SPOILER Heroes of Mandalore Pt 1 and 2 (Not a Review)

I gotta say I was pretty disappointed that they bait and switched Sabine's mother and brother dying. It cheapened the whole thing. That being said this episode did add two amazing new actors, Mortal Kombat and Man in the High Castle's Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa as Papa Wren and Game of Thrones, Outlander, and Casino Royale's Tobias Menzies as the new Saxon.
Despite what I previously said it was a solid start to the season, but Ezra's slapstick vaudeville act was annoying.

 

I stayed up and watched it - while I was good to get my GFFA fix it, I could have waited until tomorrow to watch it. The released synopsis for the two-parter made it clear that this was going to be on Mandalore, so I was hoping they would make a move to break out Sabine's father - only I expected him to be a another warrior in armor, not an artsy-type. I agree with @Finn is a Jedi that they could have done without "tricking" us into believing that Sabine's mother and brother were dead from the weapon.

Also, was it just me, or was the voice of the second trooper in the first battle sequence the same as Kanan (i.e. Freddie Prinze, Jr.)?

I know it's a necessary story to tell but I don't know that it was premiere-worthy. As the season unfolds we'll see if it's a bigger piece of the story arc then is immediately apparent.

 

I only had time to watch part 2 before work, but I'm glad to see others thought the end of ep 1 seemed to indicate that sabine's mother died. I put that in my review in april, and people pointed out that she was in the trailer, being alive later in the season.

They reuse voices a lot. I'm going to rewatch the eps after work, but i'd not be surprised if it was Prinze as a trooper.

 

EXACTLY my thoughts. I really enjoyed the episodes but when I thought Sabine's mother and Brother had died there I felt real emotion and thought it added a real sense of gravitas to the situation, then when it turned out they were alive I was like. Uh, well now the stakes don't seem just as high.

The only other gripe I had was that Bo Katan should have had to do something more heroic than giving Sabine good advice to warrant the dark sabre and something big should have made her change her own mind too. Other than that, thought it was a solid start. Liked the way Thrawn pretty much predicted the outcome.

 

Good, action packed episode to start the final season. Slight cop out with Sabine's mother and brother, which doesn't bode well for the idea of the crew biting the dust.

That said, there's a lot of mentions of Ezra being a Jedi..."when gone am I..." etc...

 

Sad to say I just thought it was decent, not great, for the most part. I've never been a fan of the Mandalorians in TCW or Rebels, to be honest, so I'm a bit biased I know. I've seen the honor-driven warrior society before, and the Mandos just seem to value that way over reality, in a way that just doesn't even make sense. I was a HUGE Boba Fett fan back in the day, and the thought of learning about his people always intrigued me...until they started actually doing so. That said, take my comments with the appropriate grain of salt, I guess.

It just all seemed like a bunch of maneuvering around plot, instead of a story.

I enjoyed the way they ramped up the tension at the end of ep1, with the weapon attack being heard not seen, and liked the way they ended with the emotional end to Sabine's mother and Tristan...and then every bit of love I had for that was torn asunder at the beginning of the next episode. I think I would have been almost ok with it had they reveled it at the end of ep1 - something about closing an episode with that emotional cliffhanger, only to invalidate basically the entire previous episode in the next episode (by killing the purpose of its ending), is frustrating.

I did like Bo Katan's emotion toward Sabine regarding developing the weapon - that felt very believable.

I really did not like how Sabine was able to spend 20 seconds or so fiddling at a surface level with the weapon, and was able to completely reconfigure it to target a completely different substance - something she had "considered" but not developed previously.

I did enjoy the ending with Bo Katan taking the saber, and while initially I felt a bit like Sabine giving it up to her felt too convenient and forced, I realized they did spend time showing Bo Katan as capable throughout the two episodes.

Overall, I didn't dislike it per se, but it didn't get me excited for the last season the way I hoped. Looking forward to moving on to more episodes, though!

 

I thought it was pretty good. It feels like the show has been taken up a notch in many ways: voice acting, action, animation, music, etc.

Some of the action was superb. That scene where they break out Sabine's father was probably one of the best action scenes in the show so far. I thought it was interesting how Ezra was saying how he wasn't "with" Sabine in this part. I wonder if they are going to try to make them a couple, because that feels a little lazy and forced. Especially since they kinda dropped that whole possibility pretty early on in Season 1.

The new Saxon was honestly forgettable, in my opinion, which is how I felt about his brother. Thrawn stole that scene though, as usual. (Reading his book has made me look at him in a new light.) The concept for Sabine's weapon was pretty neat. It really reminded me of Galen Erso's arc with the Death Star.

Ezra was kinda goofy in this episode, which isn't anything new. Him jumping up to the cliff with all the falling transports was a pretty cool moment though. Kanan is getting more powerful as the show progresses, which I feel this episode demonstrates. His moment with Hera makes me wonder if he's still questioning being part of a larger rebellion. Bo Katan and Fenn Rau were pretty cool as well.

All in all, a pretty good start to the season. Not Siege-of-Lothal-good, but I'd say it was a little better than Steps Into Shadow.

 

I rewatched both episodes and can make give a more complete account of my thoughts.

The good

* Hera and Kanan. Girl, you know he ain't talking about the mission

* The train fight was dynamic and interesting. The physicist in me rebels against jumping up from falling vehicles, but science hardly exist in star wars.

