The Mandalorian - Spoilers thread

[Hobgoblin]

The Child is just being a child, when hungry it tries to eat just about anything. I had to stop my 1 year old from eating a live spider the other day. I think people a reading to much into it.

That was precisely my take on it. We all thought it was a great touch - and much more in line with the amoral characters and universe that the series has created. Like his samurai-movie and spaghetti-western antecedents, Mando isn't a "good guy" - witness his casual murder of Jawas, his shady past with the space pirates, and his leaving the cyclops chap hanging (to be eaten alive, presumably).The egg-eating fits in with all that.

That grittiness makes for a much better experience, I think. In our house, we much prefer Star Wars when it leans towards Yojimbo and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly than when it goes the other way.

[Elk101]

Shit, I had an omelette the other day.

[Mark]

I have really enjoyed episodes 1 and 3, though episode 2 wasn't great in my opinion... why did the new republic pilots come back to just leave them..?

Loved 1 and 3 though - great star wars action and the grittiness referred to by others.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Again I agree with you Andrew.

I like grittiness but I also like a bit more clarity and completeness in the writing of plot. A protagonist does not have to mirror my moral values to be worth watching in a compelling story.

[majorsmith]

Cracking series so far, really rekindled my love for Star Wars, It’s got a great mix of action , storyline and some comical elements too, some fantastic settings too, as for the child eating eggs, I think some of you are getting far to serious about it, kids will try to eat anything if you let them! And I don’t think mando feeds him enough!

[Manchu]

The Child is depicted doing something the audience will find transgressive to demonstrate that the Mandalorian MUST starting taking a more active parental role. But of course he is hardly equipped to do so!

In Season 1, we saw a lot of “This Is The Way” without much looking into WHY it’s the Way. Pretty much every character, even quite minor ones, are presented from a moral perspective. They all have their codes, sometimes more and sometimes less flexible.

The major exception to this is obviously the Child ... because it’s a child. Blankly repeating “This is the Way” or “I have spoken” may be fine for adults summing up their ethics but that kind of laconic attitude is useless when you need to TEACH the difference between right and wrong to a child.

Notice that S2 has already introduced some major themes along these lines. Cobb Vanth in S2E1 had to reconsider his worldview to work with the Tusken Raiders. In S2E2, the frog lady asks whether the vaunted Mandalorian code is “just stories for children.” And then in the latest episode, Bo Katan demonstrates that not all Mandalorians share the same values.

As the Mandalorian grows and develops, he will have to take a harder look at his own sense of what’s right and wrong. We’ve already seen him change (rethinking his hatred of droids and his preference for being a loner) but he needs to get to the point where he can teach the child why it is not okay to eat the eggs of a sentient being.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Fair points Manchu, and well said.

As far as I am concerned tv shows like the Mandalorian are our contemporary mythology, our fables. They have the power to influence our values whether we realize it or not. This applies to comic books, movies, and computer games as well.

[Hobgoblin]

As far as I am concerned tv shows like the Mandalorian are our contemporary mythology, our fables. They have the power to influence our values whether we realize it or not. This applies to comic books, movies, and computer games as well.

But take real mythology: the Norse myths and the Greek myths, for example. They're full of dodgy characters doing dodgy stuff - and that's a huge part of their timelessness. No one would look to Thor, Odin and Loki for moral example - but they're terrifically entertaining!

[Grumpy Gnome]

I am fairly sure depending on how the tale is told some folks have taken their cues from Odin, Thor and Loki. And those characters have been reinvented time and time again to suit different agendas, ie Marvel.

Look I am not trying to say they should not have morally ambiguous characters, that the show should not be gritty or anything like that. I am saying have a purpose behind doing that. That is what makes a show a great classic rather than mediocre “junk food” entertainment. Tolkien or Howard versus say Norman (Gor).

[Historiker]

I actually did like this weeks episode, because even though it was mostly action scenes, the scenes were well done.

Still I wonder whether they have revealed the MacGuffin "purpose" of the child too early. Also, did this suspected purpose really have to be tied to the ill-planned and story-less stinker that was the third trilogy?

