Mandalorian Review
I went into this purposely not knowing very much about it. I actively tried to avoid any spoilers/information about this show, knowing that I would see it eventually. I have never seen the Clone Wars cartoon series, but I am a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy. And I've seen Episodes 1-3. So there were 2 things I did know: I recognized the iconic style of the armor, and I recognized this little guy from memes around the internet:
I actually had some issues reconciling the timeline of the series, because the internet tends to call this character "Baby Yoda". So I figured this all must have happened Pre-Episode 1, because of Yoda's age. But if that were the case, how are there storm troopers? I ended up just googling this, and it turns out that this character is not baby Yoda, but merely a baby the same race as Yoda. And the series takes place 5 years after Return of the Jedi. Once I got that straight, I was able to just enjoy the series. And enjoy it I did.
I really thought they did a good job with the tone of the show. It felt consistent with the original trilogy. I would put this solidly in the space western genre, in the vein of Firefly or Cowboy Bebop. And like those other series, I liked that you could take each episode as a standalone, but it also fit into the overall story arc of the season. And the recaps at the beginning of each episode were great for reminding you of things that would be important in each episode, without telegraphing the plot too much.
I thought it was a well cast, fun series that brought me back to times spent in my youth watching and overanalyzing the original trilogy. It definitely made me interested in watching Clone Wars, which I assume contains a bit more backstory on the Mandalorians. I am also planning to rewatch this series in the future. Probably right before I watch Season 2.
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Solid review, no lies detected, can't wait for season 2 either. Surprised me as a non-Star Wars fan how much I enjoyed it, good comparisons to Bebop and Firefly.
"No lies detected"... lol
Yeah, I thought it was good. Thanks, man.
Non-Star Wars fan? There's such a thing?
The way I see people reacting to the last bunch of six or so Star Wars movies, most Star Wars fans feel like non-Star Wars fans a lot of the time lol. But yes, we are a rare breed, especially being so far into in nearly every other big name nerdy franchise/universe, I personally just had too many people overhype Star Wars on how good they were, and to this day nothing in the Star Wars universe has never lived up to any amount of hype it got since my nerdy family members used to try and sell it. The pod race scenes were pretty cool.
Gave that Han Solo movie a try, finished about half of it and enjoyed it enough where I plan to go back and finish it at some point. Didn't comprehend how much hate it had online but then I just don't get Star Wars completely. Star Trek forever :)
I thought the Han Solo movie was one of the most positively rated?
At any rate, I've been a fan since I saw the original movies in theaters as a kid. It's hard for anything new to live up to that though I've enjoyed all of the Star Wars movies to some greater or lesser degree. I'm hoping for some more good live action TV series in the future.
If you haven't seen it, I thought Rogue One was one of the better newer Star Wars movies. It's one of the standalone movies and is an immediate prequel to the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV - A New Hope).
I like Star Trek too, just not as much :). Next Generation was my favorite so I'm looking forward to watching Picard eventually.
I thought it was pretty good. Seemed to be paced good too. I'd like to see more shows within the Star Wars universe (and I should probably watch some of the cartoons for that matter) because I like the concepts of Star Wars but I find that, on average, I tend to find shows a lot more enjoyable to watch than movies and in my opinion shows on average tend to do a better job in areas like pacing and The Mandalorian does this well.
Even "tight" shorter movies do this better than full length movies though. It's like the adult animated DC movies vs the live action ones. I'd rate The Flashpoint Paradox higher than the live action DC movies and it was a lot tighter and had better pacing in my opinion too.
I'd like to see more shows in the Star Wars universe. I like the concepts of the Star Wars universe, and shows for the most part seem better to me than movies, and the Mandalorian has suggested that Star Wars shows can be decent.