Mando is losing its luster for me

I'm aware of the intentions. And I could go with it, if the tonal focus didn't drift off course.
I watch Dr. Who, after all, and that show wildly swings tone and style, but it never shifts the tonal focus. That is, where it puts the weight in its focus.

That's the bigger issue for me.
Swing hard left in style. I'll not be as keen (because singular vision is always stronger), but I can go for it (again, Dr. Who), but don't switch your tonal focus.

Again, suddenly being more focused on cool people and cool objects than character meaning after already being focused on character meaning is very deflating.

And it's perfectly fine that you like it, but it is never the less sloppy grip on the focus in exchange for brand advertising - essentially.

That Dark Saber is a really good example, but so is dropping in Ahsoka, Boba Fett, X-Wings, Tie Fighters, Doom Troopers, and Luke Skywalker.

It's not that they aren't cool things. Yep, they check the cool thing check box, and as I said before, folks that are big EU style, or Encyclopedia Cinematica fans should have a great time.

And I just want to make sure you soaked this part in before, because this really is the heart of the situation for me.

"Mando season one's arc is that Mando wants to find the baby because it's his job, and suddenly feels guilt and a want to protect for the first time.
That's not really having gone somewhere. To have gone somewhere, Mando would need to have expressed something before that as a desire of something regarding the future - in some manner or another.
But he didn't. He has no designs on the future; nothing is expressed.

Even The Man with no Name outlined his designs for the future in the beginning, as simple as they were. He wanted to move on and get more money than he was getting from his current shtick.
And that's more or less what his arc is wrapped up around, so him commenting on that at the beginning makes sense.

Mando only talks about getting more money, but then abandons it.
Conceptually, these are in the same wagon, but it's not a topical point.

Then later we learn that he's not purely cold because he gets all this money and gives it to his tribe, so he's actually an incredibly bonded person and not a cold nameless bounty hunter at all, which only further devalues the merit of him choosing the baby over money.

Again, the tribe is cool and was interesting to watch in and of itself, but the tribe doesn't move Mando forward. The tribe drags him backward narratively.

And that's really common in the show.
We take a step forward so that we can waltz around the legacy of the past for a dance or two, so that we can take a step forward.

For example, we meet Malk so that we can move forward, but we go backward to backhistoryville instead and doublecrossing town over characters who mean nothing to us at all because we only just met them and only now are being told of their value to Mando...which isn't much - Malk wasn't that important. But we create a history with Mayfel out of it. Then we meet Mayfeld again, but he's gone from the hardnosed efficient killer with no sh*ts to give to being a bit of a softer killer entirely off camera. Anyway, we get Mayfeld. Step forward. Only, the main reason for getting Mayfeld back is to sizzle around his past through dialogue exposition that sets up Mayfeld's actions, not Mando's.


Same thing happens with the other Mandalorian's. Same thing happens with Cara Dune, Moff Gideon, Cobb Vanth."​

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I'm quite the proponent of the Pulp Romp.
Most of my favorite films are films that aren't deeply introspective character driven stories. I prefer the Rocketeer over Apocalypse Now.

I overthink.
Everyone here will tell you that. It gets annoying sometimes, I'm most certain.

Also, I have Asperger's. That means I hyper-focus and over analyze anything I take interest in.
It's at once a grace and a curse because it means I can tear apart things to a finite degree and describe their inner workings, but it also means I can come off as "too serious" to a bunch of folks.

Don't think for a moment that just because I tear things down to this level that I can only watch things from this level. That's not how it works.
I actually watch things completely shut off from analyzing anything about it. Analysis comes after the fact in hind side, replaying it through my head.
During it, I'm just watching and avoid thinking forward in it.

I have actually advocated for this very format in a show before Mando ever came out.
People have asked "What would you do with the franchise if you were in charge", and I basically said that I would set up a sort of Twilight Zone series that tells self-contained stories in a serial fashion patterned after old Republic Serials that highlights different creatives each episode and gives new artists their starting chances in the industry.

The thing that doesn't really work for me is a radical shifting of tonal focus episode to episode on a narrative serial.

Don't get me wrong. Mando has a massive set of industrial accomplishments that I'm extremely loving the hell out of watching ripple through.
I'm watching a VFX company that's looking to step its toes into production (instead of just post) over in Atlanta exploring the stagecraft system and it's marvelous to watch, and absolutely thrilling.

