You know I said a few months ago that Andor was so good it made me re-evaluate my opinion on the Mandalorian. I guess the showrunners felt the same way because that last episode reeks hard of them trying and FAILING to do political intrigue.
Just putting aside the fact that every single person in the "Amnesty Program" should have faced a firing squad: whose bright fucking idea was it to house them all together???? "Oh golly gee wiz, let's just stuck a whole bunch of space fascists and collaborators in a tiny little neighborhood. Surely nothing will go wrong!!!" I suppose its technically canonical that the new republic is incompetent as shit given how things play out with the first order but sheesh guys.
Just stick to what you know guys. More pew pew and vroom vroom. Leave the political drama to the adult writers in the room. You will never ever be as good as Andor....and that is OK.
only tangentially related nerdass complaining
I kinda hate the Mandalorian for multiple reasons but my most petty is that it made people love the mandalorians themselves. Like, they’re a fascist death cult that waged a quasi-genocidal war that killed billions+ in universe, but everybody loves my uwu smol bean honorable warriors. Happened in legends too but people at least admitted they were bad guys.
The only reason Mandalorians exist at all is because people looked at Boba Fett, a relatively unimportant character who does nothing and dies the first time he's in any danger, and went
:soypoint-1: WOW COOL ARMOR :soypoint-2:
So I never watched clone wars and am not up to date with a ton of that continuity. My familiarity comes from legends and specifically the Kotor games mostly. I definitely get the appeal they would have to fascists...but are they themselves explicitly fasch? I read them more as like space mongols or something.
Definitely depends on the leader at the time.
Spoilers for Clone Wars
In Clone Wars, Mandalore has recently come out of a civil war, banished the worst fascists to the moon, and elected a pacifist leader, Satine, who led a coalition of neutral systems opposed to the Clone War. She later gets killed and overthrown by the aforementioned fascists (a group called Death Watch) assisted by Darth Maul, who immediately gets overthrown by Sidious. I’m pretty sure Death Watch’s Mandalore folds into the new Empire but after a few years Mandalore gets a bit too uppity and the Empire nukes the whole planet. Also Satine and Obi Wan Kenobi 100% banged.
See...people tell me clone wars is awesome and I'm missing out by not watching it...but then I read this stuff and I'm like "...but am I really?"
Oh if that’s the stuff that makes you go “Idk if I should watch it” then you definitely should not lmao, those are some of the best episodes of the whole series. My description is pretty reductive though.
If you are considering watching it, I’d recommend following a filler list because there are some arcs that are just not good and don’t give any important information. I’m honestly pretty lukewarm on the show as a whole but the last 4 episodes of the final season are some of my favorite episodes in all of television, not even just animated shows, so if you like Star Wars I do recommend it. And Rebels just rules and Clone Wars sets up a lot of stuff for it.
I’d also recommend listing to A More Civilized Age along with it if you like podcasts, it’s a leftist criticism podcast of the show (which is currently playing in my headphones)
Just watch the Gendy version from the early 00s
Is it just Samurai Jack but Star Wars? Yes
Is it the best Star Wars media released between the original trilogy and Andor? Also yes
Yeah you can see it as either depending on the Mandalor at the time (the person that becomes their Warlord or whatever). Like they cool with other people/species becoming mandos and such but there's also the fact that they fluctuate between some form of permanent warrior caste (even though Boba Fett is from a mando clan of farmers), to mercenaries, to just a straight up evil empire or assistants to an evil empire since they teamed up with the Sith in Kotor lore. It's honestly a mess and instead of trying to tackle and breakdown aspects of such a weird, stratified, violent, yet also at times open, society would have been cool but instead they got the Disney retcon/simplification ray.
space mongols
this is a good read, there used to be a nomadic component of the worldbuilding but im quite unsure if that's still true. but in the same way as mognols, you've got the contrast of brutal conquerors who're very syncretic with alien species & cultures but only so long as they abide a few iron principle (chief among them being bowing to the Khan-i mean mandalor)
quasi-genocidal war that killed billions+ in universe
i dunno if thats canon anymore (assuming kotor mandalorian war), but the pacifist mandalorians getting the can is the worst creative decision ever. bo katan (?) and her not-wear-a-helmet-all-the-time gang are not diametrically opposed to the main guy's weird cult. they disagree on the window dressing of the violent hierarchy.
what's actually interesting is people who think prising warfare and killing is fucked up. and the pacifists are proven right. the empire wouldn't have fucked with them [ok it would've been just as interesting if the empire had genocided the pacifists & survivors retreated to warrior culture, but that is not what happened] if they weren't so belligerent & unruly. the whole idea of satine and shit was a culture reckoning with almost killing itself through honor culture (sands outside the dome-cities were implied to be due to warfare) & taking a progressive stance against the reactionary terrorists who liked the old ways.
but pacifists dont have jetpacks and go pew-pew so the terrorists win & the cool cool space samurai get to return for y'alls's stupid tv shows
In legends the military campaign with massive casualties were the mandalorian wars (which have been adopted into canon so who knows where that stands really). In canon as you mentioned the fascist mandos did basically wipe out most of the planet so it works in either continuity.
