SPOILER Mandalorian S1E5

I think I'll keep it short. I liked this episode, just not as much as the other ones. The others were more emotional and action-driven in my opinion. Still a great episode no doubt though. I'm lovin' the feel of this series so far, can't wait for chapter 6!

 

This one?



Well ... when the modifications start it could be anything. It could be just an ugly ... yet it looks very clean and slick to be a self made ship. I think this is a new ship that they made for the show, too bad that we didn't see much of it.

 

Looks a lot like the two prong points of Mando's rifle but I keep looking for cargo space. No where to put an extra entity, supplies or rescue a group to remove to elsewhere, etc. I kinda like Mando's current ship, the Razor Crest. Just needs a major overhaul. The new ship is good looking, sleek and very modern.

I don't know. I feel like the Razor Crest is a very personal thing to The Mandalorian. Like manybe he salvaged it somewhere, spent a lot of time finding and replacing parts.

 

This episode sort of sums up while I'm a film guy, rather then TV. Very few programs manage properly fill out their run time with all killer no filler. Most make a big splash at the start of a season have a few filler episodes in the middle, that if your lucky have a bit of character development. Then the try and tie up all the loose ends in the final few episodes so that it generally feels rushed. This seems to be how the Mandalorian is shaping up. Which is a shame.

Still their doing it better then most TV shows and I didn't hate the episode, I'm a star wars fan so its fun to go back to Tatooine, but yeah it was filler.

 

Am I the only to be surprised by how many times he left the baby alone or with people he knows for like one hour ?

Especially for a pro ?

 

No, you are not the only one. Yes you have to realize that he has some business to do, cannot become a full day nanny btw do you have kid? how many times you left in the kindergarten or with the nanny? how much time you spent with the teacher or with the nanny before you leave the kids? sometimes you have to trust in people.

 

Tuskan Raiders are no longer savages is canon now! Those of us who read of A’shada Hett and talked to The Chieftan in Knights of the Old Republic knew this; but it is a joy that others got to see Raiders in a gentler light.

 

Negelct! Neglect! Calling Republic Child Protective Services!

 

I've enjoyed all the episodes so fan, this one paid a lot of fan service and I was completely fine with that. I also quite like that the story of the last two have been complete within their episode, that's what a TV show should do. The first 3 episodes seem like they were all connected as the set up for the show, these last two are individual episodes. Baby yoda didn't have such a big part to play, s/he seems to represent the mysterious nature of the force in the series. I think because it is a TV show not so much is riding on it, but overall this series so far is the best Disney Star Wars for me.

 

that’s the one. I think maybe they could have just used the framing as the base. I think you make a good point though, I think they just made a new ship.

 

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Falcon's "broken sound effect" when Mando's ship breaks (which, btw, is also the sound used in Temple of Doom when the plane's engines run out of gas and die mid-air).

I smiled a little. It's just such a classic sound.

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 9, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 9, 2019 ---

The budget is not small. It's $15 million per episode. This is the same budget as the final season of Game of Throats (my pet name for it), and GoT was an hour long.
The difference is that the final episode of GoT final season averaged around 71 minutes per episode, while Mando averages aroun 35.
That means that while GoT was spending an average of around $210 thousand per minute, Mando is spending around $430 thousand per minute.

And where GoT ran for 6 episodes and cost around $90 million for the season, Mando will run for 8 and cost about $120 million. That's about half the amount spent on the stand-alone films.
The difference is that, for example, Rogue One was 133 minutes, so $265 million is about $2 million per minute, or about 4.5 times the cost per minute of Mando, and about 9.5 times the cost per minute of GoT.

But think about that for a minute. Mando is almost 5 times closer to the cost per minute of a major motion picture than Game of Thrones.
Put another way, GoT is 10% of Rogue One's per minute cost, while Mando is 20%.

That is a lot for a TV show.
GoT was the most expensive show to date. I think Mando's going to take its place. Keep in mind that GoT started off with $6 million per episode and only hit $15 million in its final season. If Mando did that same move, it would have a final season of $37.5 per episode, or about $1 million per minute - which would put it at half the rate of Rogue One.

What makes Mando a tad restricted in how exactly it shows volumes of people is that they are using a new and pioneering technology called Stagecraft, which is just a nutters piece of technology created by the folks from Unreal. I've spoken to my friend in VFX within the industry, and while Stagecraft isn't as sweet of a deal as the promo material makes it sound, it is still pretty slick and it does help VFX work quite a bit - though the cost needs to come down more for most productions to bother using it. Right now, it takes a giant like Disney to wield the cost.