I so absolutely hope that the $15M/Episode show replaces the $200M/Film - and I absolutely hope the limited series replaces more and more multi-season shows.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

And that is why I have a problem.

It didn't pick a lane.
Either be episodic or continual - don't try juggling both; not unless you really know how to run both together and have a long history of getting that down for your title.
Every show I've seen try to do that right out of the gate when they don't have writers and show runners seasoned in the episodic continual has done terribly at putting it together; regardless how cool every other aspect of the show is and regardless how well loved it is.

Especially don't try juggling both and trying to juggle tonal focus shifting between the narrative weight and the world/franchise weight.

Dr. Who does what they are attempting, but it does it very well because it's really been doing it for a long time and knows how to tell a serial inside of episodic frames.
Another show that is both hit and miss with the format is Supernatural (you first have to be willing to accept a sci-fi horror soap opera to make it through this one).

If it were in my park, I would have suggested sticking strictly to the episodic format to begin with and walk in the continual in season 3.
For the first two seasons, just let Mando be a bounty case per episode or two and call it done at that.
This allows for the Twilight Zone carousel of tone, style, and tonal focus shifting, as well as the random highlighting of brand/franchise/world pimping (dark sabers, tie fighters, doom troopers, Luke Skywalker, etc...) without casting any damage to the narrative as there isn't a continual narrative present to elbow in the way of and fight for room with.

There's no such moment as 2.8 had happen where there's a problem with Superman showing up and taking every eyeball away from Dr. Who in the finale of a continual narrative.

That allows everything they wanted, and for the show to get used to itself, and then you can jump into a narrative weaved through the episodic nature that you now have full familiarity and articulation with.

As it is, currently, they are clearly not either with the balance and it wobbles between them awkwardly and is forced forward a lot rather than elegantly drifting in a nice weave.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yes, Supernatural did early on - it's also when it was very wobbly and not very good.

They really got better at it about season 4, and really started nailing the handling of the method around season 5.
The first three were very wobbly and unstable with season arcs, at best.

Most of the success during the first few seasons was the world building through the episodic story telling, and really didn't lean hard on heavy story arcs.

Also worth noting here, Supernatural had Robert Singer on board who already knew how this kind of approach worked across multiple shows over time, and while most of their writers were relatively fresh in the pond, they remarkably landed Jeremy Carver who ended up just blowing up as a writing talent for this sort of format.
But really, they all were mostly cutting their teeth at the beginning - especially at the form.

And it was a fugly duck at the beginning by comparison to where they got later on.

It is a fair argument to say that Mando needs time, but that's kind of the point here - no one has that time anymore...especially if you're not on CW.
If you're on a streaming platform, you have a maximum of 3 seasons before you're under the blade waiting for it to drop, and if you're not a strong smash, then there's a pretty good chance you won't make it to season 2 or at the very least beyond season 2.

And that's because streaming platforms are all now playing the media equivalent of "money ball" with their shows. Netflix is the one leaning into the approach the most. Essentially they're calculating the watch ratings against the cost of the show and forecasting outward, and the moment that the watch rate dips just below the point of value against the cost (which is incredibly fast for any normal show), then it's marked for cancellation regardless if it's continual story is done or not. The money ball part of this comes from that they have the data that shows them that folks who watched that kind of show they're marking for cancellation also watch certain other kinds of shows, and they have metrics that show that the initial release period of a show is the highlight of a show, and they have metrics that show that people don't really stop tuning in when shows are cancelled, but they do stop tuning in when you let shows go to long and don't keep new IP content flowing around, so....they cancel and toss up another "new great show", run it for a moment, cancel it, then toss up another "new great show", rinse repeat etc...

Now, Disney doesn't seem to be playing it as hard and fast as Netflix, and that's probably because they have a sort of different model with merchandising, theme parks, and branding, so it's a bit different and longer viewed than over at Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, but the point - the real point here - is that regardless where you turn, you are not going to be graced 5 seasons to get your bearings locked down, and only at that point start to really get your finer skills flaring.

Furthermore, and the following is anecdotal, but I can't tell you how many times I've read and listened to folks wax about world and universe exploring and building being what they really want to see right now out of Star Wars.

There really isn't a need to ram through a continual at a high rate of speed.
Pull a Supernatural and slow the heck down on the continual. Go a bit more harder into the story of the week, and don't really bother with more than 3 or so episodes in the whole season that move the narrative forward - one of them being the pilot, one being the finale, and one being roughly in the middle.

