The Mandalorian - Spoilers thread

[Munindk]

“Back in the day” from the the canon expanded universe (now called Legends) I seem to recall Han failed a flight academy on Corelia. The movie Solo having him be a grunt instead surprised me.

In Solo he was kicked out of the flight academy and sent to the grunts

[Grumpy Gnome]

I agree with Cubs, if you go only off the original trilogy there is latitude in his behavior for a lot of different directions to go. As a kid I thought Boba was a Mandalorian... but an outlaw renegade of the law and order obsessed Mandalorians. I am not sure where I got that idea into my teenaged head. That was all turned upside down with Jango and Lucas saying Jango/Boba were not Mandalorians. Now they are.

Munindk... I forgot the throwaway line in the movie. But thanks to your comment I found this deleted scene.



One of the problems I have with the movie Solo giving Han an Imperial background is that in later films he seems completely unaware of Imperial protocol except when the ships dump garbage. The deleted scene above has him flying a TIE but unable to recognize the rank of a superior officer. A cringe worthy scene that in concept could have been decent but instead played as a joke. Which is a reoccurring problem with the film Solo.

Could this episode with Boba be better? Yeah, definitely. The episode with Ahsoka was definitely better on a technical level.... but again it feels to me like it most suffers from ruthless over editing.

[nozza_uk]

Back to last episode.

Who had Slave 1 and was who looking after it?

Given that Jawas in the first series pretty much took the Razor Crest apart in a day, I can't see Slave 1 surviving intact for long on Tatooine with it's Jawa population. Of course, we don't know how long it took Boba to crawl out of the Sarlaac Pit, but I was surprised Slave 1 was there.

[CookAndrewB]

I suspect there is a difference between being a man of your word, and being honorable. Like the difference between Lawful Evil and Lawful Good characters in D&D. You can be evil (or more likely neutral) and still want to uphold rules and laws. I might argue that most of the Empire is Lawful Evil in nature. They uphold law and order to a seemingly nefarious end. I only see Boba (and Mando) as upholding their word without a lot of desire to make the world a better place. Boba agreed to swap his armor for keeping the child safe. Perhaps he regretted the phrasing, but I believe there are a lot of rules and regulations in the bounty hunter's guild, and so perhaps more than Mandalorian "honor" it is simply the way social contracts are upheld. After all, if you aren't worth your word then it would seem that the guild itself may turn against you, and then where would you be? Hunted and without work seems to be a strong motivator to keep one's word.

I was always under the impression that Boba was a Mandalorian. Again, I think that depending on where you look and what source material you pick and choose from. It also seems that Mandalorian is more of a club that you can join than someone debating whether or not they are a Wookie. The books even have him rising to be THE Mandalore through the Yuuzhan Vong War somewhere in 23-29ABY.  That sounds about as Mandalorian as one can get. 

[Grumpy Gnome]

An interesting question. Was it landed somewhere building up dock fees, like Mos Eisley? Did Boba have to recover it from some survivor of the Jabba debacle?  How did Jawas get the armor? Where did Boba get the Tusken gear? How did he survive the Sarlaac?

A spin-off series just waiting to happen....

I would agree with you Andrew that the Empire is LE. Din seems LN most of the time but also breaks from that description from time to time without much thought to it. I do not think we know enough about Boba (without relying on things like the books that have now been determined non-canon) to know his alignment preference.

Speaking of Legends... would the Yuuzhan Vong returning to canon one day be a good idea or not?

[Hobgoblin]

All fair points. My memories of Boba Fett are probably coloured by his original, nastier voice (I think I'm right in saying that he's been redubbed since).

[Mr.J]

A spin-off series just waiting to happen....

Already in the pipeline, or so I’ve heard.

[CookAndrewB]

Was there a Council of Nicea for Star Wars canon? 

Honestly, with any of these intellectual properties (WH40K, Star Wars, Star Trek) with wide-reaching lore, there will develop some inconsistency over time. If anything, that simply mimics our own tendency towards revisionist history. The more people who research and provide commentary on a figure like Churchill, the more inconsistency we will find in his story. The least reliable source being Churchill himself. 

