The Mandalorian

[godisawesome]

I'm glad the season ended on a stronger note after a lot of weak episodes, also interesting that this is assumedly the end of the Darksaber's story

That last bit is the only thing that genuinely angers me, especially since now giving it to Bo (again) in the first place was also a waste of time; what the hell does LFL have against actually following through with their “this lightsaber is like Excalibur!” set-ups? They ditched the shot they had at it with Luke’s lightsaber once, and now the Darksaber twice, and about the only overall effect I can see was that people who have a shallow knowledge of Boks history got two brief pops from seeing her ignite it twice.

I kind of hope someone makes repairing it and Din getting it back an entire epsiode of the next season, and we finally get the therapy session/training sequence that made Sabine a much better Mandalorian character than this season is allowing any of its cast to be out of, I don’t know, fear of offending fans who hate complexity or dealing with the fact that Mandos made great villains before they ever got hero treatment.

In general, this season’s adventures of the week kind for sucked, and this episode kind of got stuck trying to carry water for a season that seemed to deep down inside not want to do this kind of story.

It mostly worked… but I’d argue this season shows that Favreau needs major writing support if they’re not going to be ambitious with Din, or else we’re going to keep getting episodes that are just “creatures features,” “luckily the villain is dumber than a Bond villain,” or “I stuffed all three of our celebrity guest stars into one episode to try and sell a shaky, shallow mystery story.”

And I still say Bo Katan’s a boring Mandalore.

[Immortal Weapon]

I'm glad the season ended on a stronger note after a lot of weak episodes, also interesting that this is assumedly the end of the Darksaber's story

I highly doubt that. The darksaber is will eventually belong to Grogu and he will use it to lead Mandalore once he is an adult.

[Ascended]

Just outta curiosity, how many people did Din take down in this episode? Wouldn't be around twenty would it?

I'm satisfied. I'm not as annoyed with this season as godisawesome has been, but I mostly agree with the complaints; this season was a fantastic chance to really dig into the meat of Mandalorian culture and push these characters in new ways, but what we got was thin, damn near nonexistent. Big disappointment, that. Show almost feels afraid to examine it. Bo being a co-lead didn't work for me (nothing against Sackhoff, she's great). A lot of the episodes felt disjointed, though I do think most of it tied together decently enough by the end.

But mostly I enjoyed it. And I'm good with where the season leaves everyone (if not the amount of detail and info we get), though I was hoping to see a little more development for Grogu, this was a great chance to have him bust out some new skills.

I highly doubt that. The darksaber is will eventually belong to Grogu and he will use it to lead Mandalore once he is an adult.

spoilers:

Oh they'll just switch the darksaber up from an Excalibur proxy to a Narsil (Lord of the Rings) one; the darksaber will be the Blade That Was Broken and as part of proving his worth to lead Mandalore Grogu will have to go on an epic quest to repair it. Which would be cool, if we're assuming a culture that reveres blacksmiths couldn't fix it in the decades it'll take Grogu to grow up. I figure it'll simply be fixed by next season.

end of spoilers

[ChrisIII]

For what it's worth, some fans have already spotted fang fighters as one of the many, many CG ships in Lando's "Citizen's fleet"

Darksaber can probably be repaired; we saw it with the Anakin/Luke lightsaber of course. The comics also just broke Luke's yellow Temple guard lightsaber. R2 fixed it but now it seems to act a bit like Kylo Ren's (Which, like Luke's line in the same comic "I have to do something and I don't know if I will be able to do it" line in regards to Vader, seems to be foreshadowing Kylo Ren).

[Nazrel]

That last bit is the only thing that genuinely angers me, especially since now giving it to Bo (again) in the first place was also a waste of time; what the hell does LFL have against actually following through with their “this lightsaber is like Excalibur!” set-ups? They ditched the shot they had at it with Luke’s lightsaber once, and now the Darksaber twice, and about the only overall effect I can see was that people who have a shallow knowledge of Boks history got two brief pops from seeing her ignite it twice.

I think you're missing the point behind the Dark Saber; as Moff Gideon spelled out, there is nothing special about it, outside of looking cool, it's the story, the idea that gives it power, and the story is bull#$%@.
It is nothing but a source of division and strife for them, something that allowed them to be manipulated, internal conflict being their problem was spelled out repeatedly; it's destruction, is their liberation.

[Ascended]

Yeah, the saber being broken isn't a big deal. And the whole thematic element of that scene is pretty great; it's not the darksaber that makes Bo a leader and it doesn't bring her victory. The people who follow her do. The darksaber was always just a distraction and a source of internal conflict. And breaking the thing symbolizes a new start for Mandalore, with the old divisions being laid to rest and the tribes uniting (in theory).

