Mando season 3

[Ryujin]

Thinking about this some more, it's obvious they didn't take the kids (like Ragnar Vizsla) with them to fight the pirates, so hopefully they'll go back and get them (along with any adults they left behind to supervise the kids).

Something that amazes me is how the cult can afford to keep building the Armorer a new forge. That stuff's gotta be expensive. (I had previously assumed she'd packed up and carted the same forge from Nevarro to the ringworld to the desert cave but apparently not!)


Technically Bo-Katan should be old enough to be Din's mother, but then neither of them really look their age. Bo-Katan should probably look older and Din younger. What's ironic, of course, is that Pedro Pascal is 5 years older than Katee Sackhoff. (At least with Anakin and Padme, their actors were both the same age.)

History has enough "child queens" to fill a stadium. Making Din a Disney Princess just works for my sense of equity and fairness

 

[pukunui]

Poor Katee. They really aged her up to play Bo-Katan. In normal photos, she does not look nearly her real age of 42, but as Bo-Katan, she looks every bit of the mid-50s age of the character.

You reckon? I recall people remarking how young Bo-Katan looked in season 2. Her hair is longer in season 3, but I'd say she still looks younger than 50. She should probably be pushing 60 at this point in the timeline, though.

And estimates of Din's age put him at about 40, so Bo is not quite old enough to be his mother, barring unusual circumstances.

Yeah, I guess he's probably pushing 40 now. So maybe Bo can be more like an older sister. It's still kinda weird that Pedro is older than Katee but he's playing a character who's meant to be younger than hers.

I agree with this. Moff Gideon seems to have a personal grudge against Mandalore/Mandalorians. Maybe it's because they hold him responsible for his role in the Purge... So I think he wants to frame them. And true Mandalorians would not have left any beskar behind.

Or even if it's not deliberately planted, Gideon and his faction had access to Beskar in quantities sufficient that they were paying for the Grogu contract with it. It would be surprising if they haven't deployed it for more practical use, such as for their special forces.

Maybe, but there were Mandalorians willing to follow Maul, and there were Mandalorians willing to follow the Empire. I'm thinking maybe Moff Gideon has some Mandalorians on his side who have rescued him. With their history of tribal squabbling, we can't have Bo-Katan's mission to reunite the Mandalorians be all smooth sailing, now can we? There are bound to be some who will take a bit of convincing (or who will flat out refuse).

 

[Zardnaar]

Fun episode some thoughts.
References to a pirate nation. Wookiepedia told me a pirate queen stole a Super Star Destroyer hmmnn.

I think the beskar is planted. Gideon was the one who stripped Mandalore. His remnant would have access to it.

 

[Argyle King]

I just watched the new episode.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but all the pieces for an episode that would be truly great were there, but it turned out to be just okay. While "okay" is not bad, I was expecting something better.

It's nice to see that the Mandalorians aren't always completely incompetent at tactics. Even so, there were still a lot of questionable choices to how they approached fighting through a city*. But it was an improvement over the previous episode.

(*They walked directly into a pincer ambush, after being told the ambush was there; and apparently none of them thought to use a jetpack to get to an elevated position rather than just standing in the street. Also, while I understand that I'm watching a Disney show, it's still glaring that the response to taking fire from an elevated crewserve weapon was to stand in the open and get killed, rather than... well, rather than doing just about anything else. Even old 80s action movies have the background characters attempting to maneuver and fire back from cover.)

The show should hire someone (with a military background) to serve as a consultant for battle choreography. Maybe that's not normally important for a Star Wars show, but I think a show featuring a militant cult and an escalating scale of conflict ought to consider it. (In a similar way, the Iron Fist show had fight scenes which were noticeably worse than Daredevil. Even when they weren't bad, it was weird that the guy based around being a super martial artist had meh combat.)

The fight with the pirates teased at being cool, but it was less than I expected. It's the first time the audience is able to see all of the Mandalorians fight as a unit against an enemy which (presumably) also has some amount of prowess, so I expected more grit and a harsher conflict than how things went.

Additionally, the pirate king had potential to be a cool antagonist, but he was easily dispatched without much of a fight. It didn't make the heroes look better to make their foes lesser; having a competent foe to overcome could have been a moment to bolster the image of the cult. It would have been a completely fine fight for a lesser foe or an early episode, but I feel it fell short of matching the implied menace and implied seriousness from the audience's introduction to the pirates.

Mentally, I was additionally distracted from suspending disbelief enough to enjoy the fight more; distracted by wondering how Navarro survived long enough for others to engage in casual planet hopping to several locations.

Something about this season feels different. That's vague, and I don't know how to quantify what feels different, but it does. The tone and heart of the show is something different than the first two seasons.

