Official Star Wars Thread

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Dacey » November 30th, 2020, 6:29 pm

Solo: A Star Wars Story soundtrack getting released on Deluxe Edition with the entire score included. Sadly only a digital release, but pretty cool all the same. It's a terrific track which I think would've gotten more attention if "John Williams" were the soul credit name.

https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/featu ... track-more

(Also I'll go back to avoiding this thread until I finally get Disney+ and can catch up on The Mandalorian, which I'm sure I'll enjoy whenever I do. Of course the spoilers go viral quickly, but I can try, right?)
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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » November 30th, 2020, 7:54 pm

1) You’re really not missing much.

2) There’s really very little to have spoiled. Seriously. Nothing actually happens.

3) :)

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Dacey » November 30th, 2020, 8:36 pm

Hmmmmmmm.

You might be outvoted with that opinion. :wink:
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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by EricJ » December 1st, 2020, 12:06 am

Actually, considering most binge-craze streaming series, Not Sure If Serious... >_>

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » December 1st, 2020, 4:26 am

Totally serious.

Okay, so it’s not crap, but it’s not good either, is it? Search your feelings, you know it to be true! There’s a reason we here have started calling it the Blandoborian...

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Randall » December 1st, 2020, 8:48 am

Ben's expectations for a Star Wars TV show seem quite different than mine. I enjoy it well enough, and my 13 year old son loves it.

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » December 1st, 2020, 5:35 pm

No, my expectations for any show that has been given this amount of front-loaded bias in the launch of a major new subscription service are what were high. And it being SW and apparently making up *and* restoring faith post-sucky-sucky-sequel series put it on an even higher pedestal.

Ultimately, though, it is just that: a Star Wars TV show. Better than the infamous Holiday Special, but not anything else I've seen of the cartoon shows. And when it’s bad, it’s just really baaaad. "Well enough" is not what this should be inspiring. And that just doesn’t seem right to me.

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Randall » December 1st, 2020, 6:13 pm

So... your expectations were heightened by the sequels being sucky? Ah, well that's where you went wrong, I'd say. ;)

For me, the polish came off of SW a long time ago, and I never expect to get it back. So, Mando is about as good as I expected.

While we'd all love for it to be amazing, I'm happy enough that it has found itself closer in quality to the cartoons (albeit with a smaller scope) than the sequels. I understand someone wanting more, but I had already figured this was as good as we'd ever get at this point. With the last couple of episodes setting the show up to be a true sequel to Rebels, I think it's found the niche it was looking for, for better or worse. Those that didn't watch all the cartoons may find less to hook on to.

In fact...

Ben and I have shared out thoughts in recent emails about Star Trek vs Star Wars, and how one is better suited to TV, and one to movies. However, to me, after years of cartoons, following and followed by crappy prequels and sequels, I think I've come to see it much more as a TV franchise.

And that's why I expect Mando to be "just a TV show."

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » December 1st, 2020, 6:42 pm

"Wanting", no. Expecting, yes!

But, I guess I’m just slowly coming around to the same view that SW as a major film franchise was done a long time ago. Which is kind of odd coming from someone who honestly believes that SW is just one movie, or at a stretch the initial trilogy, and everything else is fringey, spin-off fluff. My problem with Blando is just that...it shows.

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by EricJ » December 1st, 2020, 6:42 pm

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 6:13 pm
With the last couple of episodes setting the show up to be a true sequel to Rebels, I think it's found the niche it was looking for, for better or worse. Those that didn't watch all the cartoons may find less to hook on to.
Fans are starting to say that Dave Filoni's for-fans-by-fans Clone Wars/Rebels style should take over Disney's franchise (the same way they say that DC Animation should take over Warner's Batman movies).

Disney+, like their MCU-spinoff shows, was more concerned about having a show for their "franchise" than by continuing any story continuity--
And since 21st-cty. TV is now All About Da Binge, episodes are no longer about what happens in them, but in what they can set up to string us into watching the next episode, which in turn is to tease us for the next episode, and so on, to the central raison d'être for the entire season, the Shocking Season Finale. (Which, of course, is to cliffhanger the story so that the network renews their contract.)
Thus, when put together, produces an entire SEASON where you sit down for an episode and Nothing Actually Happens.

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » December 1st, 2020, 8:14 pm

But...clearly as a Rand has said, the Blandaborian is looking like it’s continuing a Rebels storyline...

And I will say that none of the Blando episode endings I have seen have been actual cliffhangers...

Do Shocking Season Finales get the network to renew a show? Um, tell that to scores of programs that, Amazing Spider-Man style, set up such threads only to leave them dangling when the ratings sink, without even a final episode or TV movie to attempt to tie them up...

You are right, however, that Nothing Actually Happens in this particular show...

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Randall » December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm

Filoni produces Mando, so if Disney didn't care about following up on the cartoons, they picked the wrong guy. 8) Though we got few if any nods to the cartoons in Mando Season One, it now certainly looks like he is getting his wish to follow-up on the threads of his shows, what with the appearances and mentions we got the past two weeks. I wonder if Favreau has the same enthusiasm for that. It's fine with me, though. I liked the cartoons, and they have been the best thing about Star Wars for a while now. Though, I wonder if those threads may be spun off onto yet other shows, too.