I don't find any of that confusing or frustrating. On the whole, I think we get a better picture of who a character is over time, from all sources. If the story of Star Wars was a tale told from the view of many outside witnesses, it would not be unreasonable to think that no single source would know the whole tale and that no single source may understand the true origin, motivations, or actions of the characters we are following. Within the Star Wars galaxy itself, we see that there are rumors and legend around something as "known" (to us as the observer of a story) as a Jedi. If those who live in that galaxy have a spotty understanding of what a Jedi is, then the telling of that story when it reaches us may also be spotty, or open to artistic license and interpretation. The same way as any other story that comes to us from long ago and far away.

As for the Yuuzhan Vong, why would it be a bad thing? It would open the door to new stories in this same universe and provide an opportunity to visit a place I rather enjoy. I can't honestly see any effort to keep Star Wars going as a bad one. Not bad financially for Disney, and not bad for me as a guy who just enjoys a good tale with pretty visuals and a big production budget. I suppose that anyone not enjoying a movie or book is entitled to stop participating or to provide alternate realities to their liking and enjoyment. Certainly, there is enough fan fiction out there from people who choose to do just that. I would prefer the franchise branch out and give me new stories in a different light. That was part of my original "please don't give me Jedi in the Mandalorian" soapbox. There is SO much more out there, I don't need a Jedi in the story to connect me to the larger picture. I don't even need the Force for it to be Star Wars for me. That is not all there is to Star Wars, which is an exciting prospect if you...


 

[Manchu]

Surely, we have had more than enough existing characters show up in Mando this season, whereas what is riskier but probably more enjoyable is to see new places, meet new characters, and to discover new concepts.

Bringing back the Yuzhan Vong doesn’t tick any of those boxes, plus that whole story arc was divisive even among the subniche of EU fans.

[whill4]

Someone asked how Boba Fett escaped the Sarlac. This is answered in the book "Star Wars Tales of the Bounty Hunters". In the tale of Dengar, Boba is found in the desert near the Sarlac pit. Boba it seems set off a bomb in the Sarlac and crawled out. He was found by Dengar.

[SotF]

In Solo he was kicked out of the flight academy and sent to the grunts

Legends had him essentially be picked for officer training from being a pilot, then he encountered someone beating a wookie and Han killed the guy and saved Chewie...got him kicked out of the Navy and he went smuggler.

Of course, he'd joined up in the first place because he was a street rat and it was basically that or prison or dead at the time...

[Grumpy Gnome]

Fair point about the Council of Nicea Andrew. That made me laugh! At this stage it seems Kathleen Kennedy is wearing the big hat.

I have not followed all the Expanded Universe/Legends stuff but I have read a few of the books and played a couple of the computer games.

For example I remember that story about Boba and Dengar... was that a graphic novel? My question about how Boba survived stands though precisely because there has not been a canon confirmation of that story. And therein lies the importance of canon. It provides a foundation for the continuing stories.

Now you can deal with canon and continuity uses the Mad Max way... apparently there is no canon because the stories of Max are stand alone folklore. Apparently.

https://screenrant.com/mad-max-fury-road-movie-sequel-reboot-continuity-explained/

Or you can create alternate timelines.... like the infamous Star Trek Kelvin Timeline.

Or you can just ignore canon, with the subsequent confusion and division... as in Star Trek Discovery.

I have to admit I just wish creators stuck to established canon or created clever work arounds, like the whole Klingon genetic manipulation resulting in the changes of Klingon appearance... which may be a bit cheesy but is certainly no lazy considering the amount of work that went into supporting that plotline.

Folks like continuity in a movie right? Glasses refilling themselves, guns never needing to be reloaded, bullet holes in walls before the shots are taken. So why not over several connected films as well?

With so many reboots and so many interconnected universe franchises continuity will only be important to producers if audiences demand it. When folks say don’t overthink it, just enjoy the ride... they make it easy for producers to cut corners and make lesser quality films. Why spend big budgets on costuming if people do not reward shows with good costumes/props and criticize those with poor costumes/props. The same with continuity. What stops producers from making decisions that creates the last season of Game of Thrones for example if people do not complain?