The rest, Twilight Zone/X-Files that sucker.

It's not about what shows are or aren't in trend right now. I understand that continuals have been the trend ever since Lost blew the doors off TV ratings and everyone scrambled to get a piece of the action.

It's about the rate you move it at, and I don't think they handled the balance as well as they could have at all.
They very clearly wanted to play with a toy box of cool and shiny things in the world of Star Wars, and rightly so - nothing wrong with that.
However, they repeatedly let that lust for the shiny toy box get in the way of the narrative in terms of weight and focus, while still pressing forward in the continual narrative like everything was good on the narrative weight...it wasn't. It was gimped because of a distraction. A distraction that is very cool, and so a lot of folks are just going to "ooo" and "ahhh" at the fireworks display because that's great, but it's still producing a weaker narrative than it could have been.

More bothersome than that, however, is that I would have rather they didn't even bother with a narrative, to be honest.
I would have rather they gave a purely episodic show that was a romp and explore with nearly no movement in the character over the seasons - just fun romping, and "ooing" and "ahhing" at fireworks, amazing landscapes, and crazy aliens while laughing at Mando breaking his ship yet again.
"Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!"

Right now is a great opportunity for that because the world is stressed as hell, and a solid fun romp is an easy win right now. Feel good TV is on the up.

But instead, I got a narrative trying to hang on to story of the week, while simultaneously attempting to serve up Encyclopedia Cinematica.
That's just too much at once to balance, so I get a half-baked narrative that jerks along about as elegantly as Mando's ship does half the time.

If I'm going to have to get a continual narrative, at least make it solid - and I mean, solid. I'm meaning Fringe or Dr. Who solid.
Because you likely only have me for about 3 seasons tops before I'm going to check out of your show because you're running a continual and honestly continuals get tiring.

If I had to keep up with the continual narrative of Jessica Fletcher or Jean Luc Piccard, I would have tuned out rather farther back and never made it through every season.
At a certain point, a continual is just too much energy to invest. Not to mention that at some point, they go off the rails and founder...always. The only way they don't is if they get cancelled early before they have a chance to grow up and make an idiot of themselves as a 'young adult'.

So you only have me for a bit, anyway, so if you're going to half-bake it - regardless how shiny and cool everything else is...then I'm going to drop very quickly in interest. And the fastest way to show that to me is to drop the tonal focus - not the tonality and style in itself, but the tonal focus. What do you focus on and give weight to in your shows, and why? That shouldn't change in your continual - hell, it shouldn't change in even an episodic, though it could potentially season to season...but usually doesn't.

Sam and Dean, for example...heck...that show still focused on the same relationship melodrama bulls** it was focusing on in season 1. It never left that focus to zoom in on how awesome an angel blade was because it was an angel blade. The show never drooled over itself at any of the cool toys it showed off, and it never just dumped in characters for cameos because they needed to squeeze in an ad placement for an upcoming show like a bad cola plug in an 80's TV show.

So, no - I don't think they handled it well, and absolutely my bar is set unfairly high.
I am rather open that Mando is still a highly skilled and high quality show. Again, the analogy to Chevelle stands.

That said, my standards are unfair. If you're going to jump, I want to see you do that. Don't just clear the bar and get the wows because you did it in an outrageous costume with fire spitting out of your shoes.

I am far more forgiving of the episodic, and I really wish they had just gone with that - honestly...I think they would have done better.
Just roaming around the galaxy bounty hunter with no real ties to need to go anywhere, but instead giving the showrunners and audience a free pass to ride around and explore the galaxy of Star Wars for a few seasons in a sort of Quantum Leap 'tour of the world' manner would likely do better than I think most would consider.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

The amount of ratings doesn't factor into it.
That falls back to the "It's like Chevelle" clause.
It's a solidly made show that will entertain, and it will gain good ratings.

My appreciation of the show and how it manages its narrative isn't based on how well received in the general public it is.

In this respect, I am being rather cliché French.
"Yes, you did well, but you could do better."

I recognize that they have gotten world building and exploring. I wasn't saying that didn't happen. I was saying that's all they really needed to happen. But that was a side tangent topic. It was a statement that they could have just done episodic and been just fine because of that.

As to the problem...
Again, I can't think of a better statement than the one I made before.

And that's really common in the show.
We take a step forward so that we can waltz around the legacy of the past for a dance or two, so that we can take a step forward.

