(TV Review) - The Mandalorian Season 1 : Episode 1+2 (Disney+)

The Mandalorian Season 1  : Episode 1+2

It is no secret that I am a buthurt and also a bitter old Star Wars fan. I loved Star Wars and Empires. I mean, loved. I can literally quote Empire backwards. Well. I used to be able, haven't tried for ages but I did so and won a competition at a Star Wars convention in the mid 90s once. Anyway, I liked Jedi less, but still love it for the most part. There is an age old joke about how you can tell someone's age by if they liked Jedi or not, as you were either a kid that loved talking teddy bears, or you thought it was off putting that people with sticks and stones could take out a highly advanced race of aliens. This joke is 100% true, imo, and the joke is now expanded to other generations who watched the newer films.

The prequels broke me. They were so atrociously bad that I find it almost unbelievable, and the fact they are now not the worst to be made astounds me in the most horrific way. All the kids that saw it, when they were 8 or whatever, are now in there late 20s, early 30s, the prequels came out over '99 and 2005, and they are a driving force of a revisionist movement where those films are widely thought of as unfairly judged. If you soil yourself on theForce.net, the general voice is that those films are great. It is these "new fans" that drive this change of opinion, as they are still active and engaged in the Star Wars community.

This is all about how we relate to the memories of our youth, and not about the films themselves. I think it also shows the innate childishness of the movies. It took me a long time to realise that Star Wars, all of them, are kids films, like say Goonies. The originals were just really good kids movies, so good that they appeal to all ages, but they are childish films made for children at their core. Which is why each generation hates the next set of films and the new generation loves the new ones. It is not that "kids do not know any better" it is that I am just far and away outside the target audience of the franchise, but I was the target audience when I was a kid, and of course I remember being a child and nostalgia is a thing. George Lucas understood this, and the attempting to force the newest movies into adult sensibilities is part of why they are spectacularly bad, in my eyes. He knew the key to the franchise was to make them appeal to the kids and cultivate new fans. Mark my words. The current Trilogy will be thought of as excellent by the next generation once they are old and judging the trilogy of 2038, or whenever it comes out.

The thing is I am burnt out on Star Wars. When the prequels were out I was a vocal poster about how shit they were, watched tear down vids and all that, but somewhere along the line between "Revenge of the endless lava fight of boredom" and "who gives a shit what it is called 2nd film that came out recently", that I am just spent. I care so little about it that I do not even get annoyed by it any more. All the fuel has been burnt. I do not like it, or hate it, I just don't give a shit about it. Star Wars is like Fast and the Furious to me, or maybe more like a long running soap opera like Neighbours. It is so under my radar and of such little interest to me that it barley enters my field of vision at all.

What I am trying to say here, besides trying desperately to not fall into a ten page rant about how terrible Star Wars is, I like to think I have no stake in the franchise any more, but deep down I do. The Star Wars I loved for so long is gone, erased by decades of "cannon" stories that removed all the magic and mystery of my imaginings and compressed what I thought to be a saga spanning centuries to 19 years. I can not help see Star Wars as a inferior shadow of what it was, and what it meant to my generation who spent decades without new content. Where we built our own fandom from what the shows inspired in us, not what they showed us. I am still bitter and this produces bias. I have tried three times to talk about this show but end up writing pages about my relationship to the material instead of the show itself... lol.. fuck it I'm not deleting it this time.

Anyway... lets get to it...

So, considering my relationship to most Disney properties, the mass of Disney+ TV shows that have been announced were as exciting to me as hearing that a new CIS show was coming out. Still, Disney+ is a film quality tv platform. Beyond its library of junk, it is pumping billions into original content. The Mandalorian looks fantastic, it looks better than some high budget science fiction films. They have hired top level actors, directors, writers and more, and it shows. The show from a production standpoint is just about as good as TV can get. So that is a big plus. There are few shows that have ever looked so much like a big budget film. The super rich source of design they have inherited, means even with only a few original additions, the show just looks amazing, as it is reproducing design elements that have been honed over decades. The outfits, the armour, the set aesthetics, the sheer amount of cash saved that other fantasy productions would need to spend, is then diverted into other areas and it really shows. Anyone that says this show is not one of, if not the, best production quality we have seen on TV is kidding themselves.

Beyond the production the real star of this show is David Filoni. He has a long history of making fan pleasing content and has shown he understands legacy as well as having the ability to add new content. It is well known now the terms of the Lucas deal means George retained royalty rights for merchandise for the prequels and the original series. "Let the past die" and all that shit coming down from high to wipe the old films away started to make so much sense when you consider this. Yet Filoni has somehow always managed to walk a line that brings new fans into the modern works, rather than alienate them. Do not be fooled by Jon Favreau's name. David Filoni is the guy behind this, and if they had any sense it would be him in Kennedy's chair, someone btw who is famously not involved in this show in anyway.

There is a lot of talk about how this show is like a western, but it isn't even remotely like one. It really shows how devoid of imagination much of the critical audience is. My guess is the "western" line came from Disney itself and then one critic said it and this just went on and on and on, each taking the lead from another. The show lacks all the cinematic fingerprints of the western, calling this show a western is like calling the 1st Conan film a western. Sure it is a lone man in a desert, doing fetch quests but that is about it. It will be hilarious once the latter episodes are on different planets and more characters have been introduced and stuff and this link to the "western" will be more and more absurd.

The episodes are short, and it is a mercy. It would have been so easy for them to fall into the netlfix trap of making a 20 hours film and 1/2 the audience loosing its cool mid way. The episodes are short and sweet, never staying to long and this makes you want more. I actually think the episode length is probably the smartest part of this production.

In addition there are a lot of touches that seem tailor made for old school fans to address issues that have come up over the last two decades of media. The "hero", for example, is fallible. Spending some time falling on his arse and getting nearly killed. The way the Jedi have evolved in cartoons, comics, games and films have made jedi characters into caricatures, and the simple act of the main dude not being perfect at everything instantly gives the show some credibility in my eyes. Also the "Judge Dredd" not taking his helmet off thing is really cool, and something I was sure would not happen.

I also really liked the main hook, that of the young Yoda. For those that do not know, Yoda's race and back story has never been named in any cannon media. Seeing a baby "yoda" tells fans that this show is going to seriously add to the lore of Star Wars in a major way. This is intriguing, on paper at least. All the "worshipping metal" and tribal stuff from the comics can go fuck a fruit bat, though.

I want to hate this show, but in truth there is little to fault it on. I mean I can talk about the bloodless violence or the shameless easter eggs to make fanatics wet themselves but the reality of this show is that it is well made, seems to take itself seriously, seems to have real direction and is for all appearances may be the best Star Wars live action offering since Rouge One, and that film wasn't exactly devoid of problems.

Yet, I still do not give a shit. I'm just not interested at all. Watching this show was like watching Downtown Abby with my wife. The show is good, well made even, but I just do not give a flying fuck about those stuck up English toffs or their hokey gutter snip domestics. Downtown Abby is just not for me. Magicians is just not for me. House MD is just not for me. Sopranos is just not for me. Breaking Bad is just not for me.

Star Wars is just not for me.

It was burnt out of me, all the things it was to me in my youth are gone and now it is just another random scifi, like say Killjoys and I doubt I will be bothered to summon the effort to watch the 3rd episode and beyond. It just doesn't hold my interest.

Verdict : George Lucus visited the set of Mandelorian and was latter quoted saying Dave Filoni "is like a son to me".