SPOILER TBOBF Ep.5 - Return of…

It's almost like completely cutting off other points of view simply because you disagree with them is a bad thing.

 

This episode was lit!

I just feel a bit robbed, that it kinda shows that Mandalorian was the Boba Fett show that Jon Favreau wanted to make, but couldn’t and we are left with legacy character of Boba just being there.

So, awesome Mando episode!
The amount of fan service and easter eggs was insane! We finally got away from Tatooine.
There is so much, that I won’t spend tons of texts, so here are my two most favs:

- 2nd BD droid from Fallen Order in live action!
Spent so much time getting platinum trophy on PS4 and this droid became iconic and awesome addition to SW during the first moments since his intro.
- 1st N1 Starfighter. Man! I saw Star Wars on VHS before 1st grade and in second, got Thrawn Trilogy books for X-mas by parents claimed back then as a sequel… before internet, my dad had this Cinema magazine about films news and I was blown away with info about upcoming Episode I and seeing the designs of N1 on concept art flying over the Naboo… man. I was 10/11 years old when the movie got released. Totally loved it in cinema and still love the movie today. Had a huge toy of N1 that fitted figures of Anakin and Obi-wan inside, with sound and light effects and spring shooting torpedo. Unlocked it in Rogue Squadron, played Battle Of Naboo and SW Starfighter… I love that starship!!! Man!
Although we might question the practicality for Din, this was hands down cool as Blast!
To me, cooler than Luke’s cameo. My GF is not a SW fan, but she noticed me watching the episode with N1 with huge facewide grin.
Love the DIY variation, with showing parts and being kind of the same what happened to Republic Y-Wings in the same era in Rebel hands.

Man… Mandalorian S2 was insane with stuff like that and after being kinda lukewarm about Boba so far, bang, Mando is back! I hope the last two episodes will hit it over park now.

 

Out of breath....finally saw this just now....HOLY CRAP

Those that know me on here know my background (aerospace engineer) and also the fact I am a spacecraft junkie...

HOLY CRAP, this episode is nirvana for me!!

I was so pi$$ed when they destroyed the Razor Crest , the sting is removed when I saw that lovely N-1 Starfighter under wraps. One of my fave iconic ships from SW. So many small touches and easter eggs , etc etc, Thanks Bryce Dallas for an awesome episode.

Things I loved:
- The little kid Rodian in the starliner....then seeing Mando again in his new ride alongside...
- Building the N-1. NOW I MUST HAVE A MODEL OF THAT SHIP.....by the way Naboo Starfighter models are going like hotcakes on eBay now
- Ringworld. I read Larry Niven growing up. Great nod - what is the backstory on that in Star Wars?
- Firing up the N-1. The "carb" on the "hood" rattling and humming. The noises. the smoke. awesomeness
- When he pulled out the gift for Grogu in the small bag, the bag itself looked like Grogu with his floppy ears....btw what is the gift? A small beskar chain mail shirt? Kind of like the mithril mail that Frodo wore in LOTR?
- the dark saber. wow.
- the X-wings. cannot ever get enough of this ship. And they looked and sounded sweet!

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YESSS! I Squealed like a schoolgirl when I saw that! I was like "hey that's from the garbage masher!"

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Not sappy @Choose Light !! I picked up on that too....great attention to detail by Bryce.

 

BD Driod become one of my favourite Character. I was thinking is it Boba Fett show or The Mandalorian. It a great episode. Will we be seeing Grogu next episode? Even in this episode Boba Fett didn't show up maybe he would but he didn't. The Mandalorian be working for Boba Fett?

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I don't mind this episode it the best, but no Boba, so if Boba show up it's a flop. Boba series haven't come off great but I enjoyed it. It didn't the best reviews but they not some of us.

 

That's why I still have my Unboxed! Vintage Twin Pod Cloud Car from Kenner XD. Still hope to see Bespin again in upcoming shows and that little ship over there...

 

LOL. I told my wife as we were watching the N1 reconstruction that there were a whole bunch of spacecraft junkies having orgasms right now.

Once again Bryce was paying homage to her Dad. Last time it was the Razorcrest’s descent from outer space (like Apollo 13), this time it was the focus on souped up hot rods like in George Lucas’s American Graffiti that her Pop starred in.

Her attention to ‘the little details’ is what sets her apart from her peers. I believe BDH is destined to direct a SW feature film someday.

 

I want to know how the Armorer knows so much about the whole mysticism of lightsabers/the darksaber--about fighting the blade itself rather than the opponent, keeping your mind focused and free from distractions, etc. (It's remarkably similar to Kanan's advice to Sabine.)

In episode 8 of the Mandalorian, she acted like she barely knew what Jedi were. Now she's telling Din about how they forgo attachments.

