Favorite MANDO MOMENTS (Seasons1&2)

I suspect that most of the people reading these threads have viewed Seasons 1 and 2 more than once. No doubt, the Ahsoka and Luke appearances rank high on most fans' ranking of favorite moments, but what else? I'm curious what scenes / settings/ moments / stick out as some of your personal favorites?

I'll start this thread off with...

The cinematography of Bryce Dallas Howards' The Heiress' episode. It was so well done that it felt as though it was filmed on location on some ocean dock. I think it was especially noteworthy because, until TROS, we hadn't seen many ocean settings in Star Wars. I especially loved the scene of the Razor Crest being picked up out of the water by a make-shift walker crane after Din's less-than-successful landing.

I've said it before but I'll say it again: The Volume has revolutionized Star Wars. Every episode now has the production 'feel' of a major feature film.

 

Great stuff! The whole "Old West" vibe we got from The Marshal episode with the Mando-Vanth standoff in the saloon and the way Favreau has turned the townspeople and Tuskin raiders into classic 'Cowboys and Indians' has been really fun. IMHO, the Old West influences on George Lucas is a big part of why we Americans are so smitten by Star Wars.

 

The thing that made that so special, Jedi Knight Fett, is that it was 40 years in the making. The Boba Fett character was introduced as an action figure BEFORE TESB came out so kids were fawning over this mysterious cool-looking bounty hunter with the cool name months before he was introduced on film.

Ironically, the build up from a whole generation of kids far surpassed what we ever saw on screen----until The Mandalorian. I've heard scores of fans say that Boba Fett's appearance in The Tragedy was ten-times better than anything we ever saw in the films. The sheer brutality of Boba's fight scenes in that episode were truly "imperial kick ass" amazing.

 

You've nailed one of the shows simple beauties, Lukestarbucker. I loved that scene as well.

Two similar scenes were in The Jedi (S2:E5) when Ahsoka met up with the Magistrate while Mando faced off against the Magistrate's hired gun. One scene reflected an old west shootout and the other an ancient samurai duel. Few words were said -- or needed -- to make them both resonate with fans.

 

One of The Most Beautiful Comments I've ever read about my favorite show!
Thank you, The Hero With No Fear!!!

My next contribution to this thread is not so much a 'moment' as it is 'an overall feeling' of realism the show consistently has achieved. The impact of The Volume, Favreau's advanced soundstage which allows the actor and the cinematographers to operate in a 'real' environment instead of 'green screens' has been nothing short of revolutionary.

From the show's very first episode I found myself going gaga over the set designs and wondering how in the world the production could afford so many dramatic on-site locations. There's just something about The Volume that removes all the 'fake' that our brain used to subliminally associate with these types of shows. NOW it ALL feels incredibly real -- which bodes well for the future for all of us big Star Wars fans. I can't wait for Season 3!

 

I hear ya, Luckstarbucker!

There have been as many examples of cool shots and locations as there have been episodes but two in particular that really stood out from this past season in my mind was The Heiress with its unique water world setting and The Jedi with its moody, atmosphere-setting burned out forest and stark village setting. As a result, the setting in both episodes was as much a 'character' in these incredible episodes as the actors themselves.

 

Sorry to be OTing my own thread with these little asides about The Volume, but just one more:

I read a testimonial about the Soundstage (yeah, they're marketing the technology to other studios now) where it was said that the advent of this technology totally changes the calculus for sci-fi movies from now on. The guy said that it used to be that you had to be very cognizant when writing a script or evaluating a script of the cost of bringing its more fantastical settings to life.

With The Volume, the possibilities in Star Wars (or other sci-fi franchises) are now limitless.

 

One of the old adages about screenwriting is that the best scripts "show not tell" the viewer what he or she needs to know. That's particularly true of scripts for The Mandalorian (most written by Jon Favreau.)

You would THINK that it would be incredibly challenging to write scripts for a story featuring a helmeted main hero who is a man of few words and a baby who only coos. But @The Hero With No Fear pointed out earlier in this thread how beautifully the relationship between Din and Grogu was developed through a series of 'little moments' without, in most cases, the need for any dialogue.

The amount of fan tears shed at the conclusion of S2:E8 is a testament to how successfully that relationship was developed thru Favreau's scripts and by, Pascal, the puppeteers, and everyone else involved. The Mandalorian has been a fun roller-coaster ride, but that developing relationship has been at the heart of every episode.