I have one or two issues; well to be fair I have quite a few of them but these one in particular are about the latest episode of The Mandalorian. A bit of a rant, some personal thoughts and some spoilers; read at your discretion.
Now I consider myself a big enough Star Wars fan, more for nostalgia’s sake than other reasons. Obviously I am considering the first trilogies and don’t have much consideration for all the cash-grabs that have been produced afterwards. I will admit that I have never gone far enough down the rabbit hole to consider the entire lore, source materials and additional works (let’s face it, between comic books, games and other media there is a metric dudu-ton of stuff that has been made). I remember however with fondness the animated series of The Clone Wars (mainly because the robots had human personalities and that in my opinion was hilarious) and also one of the best games out there, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2. Because of this game, I was aware of the Mandalorians, the destruction of their planet and several other bits and pieces of lore, but nothing too fancy.
That being said, I appreciated The Mandalorian as a series just fine: in my view it was admittedly perceived much better that it actually was, but given how poorly many other Star-Wars related products are, it is fairly evident that even a mid-tier show would have received such high praise. If everything that you consume is junk food, then even the occasional artisanal hamburger would seem like a delicacy; let us not forget however that there however is much better cuisine out there. The first season is basically a western-star-warsesque protagonist doing side quests and the second one is more of a tie-in with the other cash-grabs within that cinematic universe.
Now, I want to discuss some things about the third episode of the third season, half of which is not focused on Mando. So…we’re back on Coruscant (that way people can point their finger like Leo Di Caprio in recognition) and a trivial sub-plot starts to develop. I would not have any problems with this, but…it just doesn’t add up now, does it? An attempt is made, for sure, but just as Willy Coyote’s attempts to catch the Road Runner, it derails disastrously. It is a shame because the creators try to construct an interesting premises, but it is one that in my opinion does not fit well in this specific scenario. The main topic is the ethical issues of cloning, or better yet cloning organs for medical purposes. On one hand, I understand that it might be argued that the clones coming from Kamino might have created moral and ethical issues, but those issues should have been explored differently and probably somewhere else. On the other hand, I think the medical technology within the world building of Star Wars is supposed to be quite advanced and research on cloning organs should not have that big of an impact (after all, Anakin made it after fricking lightsaber wounds for crying out loud – admittedly however there was no way to save Padmé). On a third hand the hole premises just seems mashed together with a banal set-up and thrown out there with no particular resolve ; yes, this is getting quite out of hand.
One last thing I wanted to add regards the scene where the two characters jump out of a futuristic high-speed train without a scratch; by my standards, even Palpatine’s return would seem more credible (well, let’s not exaggerate). Furthermore, the scene on Coruscant ends with some kind of electroshock-clockwork-orange-ass type of machinery and at this point, my expectation were already kinda low, but apparently I had to bring a shovel with me.
[Insert joke about A new Hope not being found]