The general storyline contains a lot of things which have the potentially to be awesome, but there are a lot of small things which are noticeably out of place and/or illogical -even by the standards of Star Wars and casual space opera. If it had happened only once or twice or been the occasional moment, I wouldn't notice so much. However, there's been something noticeably out of place in almost every episode of this season.

I'm aware this is harsh. Honestly, it turned out harsher than what I originally intended to type. I still wouldn't say the show is bad, but I would say that it has started to lose a grip on why it was previously so good.

Many mickles make a muckle

 

[Zardnaar]

Last night's episode just reinforced my sadness that there isn't an active official Star Wars TTRPG set in the Mandalorian timeline.

Not hard to do with the old D6 one or SWSE which has Mandalorian armor in it and beskar. Pretty much everything else apart from the occasional shop exists.

Tge Mandalorian with the heavy weapons. My wife played something very similar in d20 SWSE. Heavy repeater hooked up to a power source.

Currently running a D6 campaign "Thrawns Revenge" using the legends timeline set 5 years after Endor.

Group chose legends but they were somewhat keen for a canon Mandalorian themed show same time frame.

Also been playing Thrawns Revenge mod for Empire at War. Thrawns kind of a great commander.

 

[pukunui]

References to a pirate nation.

I read a theory somewhere that those in the New Republic who are sympathetic to the Empire are financing pirates in the outer territories in order to sow chaos and thereby encourage what will become the First Order to “come to the rescue”.

Kinda ties in with the nobles on Coruscant who “try to stay out of it” as well as those who go to Canto Bight and get rich selling arms to both sides.

I think the beskar is planted. Gideon was the one who stripped Mandalore. His remnant would have access to it.

I still think we will find that members of Clan Saxon or similar are part of Gideon’s remnant. I’ve even seen theories that Gideon himself is Mandalorian.

 

[Zardnaar]

I read a theory somewhere that those in the New Republic who are sympathetic to the Empire are financing pirates in the outer territories in order to sow chaos and thereby encourage what will become the First Order to “come to the rescue”.

Kinda ties in with the nobles on Coruscant who “try to stay out of it” as well as those who go to Canto Bight and get rich selling arms to both sides.


I still think we will find that members of Clan Saxon or similar are part of Gideon’s remnant. I’ve even seen theories that Gideon himself is Mandalorian.

Not sure on the pirate thing but there's definitely imperial sympathizers in the NR senate in New canon.

No idea clan Saxon.

 

[Argyle King]

Not hard to do with the old D6 one or SWSE which has Mandalorian armor in it and beskar. Pretty much everything else apart from the occasional shop exists.

Tge Mandalorian with the heavy weapons. My wife played something very similar in d20 SWSE. Heavy repeater hooked up to a power source.

Currently running a D6 campaign "Thrawns Revenge" using the legendsvtimeline set 5 years after Endor.

Group chose legends but they were somewhat keen for a canon Mandalorian themed show same time frame.

Edge of the Empire would work well too.

Edge (which is the first of the sets for the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars) focuses on smugglers, traders, mercenaries, and etc.

Depending on if I wanted more options for ships and weapons, I might also pick up Age of Rebellion or one of the specific splats for a particular type of equipment.
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Regarding the beskar found at the end of the episode: what happened to the other Mandalorians which were with Bo Katan? We could see Bo Katan needing to fight her former allies.

 

[Zardnaar]

Edge of the Empire would work well too.

Edge (which is the first of the sets for the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars) focuses on smugglers, traders, mercenaries, and etc.

Depending on if I wanted more options for ships and weapons, I might also pick up Age of Rebellion or one of the specific splats for a particular type of equipment.
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Regarding the beskar found at the end of the episode: what happened to the other Mandalorians which were with Bo Katan? We could see Bo Katan needing to fight her former allies.

I suspect she wants her followers back.
Not familiar enough with edge of Empire. SWSE has the right books to do it D6 has most of it.

 

[Dire Bare]

Despite looking like one, I'd say they're not a military organisation at all. The eating apart thing is very much in line with cult behavior, which is designed to discourage camaraderie and basic humanity. That said, I was expecting them all to just lift their helmets enough that they could put food in their mouths as they've shown Din doing in the past.


I don't think Bo-Katan wants to join the cult. She wants to take over the cult and use them to reclaim Mandalore. And it's entirely possible that Favreau is making the others look incompetent in comparison to Bo-Katan on purpose so it's more obvious that she's a leader who knows how to get things done and someone who can shape these cultists into a real force to be reckoned with.

Bo Katan is lost . . . she doesn't really want to join the Deathwatch cult, doesn't want to lead it . . . but she's lost her followers and then her home. She's got no one and no where to go, except to follow Din. She's playing along with "The Way" because she doesn't know what else to do.

In this week's episode, the Armorer gives Bo a purpose . . . to unite the disparate clans of Mandalore and retake their home. That's something Bo can get behind and is in keeping with her character from the Clone Wars show.