There are a variety of words I use to describe The Mandalorian. Awesome is not one of them. When I sum it up into a logline, it goes like this: “Dangerous bounty hunter betrays everything about his lifestyle except weird obsession with wearing a helmet to nurture a cute, telekinetic, 90-year-old baby.†From the jump, it has felt as if it were badly written but overproduced fanfic. Like someone (John Favreau) just watched the core nine episodes of the Skywalker Saga for the first time last year, called dibs on the most marketable moments/characters/settings – Yoda, Boba Fett, Tattoine – and mashed them all up with little concern for cannon, fandom, or integrity. It often feels like a child playing with action figures, but the child has 5 million dollars to spend on each trip out back to the sandbox.
Season two came to a close last week with another #predictable cameo, which this show prefers to substance or depth. But how did we get there? Well, Darth Vader Lite – ahem, I mean Moff Gideon… yes, Gideon kidnapped Grogu aka “Baby Yoda,†and Mando was dedicated to getting the child back. He had the help of recent New Republic recruit-ready-to-abandon-her-post-for-Mando Cara Dune of course. Let’s not forget overweight Boba Fett, who showed up last week with Tennac Shand [Mae from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. This whole crew of Mandalorians was ready to fight to restore Mando to his rightful position in life: a lactating doula taking care of Baby Yoda.
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Did I mention how poorly written it all is? Because the ONLY person in the galaxy who could track down Moff Gideon was former Mando enemy Migs Mayfeld. He just needed access to an Imperial Terminal or whatever the fuck is in the officers’ cafeteria in the rhydonium refinery on the jungle planet of Morak. Sure, I guess #thattracks. So Mando & Mayfeld captured a rhydonium transportation truck to infiltrate the base. Once there we came back to the nonsense that was the Internal Logic of this show. To me the Internal Logic on The Mandalorian is a gameshow wheel that gets spun every fifteen minutes with exciting Star-Wars-Classic scenes that are slowly killing the franchise for lack of authenticity or originality. (Again, see John Fav in general.) So, roll the die and…fight on the back of the transport that reads 100% as a “fight on a moving train fight.†This gimmick played out for far too long until we got to a gratuitous “Millennium Falcon saving Luke in Episode IV Death Star trench†scene that was actually an instance of Tie Fighters saving them.
Once inside the base, they needed to get to the Terminal. (Press CTRL-ALT-T, dummies.) They found one in the officers’ cafeteria. Migs couldn’t go in cause a former C.O. he served under was in there. Mando went in and took his helmet off to get the thing that ONLY MAYFELD COULD GET ACCORDING TO THIS SHOW 20 MINUTES AGO, via face scan, cause yeah, making sense is SO clearly not what this show is about from day one. But hey, do you own some Grogu merch? Wu-Tang is for the children, as ODB said. Here is where I get to defecate on Mando’s face too. Cause like OK. This guy is a Mandalorian, I get that. But his name is “Mando.†So if he were Japanese, we could expect his name to have been “Jappo,†or if he were German, “Germo†maybe? Boba Fett’s name is Boba. Are we all just matter-of-factedly slurring because John Favreau is better at branding than ethics?
Seriously. Stop. Stop acting like this is a well-written show. Stop acting like it’s not a cash grab.
Ok, so Luke Skywalker. That is… CGI deepfaked Luke Skywalker. The only other Jedi in the Galaxy showed up and saved Grogu, setting up the gazillion-dollar merch fest that would be Luke & Grogu, so you knowwww someone has already pitched such a show. It was bad enough that Kylo Ren turned out to be such a whining loser, because now – because of how Favreau will shoehorn anything “hot†into this show with no regard for continuity or cannon – now Grogu & Ren are destined to be chums in Luke’s New Jedi Academy, which exists between Episodes VI and VII.
So let us please pray for the next ten shows that apparently Disney already greenlit for this new Star Wars version of cannon. Cause from over here, it looks less than an Ewok celebration dance.