But should they want to use the darksaber again, and I'm sure they will, it's just a lightsaber. It can be repaired. The show could make it a whole quest if they wanted to and justify it with thousand year old Jedi technology being hard to work with, or they can make it a total non-event where the Armorer simply repairs it, because it's a weapon so of course she can. Either way works.

For what it's worth, some fans have already spotted fang fighters as one of the many, many CG ships in Lando's "Citizen's fleet"

That's cool. Nice to know the mandos were represented, even if in a small way.

I still assume Mandalore, if it's still standing by the sequels, was likely protecting their own allies from the First Order, like Nevarro and Jack Black's planet.

[Nazrel]

You know, I get the feeling Moff Gideon's plot was supposed to have resolved in the Rangers of the New republic series, with this season supposed to have been all about Din's redemption, and the unification of the Mandalorian people, with with the conflict being Paz making a play for the Dark Saber highlighting the theme that they were their own worst enemy, and better highlighting the destruction of the Dark Saber, the source of and symbol of their internal strife, as liberating themselves from their self destructive tendencies; but then they had resolve Moff Gideon's plot and his clones here, and set up all the stuff with the spies in the new republic, but they didn't have room, so they cut out a bunch of stuff from the Book of Boba Fett, and moved the first 2 episodes into that, and everything started becoming this weird Frankenstein's monster of a plot from there.

[j9ac9k]

Is it just me, this last season is a bit of? Im not sure if I think this season is as good as the 2 first seasons? I feel it is much more rushed and dont feel the direction is something that captivate my interesst ;-(

I think part of the problem is that they didn't establish the main arc of the season early on so we were left guessing what was supposed to be the focus. (maybe the trailers laid the groundwork, but I don't watch those so I don't know) Previously we knew early on the stories were about Grogu, so we knew where we were headed and the side-quests were fine because we understood the plot would not become relevant, just the character development. Not knowing which plot threads would become bigger leads to that disjointed feeling, I think.

This season also tried to cover a lot more ground than other seasons, which was another factor. Rather than have Din cross paths with larger storylines while we stuck with him with Grogu and their mission, this season they followed those other storylines and tried to develop them, leaving Din and Grogu without much direction.

[godisawesome]

I think you're missing the point behind the Dark Saber; as Moff Gideon spelled out, there is nothing special about it, outside of looking cool, it's the story, the idea that gives it power, and the story is bull#$%@.
It is nothing but a source of division and strife for them, something that allowed them to be manipulated, internal conflict being their problem was spelled out repeatedly; it's destruction, is their liberation.

Oh, no, I got the point, I just don't respect the way it was made or the decision to make that point given the context of the rest of the show.

I just also think its bullshit to try and do the "enlightenment disproves this escapist romanticism" deconstruction move when you're still in a story desperately clinging to straight-forward escapist romanticism on other, more prominent storyline details of much more dubious value to the story - especially if both the deconstruction and the worship of the escapist romanticism end up being shallow and lazy.

I mean, what's a bigger cause of the Mandalorian warriors fighting each other in this part of the timeline?

- A Darksaber challenge ritual that pretty much no one took seriously this season and only occasionally in previous shows?

...or...

- ... The fact that 2/3rds of the "heroic" Mandalorian factions we focused on this season were born or likely borne out of Death Watch, terrorist fanatics who refused to accept their people's desire for peace, and whose fanaticism led to them betraying their world to multiple Sith Lords and reawakening the very rituals the Darksaber is just one of many for?

Hell, the Children's of the Watch still seem to be largely myopic fundamentalists paired with apathy towards the outside world and willing to traumatize and banish Din for taking his helmet off when he's clearly a better person than most of them.

It's real cheap move for a story to go "This cool thing we barely did any storytelling with, and who's rules we ignored, must be destroyed to teach the audience or a lesson or something" while simultaneously going "Oh, these fanatics, mercenaries, and warrior cults with the blood of their people on their hands by treachery and arrogance should be seen as totally heroic and honorable warriors because it's inconvenient to note they would have made great Chaos Warriors a few years ago."

So, I actually don't think here was any higher meaning to the Darksaber being destroyed; I think it mostly got crushed to try and increase tension quickly. They never wanted to actually tell a story of intra-Mandalorian conflict this season at all.

...Plus I'd argue that "It's cool, so don't destroy it" is also an obvious counterargument, and is why I'm also hoping they rebuild it just to be a cool weapon.

[Nazrel]

Oh, no, I got the point, I just don't respect the way it was made or the decision to make that point given the context of the rest of the show.