Yeah like bo katan is explicitly a terrorist in the clone wars. The mandalorians do a terror bombing. And Pedro pascal's mandalorians are even more culty than clone wars ones.
where is that from? the clone wars cartoon? i thought the mandalorian wars were like... pre-KotOR.
Agreed, they're Space Spartans which is unfortunately catnip for nerds
America rehabilitated Nazis in the 40's and by george we'll do it again!
If they had went with this route it would have been rad but they explicitly have them "deleting imperial technology" in the show and explicitly not using the nazi scientists to make funny rockets or whatever
like if they were going for a post-WW2 metaphor they failed hard
Omg, I didn't even feel like getting into that for so many reasons but dear Christ that is just asinine and insulting to our intelligence. Like what world is this writer in where they think the terms and conditions of amnesty are to not to explicitly keep doing the very thing they are actually good at!!! Why else would amnesty actually be offered? Goodness of their heart? Not enough clerks?
What's even weirder is there's a bit of lip service earlier in the episode about how the rich and well to do barely noticed the change of empire to new republic which...is a whole other can of worms and fucking dumb for a plethora of reasons...but on top of that just further reveals the incoherence of the writing.
the rich and well to do barely noticed the change of empire to new republic
yeah because the new republic isn't leftist, the rebellion's entire goal was to restore the bourgeois liberal democracy that became the empire. the only unrealistic thing about the amnesty program is that irl liberals would actually treat the "reformed" fascists better than they do in the show
:this:
america/west germany would never dehumanize nazis or fail to promote and profit from them which is why it fails as a metaphor
the rich being completely unaffected by the change from one collapsing capitalist state to another is one of the only good takes politically the episode had, even if it pretty much stole it verbatim from the mon mothma scenes from andor
Sure, but thay gets to my point. Like it or not I can accept that in this shit continuity the rebels basically just propped up an identical system of government to what ultimately led to the fucking problem...but for what that character is saying to be coherent here it would basically mean that there wasn't a massive purge of the imperial officer class. The way the amnesty program is represented in the episode makes no sense without that...and thats not something even a rich and well to do character like this could just shrug off like that if only because that's how you get thrown in the hauge! You cant have it both ways.
I don't get how anyone could still have faith in favreau or filoni after mandalorian season 2's CGI luke, like literally the first scene of season 3 of mandalorian had a bunch of multicolored mandalorian OCs beating a crocodile to death for literally no discernible reason while epic music played
honestly I enjoyed the clone wars/bad batch, but its whole concept waters down any substance the prequel trilogy actually had by making the clones epic G.I. Joe best buddies with the copaganda Jedi, and the clones only turn on the Jedi because of a bad chip in their brain that a bad actor put in their head
even in one of the better arcs of the clone wars where a Jedi keeps sending clones on suicide missions they don't even make any interesting commentary because they just go "lol nvm he was actually a sith, the jedi would never treat clones so badly"
bad batch had one of the most :cringe: moments in the entire franchise where a character goes "count dooku was even worse than you think because he stole from his OWN PEOPLE, not just other people on other planets!!!"
after mandalorian season 2’s CGI luke
Given that he was on the screen for all of three seconds, I wasn't even mad. They set up a third season into Jedi Academy which could have been fun. But then they got cold feet and did whatever the hell happened in Book of Boba to retcon Yoda back into being a comedy-relief set piece.
honestly I enjoyed the clone wars/bad batch, but its whole concept waters down any substance the prequel trilogy actually had by making the clones epic G.I. Joe best buddies
Had they been set up as nascent rebels coming to terms with Empire, instead of ultra-loyalist Super Troopers who just do A-Team reruns, it could have been good. It just had that spin-off of a spin-off energy, where the writers were afraid to do anything too adventurous or tell any kind of story that wasn't just "Hey, y'all remember the movies?"