For example, we meet Malk so that we can move forward, but we go backward to backhistoryville instead and doublecrossing town over characters who mean nothing to us at all because we only just met them and only now are being told of their value to Mando...which isn't much - Malk wasn't that important. But we create a history with Mayfel out of it. Then we meet Mayfeld again, but he's gone from the hardnosed efficient killer with no sh*ts to give to being a bit of a softer killer entirely off camera. Anyway, we get Mayfeld. Step forward. Only, the main reason for getting Mayfeld back is to sizzle around his past through dialogue exposition that sets up Mayfeld's actions, not Mando's.


Same thing happens with the other Mandalorian's. Same thing happens with Cara Dune, Moff Gideon, Cobb Vanth.​

I also noted

It's like each season kicks off as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and then ends as Real Steel.​

And...

it just keeps getting lost in tangents that have jackall to do with that narrative, and don't do anything for any character's movement, and every final third of a season so far has been entirely distracted by cool-factors over narrative resonances.

Those elements are cool in themselves. That Tie Fighter is cool. That Dark Saber is cool. Luke being at the top of his game is cool. And on and on....
But a dozen cool things doesn't make the narrative thrust.​

Look at it this way.

You're watching a story about a Vigilante and how he's struggling to make his way in the harsh city of Metropolis, and then in the finale of season one, a Manhunter shows up and our hero barely defeats his troops, but the Manhunter crawls out from the rubble by cutting his way through using the Atomic Axe.

Then in season two, the Vigilante continues to struggle to find his way through the world, this time looking for a way to take a lost super powered kid to the long since disbanded, mythical, and obscure Justice League.
In the finale he's facing impossible odds of dozens of Manhunters, and the one that has the Atomic Axe. He's confined in a condition with nowhere to escape, and Superman bursts onto the scene and whips the tar out of every Manhunter in a hot second and agrees to take the lost super kid for super hero training.

Meanwhile, we have other known minor super heroes dropping in repeatedly while we try to work out our Vigilante's story - as they all effectively help him along the way.

I don't care how well the show is doing, it won't change the following...

I don't care if that Atomic Axe becomes important later to the Vigilante, it isn't important now and its context is entirely nothing other than every fan in DC knowing what this thing is and ogling over it because they've never seen one brought to the screen before.

They can try all they want, but as soon as the Batmobile shows up and Batman jumps out in this "post Justice League" era, no one gives a hoot at that moment about our Vigilante.

And I certainly don't care what anyone says, the moment that Superman jumps on the show, absolutely nothing that was set up before matters. The "clear level" button just got hit and all of that threat was really for nothing - now we're just here to watch Superman smash some heads in...you know...on a show not about Superman. That one. That's the one we're watching Superman save the day in the finale...of...another character's show.

And again, even if you toss all of that out.
If you introduce us to characters for no other reason than for historical exposition, but that exposition of the past really doesn't mean anything (ep 1.6) and then just jump ship to showing off what we already know the Vigilante can do, just so we can put the jeopardy of a double cross involving characters we only just met and have no emotional tie to, and fully expected from the onset, then the imperative is hardly worth much of the DUN-DUN-DUN! put in about it.

Further, if this was done so that we can create a new history for one character we'll call Mr. Mercenary, and then we get back to Mr. Mercenary a season later, but getting back to him not only has moved Mr. Mercenary into a softer and gentler version of himself off screen for some unshown reason, but also focuses far more weight on Mr. Mercenary enacting revenge upon a Manhunter who killed scores of his friends back in the day - keeping in mind that Mr. Mercenary is a villain, and - this is important - not our protagonist, then the narrative isn't focused on its subject anymore - it's focused on a side character who's not even a primary component of anything, and hasn't been worked on...actually...

Now we're in Mr. Mercenary's story and his helpful pal the Vigilante who's passing through along his way to help find a home for a lost super hero kid.

I gave a rats a** about Mayfeld, and I really could care less what happened to him in the past. He came along for 2 of 16 episodes, but I'm supposed to suddenly care about this dude's past, his pain, his narrative in ONE episode just because it was a cool idea.

Yeah, it was a cool idea. It's a cool idea to develop in a show called Mayfeld. Go do that.
This is Mando and the focus should probably stay on the Vigilante and not Mr. Mercenary, the Batmobile, the Atomic Axe, Batman, the Justice League, or Superman...