Well, we´ll see where the story goes. At least they are definitely ramping up the "let's sell some more toys" (which old nerds might even recognize) aspect of StarWars again.

[Hobgoblin]

I am fairly sure depending on how the tale is told some folks have taken their cues from Odin, Thor and Loki. And those characters have been reinvented time and time again to suit different agendas, ie Marvel.

I wonder if it's not the other way round: that Odin, Thor and Loki (and Zeus, Hera, Apollo, etc.) have lasted because they reflect human emotions and failings. They have been reinvented, sure - but few would argue that the Marvel versions improve on the Eddas, for example. And, with an 800-year headstart, it's a fairly safe bet that the Eddic versions will prove more durable!

Also, the most lasting works of literature tend to revolve around flawed - sometimes heavily flawed - characters. One could argue that tragedy is often considered the highest form of drama precisely because it centres on heavily flawed characters. And epic tends to revolve around flawed characters, too: think of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Rostam and Sigurd.

Look I am not trying to say they should not have morally ambiguous characters, that the show should not be gritty or anything like that. I am saying have a purpose behind doing that. That is what makes a show a great classic rather than mediocre “junk food” entertainment. Tolkien or Howard versus say Norman (Gor).

Does the purpose need to go beyond showing that the Child is just, well, a child, though? I mean, we all thought it hilarious because my wife and I could remember our kids being exactly like that (greedy, somewhat devious and entirely amoral, at around the time they were beginning to talk), and one child could remember the other being like that. We all thought it was a great little detail precisely because it rang true.

But it achieved more than mimesis; it was poignant too, because we knew that while the eggs were just a tasty snack for the Child, they were the future for the frog-people. So it was both comic and tragic.

And it set up some nice tension in the scene with the tadpole - because we could infer that the Child saw the infant as a treat rather than a playmate.

On Tolkien: much as I love his works, I tend to agree with critics who say that the weakness of The Lord of the Rings is its black and white morality. The book's a mix of epic and novel, and I think the novelistic sections (those featuring Gollum, the hobbits or the orcs) are stronger because there's more moral ambiguity - especially with Gollum. I love the epic bits, but I think they can pale slightly against real epic because the morality's a bit simplistic. I don't quite agree with Moorcock here as I think LotR is, ultimately, a stronger and richer work than The Broken Sword (great though the latter is), but I do think that he makes some strong points.

On the whole, isn't it fair to say the more moral complexity a book, film or series has, the better it's likely to be? I think that's one reason that The Mandalorian, with its grittier universe and moral shades of grey, is so much better than the recent series of Star Wars films. I reckon you could also make a case that Star Wars films generally declined in quality the further they got from their roots in jidaigeki and revisionist westerns, grit, cynicism and all.

[OSHIROmodels]

Chapter 12 was fucking awesome!

Time to get the toys out 

[Grumpy Gnome]

Tonight’s episode was fun. Filled with lots of nostalgia and Easter eggs. Too short again but I did not pick up plot holes like the previous episode.

My point about Tolkien was not about morality, hence adding Howard, but rather detailed world building.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I must be missing something, because this show just reminds me of a slightly more violent Saturday Morning Cartoon, rather than anything "gritty" or tense, or gripping.

It's kinda fun, but Pedro Fett just strikes me as a less charismatic imitation of old Clint Eastwood characters, and the plots extremely simplistic.  Which is fine. Not like I expected much from a Disney+ original. It's a streaming service aimed at kids.  Pedro and Baby Yoda meet a new scary monster every week, and kill it. Or they run into stormtroopers and easily defeat them.  It's Star Wars Lite.

I guess it's better than the Sequel Trilogy, but that's so low of a bar you can skip over it.

I think the most entertaining part of this season so far is, knowing the behind the scenes drama with Pedro Pascal, watching literally every other Mandalorian character and stunt-casted actor taking their helmet off at every opportunity.

[OSHIROmodels]

I think the most entertaining part of this season so far is, knowing the behind the scenes drama with Pedro Pascal, watching literally every other Mandalorian character and stunt-casted actor taking their helmet off at every opportunity.

That’s bollocks as has been discussed further back in this thread