As for the Yuuzhan Vong, I do not know much about them and their storyline. I have read a bit online and heard the plotline had mixed reviews. Seems like it may suffer from power creep, ie you always need a bigger villain until it “jumps the shark”.
 

[Juan]

Back to last episode.

Who had Slave 1 and was who looking after it?

Given that Jawas in the first series pretty much took the Razor Crest apart in a day, I can't see Slave 1 surviving intact for long on Tatooine with it's Jawa population. Of course, we don't know how long it took Boba to crawl out of the Sarlaac Pit, but I was surprised Slave 1 was there.

It was left parked in Jabba´s Palace backyard.
Seriously, I think there is no time in the season for such details of plot. Enjoy it as it is.

[CookAndrewB]

That was a good article about Mad Max, Rick. In my mind, I think that is how the Star Wars Universe has its story told, though the kidding about the bible might not be far off from a reasonable analogy. While Mad Max might be disparate stories told around an archetypal character (wasteland wanderer), I tend to think of the Star Wars universe as being told to us by a number of people who witnessed the events, but not as being told by a single omnipotent observer and not as something like a biography of Anakin/Luke, etc. In this way, it might be closer to an epic story about the Khans. We start with Ghengis as a kid (Temujin, then in another story, we see him uniting the clans. Same Ghengis, but we assume that anyone who would have been around to see the story of Temujin was not also around to tell the story of Ghengis' rise to power, let alone long-lived enough to see Ogedei through Kublai. So you get the full epic, but you see the story from a wide number of sources which can be combined and massaged into one coherent story for us, today. We have the benefit of knowing which sources in the story of the Khans were enemies, who would portray Ghengis as a bloodthirsty maniac, or which were allies who would tell us of his great deeds.

In Star Wars we don't really know that element, but it might help to explain why Anakin is a whiny twerp in one scene and a legendary swordsman in the next. An observer, not fond of Anakin and perhaps having survived the rise of Vader, might recall that he was epically bad with the ladies. A Stormtrooper who followed Vader into battle, and lived to tell the tale, may have passed along the story of Vader in the Blockade Runner. An imposing figure, unscathed by blaster fire. It hardly makes sense that Anakin would have been the source for all of that information, as you would hope that he didn't portray himself so epically bad at romancing his baby mama.

Without the mechanism of alternate realities and breaks in a time stream, I think that viewing Star Wars as an epic tale derived from multiple sources provides the greatest latitude for the inclusion of stories that may not have all their edges lining up cleanly. Ultimately, I don't know if it matters whether Boba is a Mandalorian, or how he got out of the pit. The story Dengar tells in the bar might not be the same story Boba tells, and I think that is ok for the purpose of entertainment.

I do agree that there is a problem with the ongoing need for every bad guy to be bigger and badder than the last. The Death Star was meant to be an ultimate weapon, but then... a bigger ultimate weapon? Why did it need to be bigger? Putting a planet-killing weapon on a ship made sense from an engineering standpoint, but then why would you need a fleet of them? You would think that just one would be deterrent enough, and after you destroy all the planets you wanted "pacified" that you would just be left with a weapon that wasn't worth much. That said, look at the list of super weapons that the Star Wars universe has spawned over time: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Superweapon/Legends Canonical or not, this is lore that loves its existential threats. Again, I think this is why I'm also drawn down to the level of stories on backwater planets without Jedi. There is enough interesting conflict in the galaxy without planets blowing up left and right. 

[Maniac]

To be fair to the fleet of planet killers, that is actually a proved out concept in both real life and in fiction.  The nuclear arsenal of the US and Russia was distributed across a wide area, so that no one strike could take out retaliatory action.

In Star Wars, not 1, not 2, but 3 uber weapons were destroyed by being the only one.  Sooner or later you'd learn, put them on multiple, disparate assets so that a single battle doesn't take down all capability (but then they ignore it by parking them all in one spot and magically forget to fire the cannons during the battle...so....).

Fatman and Little Boy went across the ocean in two different ships after all.