But, again.
That all said, this doesn't mean it's a bad show.
It's a show that I get bored watching because of things like this.
Because, as I said before....

That's encyclopedia lore stuff, and for those who are big on that - this will likely be a right rocking show (along with all the other shows), but for me it was never about that.

It (Star Wars) was about film, and a style of filmmaking.​

Meaning, on a good day I'm not a great "Star Wars fan" if by that you mean "I care about the universe". Nope. I don't. Pretty much not one d**n bit.
I liked the films and their unique craft.

I checked into Mando and was reasonably impressed that I saw some of the same concepts of craft being carried over from the film's form into the show...and then...well...it stopped doing that and became more about showcasing.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I truly agree. The problem for myself is that where everyone else seems to be caught up in the specialness of these things and characters, I am simply not.

Especially when their weight is thrown around so ubruptly.

The primary issue isn't that it's simply world building with or without meaning. It's that the focus on Mando slips a heck of a lot to something else upstaging him.

Even Grogu actually falls into this.
There's whole scores of folks just ready to get put out if Grogu's not in the following season.

Another example is Boba Fett taking over Jabba's. That was entirely off focus from Mando, but it was done anyway.

The whole bit with Kuiil; solid.
The whole Omera tangent; solid.
Mando never left being the largest mass in the star system and it laid the future forward while working on Mando directly through purpose built characters.

Even the Marshal falls pretty well into this, save for the distraction that it's "Fett's armor" and absolutely every mind leaps to that upon sight.
But, at least during that story, the focus never solidly slipped.

There's great tangents like that in there.

And then there's tangents like Mayfeld or Ahsoka which entirely rip the mic out of Mando's hand and take center stage.

Others don't rip the mic out of his hands, but it's like Elvis showing up to your performance.
Whatever else the focus is tonight, it's definitely now also about what Elvis is doing.

Omera, Kuiil...they're not Elvis gravity.
In a story about a band struggling to get by, they are a lost chance at love, and an unknown has-been who's been run through the industry ringer and spit out the other end. Characters you specifically design into a story for the protagonist - tailor made.

You're not trying to fit the Elvis suit around your non-Elvis and refit it without it going wrong. You're fitting your tailor made suit to your character.

They are very different.

There were quite a number of folks who voiced rolling their eyes when Tatooine came on.
It's very similar to this issue.

I want to be extremely clear that my issues are my issues, and that Mando is still high quality television. Extremely high quality.

That I find it leaning towards boring more times than I'd prefer does not mean it deserves slander or ridicule.

It is an impressive show and the creators and artists working on it deserve respect, and the impact upon the industry in form, technology, and language is absolutely noteworthy and worth being proud for.

Mando's story is a functional power house of a story.

So was Game of Thrones. Just because I can analytically identify why it stopped working for me, doesn't mean the show is of low quality.

It is of high quality and took on a direction of treatment I don't find engaging in form.

It may or may not do that going forward. I'm generally not someone who expects reversals on courses that are winning popularity contests so I don't have very big expectations things will shift, but instead will likely remain the same.

I already expected that I was very unlikely to hang out with Star Wars past the ST much as my reasons for being a Star Wars fan are not related to the universe - so...none of it has a charm to me to begin with. Lightsabers could just be regular swords for all I care, and all these spaceships could be ships in the ocean.

If Star Wars were Billy Budd/Captain Blood 2.0, I would still be a fan - what I love about it would still be there regardless what skin it's wearing.

I've never bought a lightsaber, never wanted to.

Back when I bought myself Star Wars stuff as a kid, it was frames of the film, prop and art books, and making of books, and videos.

Even today if I buy a Star Wars book, it's guaranteed to be about the making of it.

You won't find a novel anywhere. No video games of it. No costumes. No posters (though I did print off the posters for the ST films in 2019 and hung them at my office desk because some nearby fans wouldn't stop spending every day complaining about the ST). No shelves of Star Wars stuff. I own a disc of each film from the saga and Solo.
They're in my closet.

As a brand-fan, I'm a crap fan.
So I already expected it to go south because you can't get my interest by making SG-1 shows because I liked the movie Stargate. The universes mean nearly nothing to me. The style and expression of the film language does, and simply being good isn't good enough. I have to enjoy that language.

