The Mandalorian Chapter Sixteen Spoiler Discussion

Yeah, that scene had some *great* subtle acting. You could tell exactly how conflicted and enraged Bo-Katan was without her needing to say it out loud.

Also, it is a *very* good thing that the Republic wants Gideon alive, because if he stayed in Bo-Katan's hands, he would *not* enjoy his remaining life. *cough*

 

For me, its not even just what comes after. Its not so much that the later movies revealed bad outcomes for good starts, but that they confirmed that the possibly-iffy foundation was actually rotten all along. All the worst aspects of the two sequels were found in the first, specifically, the complete failure of the prior generation and their efforts. All they really did was provide additional details on how exactly Luke Leia and Han utterly failed.

 

Star Wars fans contradict themselves so much, it's hilarious haha.


With that being said, this episode really really made me choke up more than any other Star Wars material in such a long time. I'm probably gonna watch it a 3rd time too haha.

 

Well it’s official Mark Hamill was actually on set to film the sequence

 

Don't forget that Palpatine is, ultimately, a sadistic bastard who literally powers himself on fear and suffering. Even if droid soldiers were more effective, droid soldiers don't suffer and die, and they don't worship either. He doesn't just want his enemies to suffer, he also wants his minions to suffer, too. . . and preferably while praising his name.

 

I don't know. Personally, I tend to think that the disinterest in the Han Solo recasting was pretty much the same skepticism that shows up for most recasts. Its just, in really good castings, everyone forgets about it afterwards because the performance is good and the movie is good. In the case of Solo, it wasn't a bad performance, but the movie was iffy and the audience environment post-TLJ certainly didn't help. If Solo had been less of a paint-by-numbers cram-everything-in origin story, the general discourse would probably be much more positive towards Aldrich.

 

It was a "Superman descends from the sky to catch you while you are falling" moment.

 

My anal brain has to point out his name is Alden Ehrenreich, not "Aldrich".

 

You know, in retrospect, I think the whole Starkiller/Blow up the Republic scene in TFA is the worst part of it. . . not because its a terrible story decision, but because *its almost completely lacking in dramatic meaning*. Which might sound crazy, given its the destruction of a whole star system, but think about it. What effect does firing Starkiller Base *actually* have?

1. It cripples the New Republic, in theory. . . except the Resistance was already acting as scrappy rebel-analogs against the New Order, with little real support. Nothing actually changes about this status.

2. It kills countless people. . . that you never seen, have no names, and which only some of the cast could ever have conceivably even met. Few of the heroic cast actually have a real emotional response to these losses, and the audience certainly doesn't.

3. It destroys places that the audience hasn't even seen, and thus doesn't have even the most surface level of attachment.

4. it establishes stakes for the remainder of the movie, vis a vis why Starkiller Base must be destroyed. . . except that the majority of the personal drama is about Kylo Ren instead, vis a vis Rey, Leia, and Han.

Pretty much its *only* real effect is to go "Hey, audience, remember that thing you remember from the original movies?" Only in A New Hope, you had characters actually reacting meaningfully to it, the entire rest of the movie's stakes and drama revolved around it, and also it was establishing something actually new rather than something already known for decades. You could literally replace Starkiller Base's functionality with "Its a big gun that blows up the whole Republic Fleet that shows up in their system" and it would have the same dramatic effect.

 

Random question: after this episode, who’d you guys think would win in a lightsaber duel match with each other - Luke Skywalker or Ashoka Tano?

 

Just wait 'til kids who grew up with the sequel trilogy come of age. If the prequels can develop a shockingly rabid fandom based largely on nostalgia, then the much more critically well-regarded sequels can as well. I do think what movies in the sequel trilogy people like will always vary wildly though, the one thing the prequels have over them is a committed vision (and I don't subscribe to the idea the sequel trilogy needed a plan, Trevorrow's screenplay while not great would have made a perfectly good ending and they should've stuck with it) and artistic integrity despite being basically terrible.

It's funny, purely a taste thing but the most compelling stuff about the sequel trilogy for me was the whole idea that the original trio were hugely imperfect and failed the next generation. That no matter how hard you try, how good a parent you are or how much of a legend you're inevitably going to make mistakes that cost you dearly. I love the idea of Han and Leia having a complicated marriage - because of course they would - and going through a space wizard version of We Need to Talk about Kevin with their son.

Now, none of that was sufficiently explored so not going to praise them too much - TLJ fully commits to these ideas but they're only bubbling away in TFA and Abrams rejects them in ROS - but it's one of the few things about the sequels that gives them a unique flavour at their best.