What is going on, Armorer!?!?!? How is your mysterious past impacting all this (and poor confused Din)?

 

It's very good but he went too heavy on the close up shots imo. Lucas would have done a better job of showing off the market area of Jakku. I think Bryce got a bit closer to Lucas' traditional style.. got the feel and layout of the environments much better for me.

 

Finally watched Episodes 4 and 5 with my dad! He liked both and really liked how Episode 5 tied Mando's plot into BoBF. He was confused about why this episode was really here though, and felt it would be stronger in an actual season of Mandalorian.

My rewatch notes:
I saw a diagram of the Sarlacc Pit's biology sometime after my first viewing, and it was so creepy...I loved it. Gimme more plant/animal hybrid monsters!

The Bacta Tank reasoning is still super weak. Fennec doesn't really imply that Boba needs it after being in the Sarlacc Pit, and it felt more reactive reasoning than foresight.

Boba really should have stopped Black Kassandra from ripping the Trandoshan's arm off. Yeah, it was cool for him to not do so, but it's one of those times where the cool thing isn't the right thing. Boba is supposed to bring "order" and "safety" back to the streets, but there's never any violence or disruption unless it involves him. This was a time to show Boba bringing peace, and instead he chooses not to. Again, I like the scene, but it doesn't really fit the character of Boba.

Mando actually tried to use his gun first, and only resorted to the Darksaber when the gun fell to the ground.

The Elevator-bar scene was a one-shot!

The Recontexualization of what happened to Mandalore within a myth was cool, so I'm more okay with the cyclical nature of things. But only slightly.

Irony - "Loyalty and Solidarity are 'The Way,'" says man ten minutes before being abandoned by his cult.


Lastly, my comments about BoBF being better as a book. I still abide by that, but I now think the show being split between a book and a game that led into The Mandalorian Season 3 would have been a fun multimedia approach. You do a book about the Flashbacks, a game about the show, and then Episode 5 for Season 3 Episode 1.

The game would function like most open-world games these days, although probably closer to early Assassin's Creed games and Horizon: Zero Dawn than maybe some larger ones out there. Gaining the loyalty of the different organizations would be the story events; players would be free to take down the bosses of these organizations in any order they'd like. Add in "peace keeping" side quests ala Insomniac's Spider-Man game or the Batman Arkham games, and you've got yourself a pretty robust game. The climax of this game would be like Battlefront 2's Inferno Squad story climax. We'd follow Boba on a trail throughout the city as he's fighting the Pykes. Mando would be off fighting in a different part of the city, and they'd be in contact via radios that would go out when some story progress needs to happen. At the end they'd reunite, Mando would go off to do his thing, and players would get to play as Boba Fett during the post-game content.
Doing things this way gives the players a bit of agency in how fast/slow/complete they want Boba's story to be, while also allowing Boba to be as violent of a character he needs to be - Star Wars games hand out mooks like candy on Halloween; giving Boba a free reign to kill would be a great way to keep the character's Bad Mamma Jamma infamy intact while also providing an avenue for his character arc.

Meanwhile on The Mandalorian side of things, Season 3's first episode would have been this one, then the second episode would follow the climactic battle with the Pykes, and then the rest of the season would go on business as usual. Or if they wanted Season 3 during the game, they could simply have Boba complete XYZ number of missions before Mando the climax is unlocked, and then Mando goes on his way afterwards.

 

Falchion, you rock. Great post! And I love the idea of the "multi platform" tie-ins....wondering if Disney would entertain something like this?

 

I'm sure someone else already brought this up, but as awesome as the N1 is, isn't it very inadequate for being a bounty hunter? The Razor Crest was Din's home in addition to his transportation and his storage space. From what I saw, the N1 is a single seat craft with little or no storage. The RC even had a portable carbon freezer. Does Din's acceptance of the N1 imply some change in his life? No more bounty hunting? A permanent address? A shift to only take bounties where the client wants the target killed? He can probably fit several heads in the droid port.

It just seems like an odd choice of craft for someone in his position.

 

yep I would tend to agree with you . One of the follow on theories is that the N-1 will be his “small fast jet” for local needs , and it will be docked inside a larger , more utilitarian spacecraft(which we have not seen yet)….

 

Was really fun episode, weird basically having an episode of the mandalorian in the Boba Fett show and felt a it hogged a lot of the series budget. But good episode, some really big plot points for the mandalorian show.

 

Watched again last night, and noticed that strange conundrum they find themselves in.

Din cannot be part of The Armorer's clan, according to their law.

Paz cannot hold the Darksaber, according to their law.

The Armorer pretty much had to let Din go. He'd bested Paz, and proved his right to hold the Darksaber. Must've stung for The Armorer to have come so close, but ultimately have to see the symbol of Mandalore's rule walk away in the hands of an "apostate".