* Are you with Sabine? Its been a while since Ezra's put a move on her. Funny, awkward teen dialogue ensues.

* The ending of episode 1, and Sabine's emotional response at the start of episode 2.

* We learn that a mando with a jetpack is more than a match for a tie.

* Palps showed me the way to true power, just before unleashing a big shock. Maybe unintentional, but I liked it.

The bad

* They should've killed Sabine's mom. Having lost her mom saving her dad would have given the great performance by Tiya real weight

* Bo-Katan's acting was terrible. Sackoff really slacked off. She seemed so bored and uninterested with every line.

* I really didn't like the weapon in episode 2. It magically cuts through walls and only heats up a certain material? I was hoping it was more like the organic weapon tested by the separatist Lot Durd against the lemur people in the clone wars. Would've been a neat call back. Why can none of the empires best and brightest figure out a weapon designed by a 10 year old? I've come to like Sabine over the last season, but she was never used as the Donatello of the group. Since when is she one of the most brilliant minds in the galaxy?

The weird

* Mando armor can withstand vehicle blast? It like 500 times as effective as stormtrooper armor

* Why were the flying mandos blasting the walkers? The bolts seemed to have no effect.

 

Meh, not what I wanted for a season opener. I always thought Sabine's story was filler. I think this episode finally broght that to an end. She destroyed her superweapon and gave the Darksaber to someone with better leadership skills. So meybe that's the end of it. It was a cool episode though, don't get me wrong, but I want to get to the meat and potatos of the Rebels story.

 

Did it bug anybody else how Kanan and Ezra's actions literally defied gravity several times in this episode. Kanan, being blind and unable to see was able to jump perfectly fine onto a guy with a jet pack and hang on just fine. Also Ezra with his jumping up the vehicles like Legolas from the Hobbit. I know they have the force, but it feels so cheesy and dumb for them to be able to do that. I feel like it lowers the stakes of the show cause these characters can act like gods and nothing can stop them.

 

Yeah, when she was crying about her mum and brother I was like mehhhh ( she had to learn her lesson for creating such a weapon and I don't think that was touched on), she ain't quite ready to lead yet, she was anxious to give away the saber. I like the Mandos though, but thats it

 

I certainly liked the episode, but I do have some issues with it. The animation especially in regards to the action seems to have improved and visually it looked great. I thought the voice acting was good and I enjoyed the character development on the part of Sabine and the Mandalorians in general. I also enjoyed the callbacks from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with the tank scene although Ezra's force jump looked silly.

I will say that I thought Bo-Katan's change of heart regarding Sabine and the weapon was a little faster than I would have liked, but with only ~40 minutes of showtime I accepted it. The fact that neither Sabine's mother, nor her brother were killed by the weapon disappoints me as it could have provided some actual stakes to their mission and the episode.

Lastly, Sabine giving the Darksaber to Bo-Katan is clearly a means for Sabine, and the viewers, to leave Mandalore and remain with the Rebels crew for the rest of the season. Overall, I thought it was a good episode.

 

I feel like Heros of Mandalor was an ok episode. But I feel like things just happened to quickly I think it would have been better if they did maybe a three part episode because just one episode they just try to rescue Sabine’s dad and then they next they quickly destroyed a weapon that wasn’t as heavy guarded as it should have been and it’s sorta reckless that any droid just can erase anything from the Empire’s database... I mean come on! If this weapon could have easily won them the war they should have had ton of guards around! Not just a few skimpy stormtroopers!

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 17, 2017, Original Post Date: Oct 17, 2017 ---

Although there were some good parts don’t get me wrong I think it was a good Sabine episode and I like the part where Sabines dad asked Ezra “Are you with Sabine?” And Ezra explained he wasn’t like “with her” with her. Also funny little love scene with Kanan and Hera it made me chuckle a bit. And also a very sweet part when Sabine gets to see her dad again lovely little scene. And man that Tesla walker was cool! Shame it’s most likely it’s just going to be in these to episodes I would have loved to see it in action again.

 

Agree with this. One way that Rebels suffers compared to TCW is the latter had story arcs that went on for three or four episodes and had more time to explore the story and character development.

 

That jump from the falling troop carrier was an eyeroll for me - while clearly the force allows force-wielders to "cheat" gravity, jumping up from something falling with that much velocity was a bit of a stretch for me. As long as they don't start with Neo-like flying I'll excuse it as creative license. He could have simply survived the fall and taken some of this two-episode arc to recover him.

Kanan's time with Bendu has allowed him to recover his vision using the force, not his eyes. How else could he "see" Hera in the transmission? It's not too unlike how he could "see" Ezra and Maul when they were using the Holocron early in Season 3.

 

I'm with you it wasn't the greatest of episodes, but it worked and more so from the standpoint I've missed the show so I'm just happy it's back. When Finn Rau suggested using the weapon against the Empire Sabine never says it couldn't be done, she just says that isn't our mission. When she got to the weapon her initial plan was to destroy it. Which makes sense for her character she isn't blood thirsty she doesn't want to use a weapon for mass murder even if it helps her side. Then in the scene when she is adjusting the weapon Sabine uses the interface on the weapon and on her arm gauntlet which tells me she wasn't changing it on the fly rather she uploaded the enhancement and changes she had worked on from another time.