I can very well respect and recognize the quality of a language I don't enjoy.
Tarantino is a fine craftsman. I don't enjoy his language and have critical issues with it.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

It doesn't matter how logical it is for Superman to show up.
The moment Superman shows up in a mere mortal's story, it's not only Deus Ex Machina time, all eyes are straight up gone off focus from the protagonist as Elvis has entered the building.

And Luke is hardly the sole instance of this.
That doesn't mean they don't make a logical excuse for these things. They do. But no matter how logical it is that Elvis showed up at your High School talent show just to help you out, it's Elvis and whatever you were doing a moment ago is now less of focus.

Even if it's not Elvis. It's totally logical, say, for you to have Neil deGrasse Tyson's famous vest.
You put that on for your dissertation.
No matter how good things go, there is a guarantee that a portion of their attention was torn off from you and instead thinking about the vest and thoughts triggered by that vest.

Alright, let's go a step further. We don't have any of that. Instead, we're a kid in school showing off their art in art class. Another kid comes in and drops a highly talked about pen onto the table. He doesn't make a big deal about it. He just sits down and goes about his life. He has a bada** mythical pen. The art he will create will be grand.
Everyone wants that pen.

Oh. We're still the kid presenting his art. And no matter how cool everything is, eyeballs are going to flip to that pen.

Now...imagine if you will...
Being someone watching from the side who doesn't care about that pen, that vest, or Elvis...truly doesn't care - not punk kid doesn't care.

Now, imagine that is a story you're watching and you don't care about that pen, the vest, or Elvis, but the camera does.

And fans waiting since 1983 to see Luke go whizzbang doesn't mean a show about a rogue Mandalorian - not a baby yoda, not Luke, not Ahsoka, not Fett - is the story where that focus organically belongs.

And it doesn't because this isn't a Jedi story. It's a story about Mando. Not tour of the SW greatest hits.

Now, that is what it has turned into and there's lots of happy folks with that.

I am not one of them, which is why I titled this thread 'Mando is losing its luster for me', and not 'Mando is doing Star Wars wrong'.

And did this distract from the Mando plot? Yes. Absolutely it did. To say that it didn't is to say that Luke never showed up. If Luke showed up, you were watching Luke. You weren't watching Mando do something when you were watching Luke do something, and it wasn't Mando who saved the day there - it was Luke. You may not care that you were distracted for a bit with a firework show of Luke, but that doesn't mean you weren't looking at Luke instead of Mando.

And it's not just Luke. It's so many, many little things all scattered about. They constantly focus in on other things than Mando primarily because they think they're cool, and because they know others think they're cool, and then find a reason to logically fit them into the Mando story. They don't keep their heads stuck inside Mando's helmet and focus exclusively on him and his focal tonality.


Cheers,
Jayson

 

Absolutely.
I am very well aware that I am a very odd Star Wars fan, even among Star Wars fans.
It's a weird house to walk into and see that the Star Wars stuff in this fan's house is a 500 page book on the history of Star Wars production, a bunch of making of books, documentaries of the making of the films, screenplays from the films, and not one poster anywhere, nor a single novel or encyclopedia (whatever they're called), video game, or anything.

It also makes it a rather quiet appreciation because if I say that I like Star Wars to anyone, they'll launch into all of the universe fare and I'll just stand there - fully aware of what they're talking about, but sort of like a religious anthropologist who said they find Mormonism interesting to the Missionary...and then you just feel like an a**hole because you don't have anything to say and you don't want to stifle their passion or enthusiasm, or make it seem like you think low of them (not at all!).

There's really no "George Lucas" fan club, but that's what I actually am.
And to be honest, my favorite film by Lucas isn't even Star Wars. It's one of his college shorts titled 1:42.08, followed by Look at Life.
Look at Life, honestly, blew my mind when I first saw that. It was like being a kid and seeing Star Wars all over again. Just the craft and genius of it.
The fact that it was all manually cut and timed is just jaw dropping - I mean...speeding the reel by hand for audio? THAT audio? Cutting that syncopation of rhythm to image together? By hand? And by hand, if I recall correctly, he didn't use a Moviola - he hand cut the film!

Just...WHAT?! There's a part of me that's forever sad that I never got to see George Lucas the film editor!

Anyway, yeah...I'm an odd duck. The kind of guy who reads up on Moviola's and how they differ from the flatbeds of the time. The kind of guy who knows the term, "flatbed". The kind of guy who's not only read Walter Murch, but sat through two lectures by him...and is currently reading Paul Hirs.

Cheers,
Jayson