I wonder, does Paz get another chance at some point? Should Mando be worried that his former clan will be coming for him now, or has their duel settled the matter for good?

Finally... personally, I feel that the Darksaber's true power comes as a symbol of leadership rather than some sort of curse. However, I find it interesting to point out that Moff Gideon was bested by Din Djarin in combat while explicitly having the Darksaber with him in Season 1- could his downfall be due to the fact that he was invalidly wielding it in S2?

 

I'm not sure what the Armorer's ultimate goals are in terms of the darksaber, but I'm pretty sure she'd like to have a whole lot of say in who rules Mandalore. The question of what she's willing to do to get it just fascinates me, since she's really been, as far as we know, self-contained in her own little isolated world/covert. I'm also sort of confused about whether she really thinks there are no other Mandalorians out there--though of course she would see them as apostates and not true Mandalorians. Are she and Paz really the only Children of the Watch left in the GFFA, or are there other coverts of them out there somewhere, some who weren't originally in the Nevarro covert? Din seemed to think so in season 2, but then again he didn't realize there are other kinds of (mainstream) Mandalorians at all (poor ignorant soul!!).

Someone here brought up that in chapter 4 Din told Cara that if you take your helmet off, you can never put it back on again, so that's why I thought the Armorer might ask for it and his other armor back. But apparently never putting the helmet back on again is just a figure of speech for getting ousted. On the other hand, maybe Din is just ignoring that detail, just like he's ignoring the idea that he's not a Mandalorian according to his leader. Or maybe he sees it all as temporary, since he's going to try to atone for his heinous crime of showing his face to his son.

The whole curse bit... I took that either as completely the Armorer's invention to explain Mandalore's destruction and strengthen her own cause, or as her interpretation/twisting of some other similar prophesy to suit her own narrative. I do think that the Mandalorian people probably see the darksaber being acquired in the "proper" way as very important to legitimize their leaders. It is interesting to consider how Gideon got the thing in the first place. I was 100% sure before season 2 began that Bo-Katan had to be dead, because the only way she'd give up the darksaber was out of her cold, dead hands. But maybe she just had it get lost with her luggage once.

Anyway, I didn't want to think this at first about the Armorer, but I am suspecting more and more she was once one of the Mauldalorians. And Maul wielding the darksaber brings up another whole slew of questions about the legitimacy of the Mand'alor simply because they have the darksaber in their hand.

 

Thanks! I think Disney is entertaining something like this with the High Republic, but it's not focused around one character's story so much as an event as far as I can tell.

Part of me wants to believe that The Armorer knew about Mando's Mask Mishap beforehand, and this was her way of officially forcing him to leave. But whether or not The Armorer planned it, the results are the same to me:

A (fictional and/or ideal) leader cannot be a part of the culture that led them to power, lest bias and preference blind their judgment.* Mando can't rise to the call of the Darksaber and fulfill his destiny if he's bogged down by the way of the Watch. Those who don't follow his way won't follow him if he holds to their dogma. But if let go, his dogma becomes an ideal, his outsider nature becomes a blank slate - these are things that can unite people.

I actually thought it was a pretty good justification for Maul. Maul and Pre Vizla took over Mandalore with the Darksaber in hand. The Maul won it, proving that he was worthy of it. Bo-Katan fled with those who couldn't accept an outsider's rule (which is pretty hypocritical to me, but there's nuance in the situation I suppose), and Maul went uncontested for the Darksaber more or less. (He's beaten by Sidious and Ahsoka, but he also didn't use the Darksaber during either fight.) Sabine then steals the Darksaber, learns to use it, and passes it off to Bo-Katan, who still didn't win it by combat. She loses it to Moff Gideon via combat, who then loses it to Mando.
So:
Pre Vizla (stole it?) - Took over Mandalore in a coup
Maul (won it) - Took over Mandalore by killing Pre Vizla
Sabine (stole it) - Didn't take over Mandalore or try to
Bo-Katan (was gifted it) - Tried to (and possibly successfully did?) Mandalore and saw its downfall.
Moff Gideon (won it) - Destroyed Mandalore in the Night of a Thousand Tears
Din Djarden (won it) - We will wait and see.


*Or at least that's where my Wheel of Time readings and watchings have taught me. The Amerlyn Seat gives up her Ajah to be the "mother" of all Aes Sedai. The Dragon Reborn, while holding several crowns, is beholden to no nation. One of the Jedi's follies is that they prized the Republic as an institution over Justice as a concept; it's because they were tethered that they were duped. Or at least that can be oen reading of it.

 

Seemed like an odd choice to me in general. Why a Naboo ship? Why not a . . . oh, I don't know - Mandalorian ship?

 

So, is the Armorer a Mauldalorian? She knows a great deal about the Darksaber and she's not a fan of Bo-Katan.