But it's pretty slick.

This is the same technology that was cracked open on Solo. For example, it was used on the train heist.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I loved the Swoop Bikes. One of my favorite scenes is Anakin searching for Shimi on a swoop bike (it has Duel of Fates playing in the background).

Mando:



Anakin:



Dash Rendar:

 

I happened to be watching Temple of Doom today and when the rock ceremony climax happens with all the heart stuff, and Indy's under a spell, the music has elements of the Duel of Fates. It's pretty interesting, but you can here Williams all the way back then playing with the same theme...though quite differently.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Not sure you'll do that if your kid is wanted ...

 

WAW - The amount of money spent is unbelievable ... I really want to know for what they are spending this. I was hoping for more CGI effects, space scenes, etc. But so far it is very limited. Instead we have desert planets and lookalike architecture. Have you made any difference in the buildings from Arvala-7, Tatooine, Nevarro?

I just hope that more people love it and it makes the planned profit. It will be a shame if they cancel it after 1 season because it is too expensive.

So far I think they are not exploiting the legacy of SW at it's best. They have such a rich history, props, costumes, planets etc. I am a bit surprised to see so may desert planets ... in the same time I enjoyed to see Tatooine again. The speeder bikes scene was sooo cool. It could be done even more interesting showing them shooting from the bikes, like kind of space cowboys kind of

 

Fear not, they are already shooting Season 2 as we speak, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this show isn't 4-6 seasons before the story concludes.

I have worked as an extra, (not in any Star Wars ) but last year I was working on Netflix's The King, I was dressed as an Abbott, and even had my fingernails dirtied as to be as authentic as possible, they hired out a castle and built a whole temporary village next to it just for all the film cast and crew. There was hundreds of people, and the amazing thing was for the 3 days I was paid doing it, they shot 2 scenes, literally only 2-3 minutes of the film if that, it opened my eyes as to why these things cost so much money to make.

 

Season 2.. good “everything is going as planned.”

I watched The King, which abbot were you?

 

Most people's understanding of VFX is vastly off from its reality and expect it to do far beyond its logistical reach.

Watch Mandos credits. Over half of the staff is VFX. And look at how many VFX companies are there. It's not just one or two. Then look at how many people are under one category of job title in the VFX section. Then go back to the non-VFX credits and look at how many people are under one job title.
There's no contest. VFX requires throwing an absolute mob of people for a massive number of hours to do.

That money is getting used well. The quality of the VFX is insane. GoT wasn't using VFX in nearly every scene.
Mando is.
It's sets are VFX sets using the latest in virtual projected set technology...that is not cheap.

Low budgets can get you VFX, but if you want stuff like Baby Yoda, you need solid high level VFX which will cost quite a bit because he is not easy to do. At all.

Keep in mind that almost everything is VFX in this. There's practicle, but a lot of the scene is digital; almost all sets are, and just about all distance shots, and every flying Mando...etc...

That is a ton to do at one fifth the cost of Rogue One, to speak nothing of the timelines.

In all honesty, I'm simply floored at what they are doing. It's absolutely insane!
This is the film production method Lucas strove to make possible, and they are going for it all in.

As for success. They are already making Season 2, and Disney+ had 10 million subscribers on day one; so many more than forecasted that it literally broke the platform.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Maybe, but it isnt showing up on screen. Look at how many location shoots GoT season had. Look at how many people were involved in massive groups. Look at how many known actors were involved in episode after episode. I had previously heard $10M per episode for Mandalorian. Do we know this for sure? Does Mandalorian have more CGI effects? Season 8 of GoT had lots of CGI effects with the dragons. Like I said Navarro and Mos Eisley look amazingly the same, except for color change. I suspect same sets used and colors just changed.

Dont get me wrong, I really have loved The Mandalorian, but I dont know if I would have if the storyline didnt go the Baby Yoda route.

 

Yes. We do know it's tons of CGI because we know it's a ton of Stagecraft sets which means they don't use old sets. They recreate them through digital projection.

They look so similar because they are. If they physically went to locations and remade things, nothing would be that close so many years later, and we're pretty sure on the price since WSJ reported it.

GoT threw lots of money on specific VFX over an hour of footage.
Mando is throwing the same money at nearly an entire CGI set for half the footage.

They are doing more. You aren't intended to spot it all because they aren't throwing Dragons around. They are using it in almost every scene that looks mundane. Watch the video on Stagecraft.

Cheers,
Jayson