 

At 2:24

Favereau- "They let me keep this one a secret, this [Book of Boba Fett] is actually separate from the Mandalorian Season 3
...what we didn't say in that announcement is that the next show coming up, ...Kathy said the next chapter, and that's going to be the Book of Boba Fett, and then we go into production right after that on season 3 of the Mandalorian back with the main character we all have known and love. ...So we are working on that pre-production now , while we are in production on Fett. "

Now that we again have it ^ from the horses mouth i'm sure every site, youtube rumor pedaling channel, and poster, who misinterpreted and mis-reported, and conflated what are two separate shows, and that Pascal and Mando had been possibly replaced by the Fett show, will now go back and correct themselves, and acknowledged the misinformation they helped peddle and spread.
No, none will? LOL no surprise.

 

Could anyone be kind enough to make some Luke avatars?

 

Warning: The following post contains content that some users may find a huge buzz kill.

The Mandalorian and me have had a strange relationship for the past 2 years. I think it generally looks fantastic for TV, and baby Yoda is always kinda fun and cute. But outside of that, I think I hate it. I get a sinking feeling watching it, the suspicion that the show is not for me, something only strengthened later when I check the discourse and see most people raving about things that had me cringing out of my seat. I guess nothing is a better example than the surprise appearance of Luke Skywalker. I kinda admire they had the balls to address that elephant in the room head-on, but that was not the way. Watching a hooded stunt double strike poses and make things go boom does nothing for me. Another hallway scene, when I thought the Vader hallway scene was already criticized for being vapid fan-service. And another haunting cgi face-lift to scar my dreams, and probably already a better looking deep-fake online. All this effort just to make believe it's 1983 again, Luke even put on the famous clothes for us. Sigh. If Hamill is game for voice work, give him an animated show already.

Baby Yoda is both the series' brightest light, and its biggest stumble. He's cute and easy to love, is a great central mystery, sells merch like crazy, provides 95% of the show's warmth, and completely f***s the show's premise. A series designed to explore bounty hunters on the fringes of the galaxy, and a show celebrated for doing just that; only for the writers to throw in a baby that can only lead back to Jedi. The mystery of the child was far more interesting than any of the answers we got, so perhaps it's best to end it early. It's strange because I think getting rid of Grogu is best for the show, but he was also the only character I had any real emotion for. And now he's in the arms of Luke Skywalker, possibly dooming his future in-universe, but more likely dooming his on-screen future regardless. He is now bound to the most expensive and difficult character to dig out of the toy-box. If this season was shifted about a bit, it could have been Ahsoka who received the Jedi call and appeared for the first time to save the day. At least then the kid would have a new show to move over to.

Mixed feelings all around.

 

I hear Grace Randolph was like : *hold my hot take* and tripled down on her source's claims.

 

Quoting myself like a loon, but I checked up after...



This guy did better in a couple of days, Disney.

 

ImHo the Starkiller base obliterating the republic has about the same impact as if it had been a line in the opening crawl "THE REPUBLIC HAS BEEN DESTROYED. USING THE POWER OF ITS STARKILLER BASE THE NEW ORDER HAS DESTROYED COUNTLESS REPUBLIC WORLDS"

actually, that might have more impact because then the audience would have to use its imagination to conceptualize that.

Conversely having Palpatine's return in the crawl has very little impact - that could have been an amazing moment, a reveal that he was behind it all, and that even Rey was a part of his plan.

I know its ridiculous to talk about physics in a Star Wars context but assuming that the Starrkiller base blasts travel at lightspeed, unless the planets its firing at are really nearby they'd have days, maybe weeks or even years to evacuate before the blast hit.

 

Hahaha. I was about to respond to Deepfake videos with this one. It’s weird to me how some of these come off as better than the original given their time and budget.

 

It comes of as better because they used the original work as a base and didn't have to created it from scratch.
RotJ's Luke didn't have this "youtube" nose anyways.

 

Meh, the DeepFake video version isn't what I'd call perfect either. Something still looks off about it. Sorry, not sorry.

 

http://store.picbg.net/pubpic/26/F8/253ff728afaf26f8.JPG

 

But see, I wouldn't call that better at all. Sure, it looks a bit more like Hamill but the same problems exist. Same dead eyes and the mouth movement is still noticeably jilted and uncanny. In fact, I'd say this "improved video" makes that aspect worse. It looks like he's trying his hand at ventriloquism.

The technology's just not there yet.

 

I think it's a substantial improvement on the episode's Luke image. Definitely still not perfect, but apparently closer than Disney's resources could achieve and in just 3 days. Imagine how good this could look with refinement and a full team behind it. The mouth is the biggest tell I think. Never quite moves right.

Edit: Just to clarify; I would opt not to have a creepy digital version around at all if the choice was on the table.

 

Yeah I just don't see that de aging effect not looking creepy or CGI when the technology is obviously not there yet. It's always going to look jarring IMO. I was mostly fine with it in the episode though.