Let me start by making this clear:
-In no way do I think The Mandalorian was deliberately written to refute arguments for The Last Jedi.
-Rian Johnson is still a good writer and great director in my opinion; TLJ is just his off day in story construction to me.
-No argument about subjective artwork can ever have true “proof.”
-You can still like The Last Jedi and be a great Star Wars fan, and have good reasons for liking it; it’s actual quality is far more debatable, but your personal reaction to it is not.
Having prefaced with all of that...
Anyone else think that 3 out of the last 5 episodes point out that “fanservice”/audience expectations actually seem to have been a major asset in Season Two of the show to a clearly much more successful degree than TLJ’s “subverting expectations” strategy?
I mean, some of this is just a matter of ambition in even the details and extraneous add-ons that TLJ was apathetic and flippant with - Mayfield’s episode this last week showed you get better treatment and ambition as a guest star in TM than John Biyega and Finn got in TLJ, for instance.
But...
- Bo-Katarn showed up with her crew in armor, kicked ass, contributed to the main characters’ story and character arcs in a big way, and planted seeds for this show and others.
- Ahsoka showed up with her lightsabers, kicked ass, contributed to the main characters’ story and character arcs in a big way, and planted seeds for this show and others.
- Boba Fett showed up again, kicked ass, got his armor back, kicked more ass, and is still contributing to the story and character arcs as we speak.
- Meanwhile, Din and Grogu are still only growing in popularity and identity, in a setting that can make ramshackle Imperial Remnant forces horrifying over drinks in the mess hall.
- Oh, and two weeks ago the series managed an episode where all speaking characters of significance weren’t white guys.
And in contrast, TLJ managed to have Luke disappoint a huge number of his fans, not attract major new audience attention to the series in spite of Hamill”s great performance, downgraded most of the First Order’s threat to bumbling Saturday Morning Cartoon levels, derail what momentum and popularity Rey and Finn had, and strive admirably for progressive accolades while still accidentally promoting two white guys over the original leads, leaving fewer spin-off capabilities for both the old and new characters in the process.
I’m not saying that TM proves unequivocally that TLJ didn’t have potential in its conceptual ideas, or that Rian Johnson isn’t on the level of the writers and directors in TM - indeed, I’d argue Knives Out shows he’s every bit their equal or superior, and his Breaking Bad episode shows he’d be an excellent guest director with someone else’s script.
But I am arguing that, in comparison, there’s clearly inadequacies in either execution or conception in TLJ... and that sometimes, there’s both, to a degree that even Johnson’s great skills couldn’t overcome, while over on TM you can have Robert Rodriguez forced to be a fill-in director with a too-shot script on a rushed schedule, and still produce a better overall Star Wars experience for the entire fanbase rather than just some of them.