“lol nvm he was actually a sith"
I enjoyed Star Wars: Visions, because they had a number of shorts that would twist traditional Good/Evil narratives and subvert expectations. "Akakiri" does such a great job of articulating how a love can become this selfish corrupting influence that leads to the Dark Side. "Lop and Ochō" is this incredible story of divided loyalties and personal codes of honor that force two old friends apart.
One of the cooler things about the Star Wars mythos is in how - in the hands of a good writer - the Dark or Light side isn't an origin but a destination. You only realize your allegiance after you've faced adversity.
Shit writing like this is so annoying because it forgoes the idea of character growth that the setting practically hands you on a silver platter. You don't have to be Sith, you just have to realize being Sith is what you wanted all along. And that internal revelation is so much more fun than the "Oh, turns out he was just a secret evil guy" bad spy-movie twist ending.
yeah you're right, I was mostly lopping S2 Luke with BoBF Luke but the former wasn't entirely tasteless
and yeah, for Bad Batch I think I like the Crosshair episodes the best despite how hilariously edgy the character is, because it almost feels like a more layered concept coming through, like he's a tool of the state and does bad shit and is slowly coming to terms with how much of a monster he is without doing "lol brain chip not work"
Star Wars Legends is among Andor and TLJ for being in the few SW media I actually enjoyed in the last decade, so many great concepts both narratively and visually in there
and while TLJ didn't really touch on the Sith/dark side, I really liked how it made a specific point of decoupling the force and the Jedi to give a critical take on them and their role in the rise of fascism, and go "we don't have to completely abandon the Jedi, there were good aspects and we can leave behind the baggage that led to fuckin bad shit happening and go back to lifting rocks to help people"
It was the Obi Wan show and the weird cyberpunk teen biker gang in BoBF that made me give up any hope in Filoni with live action stuff. I liked a lot of Clone Wars, I loved Rebels, Bad Batch is decent, but his live action stuff is rough.
Maybe it’s that he makes live action shows that feel like cartoons? Idk.
weirdly enough I think I would have enjoyed book of Boba Fett if they allowed Robert Rodriguez to go full Spy Kids cartoony on the shit (it felt like he wanted to and bits of pieces of the show actually felt like something he created), part of what made the Cyberpunk Vespa Squadra stand out so much is that the rest of the show felt like it was trying too hard to match the slightly grittier vibe of mandalorian season 1
I liked the almost anti-colonial themes of the Boba and the Tuskens arc, but it pretty much went nowhere lmao
Obi-Wan was Picard-tier :cringe: nothing redeemable there, especially after giving Obi yet another chance to kill Space Hitler and basically directly making him responsible for everyone's death on Alderaan lmao
I completely agree with Filoni being a much better cartoon creator though, especially after finding out he was the one who was directly responsible for the Darth Vader Kills Everyone Wooooah Lightsaber scene at the end of Rogue One
Wait were you against the Vader kills everyone scene? Ngl I thought it was sick. If they ever do it again I’ll find it much much much less cool, but the one time was pretty cool, and it is nice to be occasionally reminded that Vader can fucking destroy you.
100% yes to literally everything else you said. Especially about the tusken stuff, that was really cool and then went nowhere.
Ehh, I just thought it was a weird addition to a slightly more grounded WW2 spy action movie
It's like we almost had a movie where nobody ignited a lightsaber and then we get the fan service scene
like it's cool in a vacuum I just didn't like it as an ending to the rest of the film
Literally just "What if Operation Paper Clip Was Good Aktuly?"
Just stick to what you know guys. More pew pew and vroom vroom.
Mandalorian was hit-or-miss at its peak. Book of Boba did pew-pew / vroom-vroom and flopped. This current season feels like a fucking MMO quest line. Absolutely awful. No direction. Just throwing cast members and conflicts in to scenes without any sense of a narrative arc.
Total trainwreck. They really should just turn that show over to the Andor showrunners, before they burn through another reasonably popular franchise.
what if operation paperclip was good aktuly?
I wish, at least they would have to acknowledge that it actually happened then lmao, if that was the case they would have had the New Republic directly funding and aiding Space Mengele's cloning research
that being said I completely agree on the andor showrunners, they need to have a scene where Baby Yoda points a blaster at Luke and has to choose between living a negative peace or entering the depths of a living hell
they need to have a scene where Baby Yoda points a blaster at Luke
It doesn't even really have to be that. It could be Baby Yoda doing the training and simply deciding this shit sucks, he doesn't want to be a Jedi, and he misses Mando. Then he does an episode where he runs away - first unsuccessfully, but then more so as he learns to pursue the destiny he's really after by abandoning Force powers and actively embracing Mandolorian virtues as his tools of choice.