I just also think its bullshit to try and do the "enlightenment disproves this escapist romanticism" deconstruction move when you're still in a story desperately clinging to straight-forward escapist romanticism on other, more prominent storyline details of much more dubious value to the story - especially if both the deconstruction and the worship of the escapist romanticism end up being shallow and lazy.

I mean, what's a bigger cause of the Mandalorian warriors fighting each other in this part of the timeline?

- A Darksaber challenge ritual that pretty much no one took seriously this season and only occasionally in previous shows?

...or...

- ... The fact that 2/3rds of the "heroic" Mandalorian factions we focused on this season were born or likely borne out of Death Watch, terrorist fanatics who refused to accept their people's desire for peace, and whose fanaticism led to them betraying their world to multiple Sith Lords and reawakening the very rituals the Darksaber is just one of many for?

Hell, the Children's of the Watch still seem to be largely myopic fundamentalists paired with apathy towards the outside world and willing to traumatize and banish Din for taking his helmet off when he's clearly a better person than most of them.

It's real cheap move for a story to go "This cool thing we barely did any storytelling with, and who's rules we ignored, must be destroyed to teach the audience or a lesson or something" while simultaneously going "Oh, these fanatics, mercenaries, and warrior cults with the blood of their people on their hands by treachery and arrogance should be seen as totally heroic and honorable warriors because it's inconvenient to note they would have made great Chaos Warriors a few years ago."

Fair enough.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, the saber being broken isn't a big deal. And the whole thematic element of that scene is pretty great; it's not the darksaber that makes Bo a leader and it doesn't bring her victory. The people who follow her do. The darksaber was always just a distraction and a source of internal conflict. And breaking the thing symbolizes a new start for Mandalore, with the old divisions being laid to rest and the tribes uniting (in theory).

But should they want to use the darksaber again, and I'm sure they will, it's just a lightsaber. It can be repaired. The show could make it a whole quest if they wanted to and justify it with thousand year old Jedi technology being hard to work with, or they can make it a total non-event where the Armorer simply repairs it, because it's a weapon so of course she can. Either way works.



That's cool. Nice to know the mandos were represented, even if in a small way.

I still assume Mandalore, if it's still standing by the sequels, was likely protecting their own allies from the First Order, like Nevarro and Jack Black's planet.

Think it was more of Lucasfilm just tossing whatever non-Imperial or FO ships they could into it so they could fill up the screen.

[Frontier]

I have to admit this did end up playing out a lot more straightforward than I was expecting. Which isn't bad per se (I think subverting expectations just for the sake of subverting expectations is old hat) or a complaint about straightforward heroic fantasies, yet it felt like something was supposed to happen or there would be some kind of twist...and it didn't.

So was Pedro on set at all this season? I kept expecting his helmet to come off multiple times during the episode but it never did. Not that I need to see Din with his helmet off, as much as I love Pedro Pascal's face, just interesting to think about.

Those two troopers gave Din more of a fight than any Stormtrooper did in season 1-2, even if it wasn't by that much. Then the Super Commandos just became typical Star Wars goon fodder.

"I don't have a weapon" because you keep losing or giving away all your signature weapons, Din!

So are we meant to assume the flagship took down all the fighters before coming down?

It's funny how everyone talked a big game about Mandalore being a dead planet and we keep seeing how much it isn't a dead planet and never really was even during the old days.

I'm kind of morbidly curious if Gideon actually succeeded in creating Force-sensitive Clones, but we might never know. Unless he had a spare Clone at the ready and then we get "somehow Gideon has returned" in a season or two.

At least the Praetorian Guard weren't 100% chumped by a Force toddler. I forgot how convenient having the Force is.

Bo even steals Din's final battle from him! Though in the end all three of this "family" team-up to beat Gideon, although even if it's implied he was incinerated I'm still not ruling him out as dead for good.

It's not that I believe in the legend of the Darksaber so much as just the sword has been through so much, seen so much, and been treated as so important...and then it gets crushed and we're like "well, it never mattered anyway."

Grogu connected to the Mythosaur! That's totally what people wanted to see and not the Mythosaur actually doing anything cool!

So Din is adopting Grogu because I guess we needed to make it official.

It's funny how the season came full circle in actually rebuilding IG-11 as the new Marshall of Nevarro.

Bo-Katan is in charge of Mandalore again. Hopefully she doesn't screw this up. I feel like a lot of your opinion on this season might ride on your feelings about Bo.

