Star Wars Megathread

[garbon]

So, I just realized that the twi'lek cantina owner is played by Jennifer Beals. This blew my mind.

Damn does she still look hot at her age.

That was a pretty slow recognition time on your part.

[celedhring]

The headtails are misleading, plus I never read the credits. 

[Syt]

One thing I love is how random design decisions can create ripples that turn into hurricanes.

Take the Darksaber. In Clone Wars, Obi-Wan was supposed to fight Pre Vizsla with a lightsaber. The design team wanted to give Pre Vizsla a vibro blade. George Lucas intervened: he thought a vibro blade was boring, and to jazz it up. So they created the Darksaber effect and inserted a line that Mandalorians stole it from the Jedi (which doesn't contradict the later lore - the Jedi might have kept it after Tarre Vizsla's death and the Mandalorians reclaimed it).

Anyways, we've gone from "make the weapon look a bit cool" to "This is now the Mandalorian Excalibur that will be a major item in our flasgship live action show."

(Similar with the little forearm shields. They had a firefight mapped out for the Clone Wars show, but then realized there was no cover for the Mandalorians. So they added the shields. )

[Syt]

Sorry, one more thing because it comes up a few times in my Twitter timeline: Ep. 5 has a rather impressive two minute single take:

(forgoing spoilers at this point)

We see Mando limp through the city, get on the elevator, go into the busy bar to his clients where the camera pans around the table, then he goes back to the elevator, goes down to yet a different level and back out into the streets. Even with the Dome, which obviously does the heavy lifting, this is still a pretty impressive illusion. I'd think the bar and elevator were physical sets and the rest was done by the Dome?

[celedhring]

Single takes are so easy to do nowadays, they don't impress me as much. You can fuse two separate takes digitally, without the usual old tricks (i.e. pointing the camera at something dark to make the transition smoother). 1917 did it a lot.

[Syt]

My understanding is there were no digital edits, but I might be wrong.

[celedhring]

But yeah, visually this episode was so much better than the other episodes of Book of Boba. Robert Rodríguez is not that great a director. The Mos Espa bike chase was so weirdly plodding, for example.

Incidentally, I don't know how Mando managed to survive so long without Beskar. Dude sure gets hit a ton.

[Syt]

I noticed that previously that he relies a lot on his armor taking hits for him and that he seems to "hide" behind it (which I guess ties thematically into Boba Fett's story) and that he may end up in a situation where he reflexively relies on it but doesn't have it.

[crazy canuck]

This show is really losing me.  I got to see our fearless lead character actually manage to get past the kitchen staff and then in the next episode I had to sit though a one hour advertisement for the next season of Mando. 

To me it just set up an even more direct comparison to show how much more fun The Mandalorian is than Boba Fett. Feels like a strange choice.

Yeah I agree.  I am not sure how they salvage Boba Fett at this point, its going to be hard to watch a simpleton bumble around after watching the well crafted characters in Mando again.

So, I just realized that the twi'lek cantina owner is played by Jennifer Beals. This blew my mind.

Damn does she still look hot at her age.

That was a pretty slow recognition time on your part.

I have to admit I didn't recognize her either.

[Syt]

I liked Star Wars Explained's point that Din meeting Boba at this point in time is probably very intentional.

Mando has been on his arc:
Season 1 gave him a purpose (Grogu) beyond bounty hunting and challenged his beliefs (e.g. his hate of droids).
Season 2 exposed him to other definitions of what a Mandalorian could be. Bo-Katan (the old ways), Boba Fett (forging his own path), Cobb Vanth (embodying Mandalorian ideals of honor and bravery, even if not a "true" Mandalorian).
Season 2.5 (as BoBF has been referred to in the run up) sees him at a crossroads - exiled from his Covert, without his son, burdened with the Darksaber and an impractical ship for bounty hunting. Seeing Boba build his "tribe" (or House if you want to stick with Mandalorian nomenclature) might inspire him to do something similar which then eventually becomes a quest of liberating/uniting Mandalore.

[crazy canuck]

Wait, they think seeing what Boba Fett is doing would be inspiring to Mando?  They have definitely not been watching the same show 

[celedhring]

Poor Boba, they have stolen their show 

Really, the [spoiler]Skywalker segment was way too long and too reliant on callbacks to ESB - and while I appreciate the effort to convey Luke's own insecurity as teacher and the issue of how to deal with Grogu's emotional attachments, all this plotline should be in the Mandalorian show, not here[/spoiler]

Otherwise, great to see [spoiler]Cobb Vanth though, Timothy Oliphant playing frontier law figures[/spoiler] is one of the little pleasures of life. Also, [spoiler]real action Cad Bane looks really creepy[/spoiler]

[celedhring]

Also what scares me the most of [spoiler]Skywalker's scenes is that they are going to rely more and more on those deepfakes for extended roles, and not just cameos. Besides the uncanny valley element, I think characters like him are best left for bit parts.[/spoiler]

[Syt]

So, uhm. What?

I said above the structure of the show is confusing me. And the last two episodes didn't help matter. I feel they might have had story for five episodes originally. Then maybe realized that there were a few things that they wanted to set up and establish so we end up with these diversions.

I think the pieces and scenes by themselves are mostly fine. But the way they're arranged into a seven episode series seems really, really weird and more like an anthology series at this point. They had all these ideas, but then put them through a blender it seems. No idea what's gonna be in the final episode. I don't feel they can wrap all this up in one instalment? So BoBF Season 2? Or will this transition into Mandalorian S. 3?

[spoiler]It was cool catching up with Luke and Grogu and putting a hard choice before Din (and he made the right call IMHO). How will Grogu decide? We'll see. The training stuff was cool to see. The music where Grogu dodged the remote sounded very JRPG, though, like something out of a Final Fantasy game.

Great to see Cobb Vanth. His scenes were all great. And with Cad Bane showing up you just know the deputy will die. I don't think Cobb Vanth himself is dead. He was hit only once, and it looked like into the shoulder, while his deputy took the rest of the hits. Star Wars has a history of shooting characters non-fatally. Hunter vs. Cad Bane, the corrupt Twi'lek politician, who was shot in the head, and of course Cad Bane failing to kill Boba Fett. Besides, Bane exposited awkwardly that Boba used to work for the Empire and be a "bad guy." Surely Cobb Vanth will need to challenge him on that so Boba can monologue about how he's a changed man (and fans will hate it, as usual).

Loved that they kept Cad Bane's voice, but agreed, he looked scary.

Semi-CGI Luke veered between looking somewhat off and looking great. Needs some improvement, but most of the time it rated as "good enough" for me. It was very likely that he'd show up, because his stand in played the young X-Wing pilot last episode. Great to see Ahsoka and Luke interact, though. Not sure what to make of the "Will I see you again?" line from Luke. Please don't make this a romantic interest.

Rosario Dawson's acting seemed a bit off. Or at least I felt that there were some awkward "Jedi hand gestures" from her when she talks and walks with Din.

There were some laugh out loud moments for me. The deputy/Mando/Cobb interaction was great. So was the sandcrawler with the Krayt Dragon skull attached to it.  [/spoiler]

As said, I think the single elements are all good, but the final assembly seems incredibly uncoordinated and planless.

[Syt]

Btw, what is (was?) the point of [spoiler]Garsa Fwip (Jennifer Beals' character)?[/spoiler]

Also, are [spoiler]Max Rebo and Figrin D'an all right[/spoiler]?