Then Baby Yoda isn't just "a Yoda that happens to become a Mandalorian" but "a Yoda that finds value in the Mandolorian Way". Hell, you could even have a scene towards the end where he mutters "This is the Way" to himself as he does some tech-assisted death-defying escape maneuver.
Baby Yoda finding purpose and growing as a character! Baby Yoda showing a degree of maturity and self-determination totally absent from the character in the prior two seasons! Baby Yoda showing that he's genuinely empathized with Mando and internalized things Mando didn't even realize he was teaching The Child. Then, Baby Yoda finding his own way back to Mando of his own accord and proving he's more than just baggage.
:100-com:
Baby Yoda existing as a marketable plushie for 30 episodes instead of existing as a character in a show that is ostensibly about him is a fuckin war crime, I like the idea of him abandoning the force powers it'd be a kino arc
I like the idea of him abandoning the force powers it’d be a kino arc
I'd prefer to see him abandon the Jedi stuff rather than the force.
if that was the case they would have had the New Republic directly funding and aiding Space Mengele’s cloning research
Exactly. I'm not saying I would have liked it if they had gone the route of new republic being basically interchangeable with the empire and then doing an operation paperclip....but that at least would have been sort of interesting.
They don't do that though. He's given amnesty on the conditions that he can't continue doing his research and he's stuck doing data entry. It's just complete nonsense.
the master's house can't be dismantled with IP designed for children
that episode really sucked imo, even setting aside the garbage politics of the amnesty program segment it felt completely thematically disconnected from the rest of the show. the episode opens on standard Mr Helmet doing cool space shit, cuts halfway across the galaxy to make you feel bad for Space Mengele and then goes back. truly awful writing
Wait I’m watching episode 3 now and wait holy shit please tell me this isn’t “What if Operation Paperclip was good, actually?”??? What the fuuuuuck these guys better turn out to be evil wtf.
Sort of, but like discussed in other threads:
It's also "what if operation paperclip was good because wernher von braun would have just done low level data entry?"
spoiler
What if Operation Paperclip was good actually because Wernher von Braun would get entrapped by another former Nazi into doing Nazi stuff, and have his brain melted
I really don’t know what I was supposed to take away from that
Yeah this particular plot point confused the fuck out of me too. At least if it was just straight Operation Paperclip good propaganda I'd understand the rational.
I haven't seen S3 (still burned out on SW stuff by and large) but there's a lot of asinine attempts at making ex Imperials sympathetic in the franchise. I got mad in season 2 when they made Bill Burr's character into a guilt ridden, repentant woobie when in his first appearance he felt more like a loud mouth chud who'd get wasted in a dive bar and start mouthing off about how the Empire should have won until a bunch of Rebel Alliance veterans and a Wookie beat the shit out of him and throw him out.
Is this a surprise? The sequel trilogy already showed the New Republic is a bunch of libs. We know now through Mando that there are a bunch of Imperial remnants and regional powers around the galaxy doing nefarious shit and the New Republic is tripping over itself to dismantle warships and decommission fleets. Coruscant is filled with wealthy elite types that don't care who's in power at long as they keep their status.
I decided to go ahead and catch up on this show based on the reactions here, and... I'm coming away with a very different interpretation.
My key takeaways were:
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The scene right after Space Mengele is really sad to a big stadium and he has to engage with the audience. They're all a bunch of ghouls who don't give two shits whether or not the Red Team or the Blue Team (lightsaber-wise!) is in charge. As long as the money keeps flowing, the Republic is the Empire is the New Republic is the First Order. Line goes up under Space Hitler? Well, thanks, Space Hitler!
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The mind-flayer scene. Sure, we kept using The Torment Nexus, but it's fine now that The Good Guys are using it! Surely no bad actors exist under neoliberalism! God's back in heaven, and all's right with the galaxy.
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The New Republic is totally fine with fascists keeping on doing their thing, as long as they Follow The Rules. Good Citizens snitch on their friends.
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You're literally not allowed to touch grass or a droid gets mad at you. I just thought that was pretty fucking funny.
I came away thinking to myself, "Well, fuck me. The New Republic is just the Empire with a spit-shine and a bit more politeness. The dudes in charge are still evil as shit."
My partner wants me to add:
"They don't mind whitewashing Space Nazis, because the Republic has always been
turtlesSpace Nazis all the way down. They just have more palatable talking points now."
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