spread the word of the show to the masses.
While Star Wars' incredible success allowed Lucas to release a film with a made up word in the title "Jedi" as he know everyone was familiar with the concept, I am less impressed with the title of "Revenge of the Sith" as the concept of sith still in not well defined, nor known by the general public.

One thing I want to see in Star Wars is the high tech ships, dog fights and space stations.  Those have been largely absent since Disney took over the franchise.

There are a number of ridiculous concepts that keep coming up, which are perhaps used because they are easy for the audience to understand, but they go against common sense.

One is that there is a lot of fighting involving people with masks (and armor) versus people without masks, but some how the when the person with the mask gets punched in the face, they are injured but the person who just punched metal doesn't appear to injure their hand.

In fact, it's quite odd that there are so many people getting into fistfights, and then after they fight for a while, only then do they draw their blasters.  It makes no sense that anyone with a gun would resort to fist fighting. They was no fist fighting in the original trilogy.

Also, the concept that shooting a droid in the head will "kill" it.  There is no reason to assume that a droid would have some vital circuitry in its head.  One of the few times I have seen this concept applied (as it may also apply to aliens, was in Men in Black 2, went Agent K fought a Ballchinian (Ball Chin -i an)

The planets that the mandalorian visits are general low tech, with the exception of a few people with blasters and some droids.  The worlds, while meant to be reminiscent of Tatooine, are more like those shown in science fiction B movies (and the Big Isle 2321 scene from Cloud Atlas) or Firefly.

The show does have a number of "easter eggs" which are nice to see.  One is that the weapon the madalorian uses is the same on that Boba Fett used in his original appearance in the cartoon during the Star Wars Holiday Special.

They also used the "eye ball" arm - door bell that Threepio encountered when first approaching Jabba's Place.  While was nice to see that, it also used the exact same alien phrase (which I assumed to be Huttese, which I assume would only be used when working for the Hutts), which to me always had the intonation of "I expecting some one else" because when I hear it, it sounds like he is saying "I thought you were blinky"  One other instance of this is when Threepio is explaining to the Ewoks why they should let Luke and Han go, the Ewokese phrase he uses has an intonation that is exactly the same as "You will be sorry."

Chapter 1:

It was very interesting to see an IG-88 unit , but it seems quite odd that he was able to talk, and rather silly that he kept trying to self destruct, which as a rather lame attempt at comedy.

I actually would have much preferred it if the IG-88 droids were the ones used by the trade federation in the Phantom Menace, as they are quite intimidating and completely underutilized in the original trilogy, rather that the "battle" droids, which looked like puppy dogs, and acted more like the Three Stooges.

Chapter 2: Baby Yoda do do do ti do (sung to the tune of Baby Shark)

While the there is no reason to assume that some one of Yoda's race would have any greater ability with the Force than other races (or maybe his being of Yoda's race is just coincidental) but even further, its ridiculous to have a baby who has had no training in the ways of the Force to be able to use the Force (same problem with Rey in the sequels).  I have been wondering for a while if this baby Yoda is suddenly going to begin speaking in full sentences, and has just remained silent up til now for some unknown reason.  I have wondered if Yoda reached his old age because of his race, or because of his strong connection with the force.  I have though that perhaps the Emperor looks they way he did because he was very old, though my theory was that the Dark side of the Force caused his body to wither.

Also, its ridiculous to believe that anyone could repair a ship that was completely torn apart in 4 days.  I would take months, if possible at all.

Chapter 4: The Two Samurai / The Magnificent Two

This was a fairly direct rip off the the Akira Kurosawa movie "The Seven Samurai" which was later remade as a the Western "The Magnificent Seven".  While a fairly good adaption, it didn't move the plot forward at all.

Once again, we have fights with people punching others in the masks, and the person with the mask looses the fight and gun are only drawn after a protracted fist fight.

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