I dunno, I feel like this season was doing a lot of table setting and walking things back. Like they had to get all the restoring Mandalore and uniting all Mandalorians out of the way so we could get back to the status quo of Din and Grogu righting wrongs and collecting bounties, only it's on the New Republic's docket and squarely focused on Imperial Remnants. Like this is what everyone expected the Grand Finale of the show to be and now it's just...something Din was involved in and he leaves as quickly as everything is over. Now Mandalore is probably just another hub world for him to get side-quests on or when the show wants to give Bo and the Armorer more screentime. It just feels like something's just lacking.

[Grunty]

Considering how this show highlights the significants of the mandalorian armor in their history and heritage, to the point where the dark saber is basicly a disruptive foreign object to it, one has to wonder what would have happend if Satine had tried to turn the warriors into peace keepers, rather than try to erase their warrior culture all together for her pacifistic ideals.

[Frontier]

Considering how this show highlights the significants of the mandalorian armor in their history and heritage, to the point where the dark saber is basicly a disruptive foreign object to it, one has to wonder what would have happend if Satine had tried to turn the warriors into peace keepers, rather than try to erase their warrior culture all together for her pacifistic ideals.

Both sisters screwed up by leaning too far in the other direction for their people.

[godisawesome]

I have to admit this did end up playing out a lot more straightforward than I was expecting. Which isn't bad per se (I think subverting expectations just for the sake of subverting expectations is old hat) or a complaint about straightforward heroic fantasies, yet it felt like something was supposed to happen or there would be some kind of twist...and it didn't.

So was Pedro on set at all this season? I kept expecting his helmet to come off multiple times during the episode but it never did. Not that I need to see Din with his helmet off, as much as I love Pedro Pascal's face, just interesting to think about.

Those two troopers gave Din more of a fight than any Stormtrooper did in season 1-2, even if it wasn't by that much. Then the Super Commandos just became typical Star Wars goon fodder.

"I don't have a weapon" because you keep losing or giving away all your signature weapons, Din!

So are we meant to assume the flagship took down all the fighters before coming down?

It's funny how everyone talked a big game about Mandalore being a dead planet and we keep seeing how much it isn't a dead planet and never really was even during the old days.

I'm kind of morbidly curious if Gideon actually succeeded in creating Force-sensitive Clones, but we might never know. Unless he had a spare Clone at the ready and then we get "somehow Gideon has returned" in a season or two.

At least the Praetorian Guard weren't 100% chumped by a Force toddler. I forgot how convenient having the Force is.

Bo even steals Din's final battle from him! Though in the end all three of this "family" team-up to beat Gideon, although even if it's implied he was incinerated I'm still not ruling him out as dead for good.

It's not that I believe in the legend of the Darksaber so much as just the sword has been through so much, seen so much, and been treated as so important...and then it gets crushed and we're like "well, it never mattered anyway."

Grogu connected to the Mythosaur! That's totally what people wanted to see and not the Mythosaur actually doing anything cool!

So Din is adopting Grogu because I guess we needed to make it official.

It's funny how the season came full circle in actually rebuilding IG-11 as the new Marshall of Nevarro.

Bo-Katan is in charge of Mandalore again. Hopefully she doesn't screw this up. I feel like a lot of your opinion on this season might ride on your feelings about Bo.

I dunno, I feel like this season was doing a lot of table setting and walking things back. Like they had to get all the restoring Mandalore and uniting all Mandalorians out of the way so we could get back to the status quo of Din and Grogu righting wrongs and collecting bounties, only it's on the New Republic's docket and squarely focused on Imperial Remnants. Like this is what everyone expected the Grand Finale of the show to be and now it's just...something Din was involved in and he leaves as quickly as everything is over. Now Mandalore is probably just another hub world for him to get side-quests on or when the show wants to give Bo and the Armorer more screentime. It just feels like something's just lacking.

I think the best way to put it is that the season treated the entire Unification of the Mandalorians/Retaking of Mandalore/Darksaber plot like it was an inconvenient obligation, rather than an epic story people wanted to see; it almost comes off like the season was trying to undermine the idea those concepts could be worth several seasons or major storylines.

It’s like a marketing guy is so convinced in the “Din was a Man With No Name type” malarkey (since it was never the premise for more than the first episode) that they were genuinely scared that fans would hate seeing Din become Mandalore, and hate having intra-Mandalroian conflict.

So now, we’re kind of stuck hoping that Favreau and co. can generate an actual slate of strong, stand-alone adventures for the next season (when that was arguably the show’s weakest episodes) and that the other Mandalorians are cool enough when just bluntly portrayed as action figures attract interest… and honestly feel like all those elements are more fit for supporting character roles now than lead ones.