And Ben - When you say that "nothing happens," I really have to question whether we watch the same show. Lots happens! There's plenty of action, anyhow, and each week is a new adventure with new characters. Is it just too episodic for you? Not enough progression of the main story? To me, it's just old-fashioned TV. The premise doesn't have to see a payoff each, or even any, episode. Look at how long a "concept" show like The Fugitive ran without any story progression whatsoever. And Mando has way more happening than that! Kinda like... Clone Wars and Rebels.

I dunno. I get that it's just not your thing. But you just seem determined to not like it. :?

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by EricJ » December 1st, 2020, 10:10 pm

Well, the thing we started forgetting in the 00's was, on TV, either you're a "serial", or you're NOT.
Twin Peaks was a serial, because it thought it was parodying soap-operas, but the lines kept blurring after that. We don't have "the Chuckles the Clown episode", "the Turkeys episode" or "the Walnuts episode" on series anymore, we have Season 1, "Chapter" 3.
And good luck if you can remember what happened in it.

Clone Wars kept their serials to limited arcs of two or three episodes, to bridge the gap between Bingies who wanted to Tune In Tomorrow (or at least hit the "Next episode in 10 sec" button), and fans of episodic television who wanted some reasonable closure to the story they watched.
If Filoni keeps that up, that'll be a breath of fresh air, but it won't help D+'s Marvel series, where they were born serialized..

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by Ben » December 2nd, 2020, 5:35 am

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm
Filoni produces Mando, so if Disney didn't care about following up on the cartoons, they picked the wrong guy. I liked the cartoons, and they have been the best thing about Star Wars for a while now. Though, I wonder if those threads may be spun off onto yet other shows, too.
There is no doubt that Filoni has been the best thing about SW for a while now, even if it is kind of unfortunate that the baton he picked up has been largely Prequel-centric. I guess Mando also disappoints some be a use it felt like that was going to get away from that, and back to a post-Jedi world, where things felt a bit more OT, but they don’t. Also no doubt that his approach and threads will expand into new stories and shows: we already know that the return of Darth Maul was going to be tied into the Kenobi film, so we wait to see if that carries over into that series, but as we know, anything "new canon" can and will be exploited, so it’ll all happen one way or another.

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm
When you say that "nothing happens," I really have to question whether we watch the same show. Lots happens!
You know what I mean.

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm
There's plenty of action, anyhow
Exactly. Lots of flash-flash, whizz-whizz, blip-pow...but no progression. And at the end of every episode, Mando ends up almost right back where he was at the start of the episode. It's terrible writing.

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm
...each week is a new adventure with new characters. Is it just too episodic for you? Not enough progression of the main story? To me, it's just old-fashioned TV. The premise doesn't have to see a payoff each, or even any, episode. Look at how long a "concept" show like The Fugitive ran without any story progression whatsoever. And Mando has way more happening than that! Kinda like... Clone Wars and Rebels.
Well, as we go on, more and more characters seem to be popping back for cameos, though even here we do wonder who they are and if they serve any other purpose than just just fill that week's time before disappearing again, mostly never to be seen again (albeit so far). Carl Weathers has been the best one so far, and I thought his recent ep — which he also directed! (Whereas the one before really *was* slow and proves Bryce Dallas Howard hasn’t really picked up her father's directorial genes) — has been the best one of this season.

But again, Mando was sold as an ongoing serial — Chapter 1, 2, 3...etc — rather than an anthology, so right from the start I’ve been waiting to see where we're headed. The chapter thing is misleading. If they said "here’s a show where we just follow this largely inept Boba Fett wannabe around the universe on his shipping adventures" then I’d be all in, and waiting to see who or what popped up that week. But instead we got a massive tease at the end of the first ep...that then didn’t play out — at all — for the rest of that season, and now at the end of the second season premiere, we get that same tease that I joked above probably wouldn’t play out until the last episode of the season, and so far this seems to be "the way".

I guess we have been spoilt in recent times with more grown up dramas and proper film-like stories told over series rather than a film, but this *was* how Mando was described and what it looked like. By the "filler" second episode in, which we both agreed on back then, I was a little concerned that this wasn’t going to be the story-powered treat that places us back firmly in the SW universe we once knew that we had been led to believe. Yes, "concept" shows ran and ran and ran back in the day, but even those characters learned things and progressed. Of course, ANY TV show is basically filler between the commercials, but Mando appears on a subscription service, which again we have been conditioned to believe offers higher-tier programming than network broadcasting. It’s all about perception, I suppose. If you’re happy with it, good for you. But we have been sold a horse, and a thoroughbred at that, and been given a pony. If you like ponies...great!

Randall wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 8:59 pm
I get that it's just not your thing. But you just seem determined to not like it. :?
Far to the contrary! This really should be my thing! It’s aimed at me...or at least, the initial word suggested it was created and influenced to lure SW fans back that had still been burned by the Last Jedi fallout. This thing should essentially be the Boba Fett kickass show we always dreamed of as kids. Okay, so Mando — let's call him Larry — is a Boba stand-in for now, until the real Boba turns up and tells Larry he is really Jango, but he’s just so inept...or, at least, the writing for him is. Two episodes ago he just goes to sleep. Twice! Riveting television! But I keep tuning in each time because I really want to like it, I really want it to get better, I really hope it’s going to get better each time, and I really want to start liking it more than I do, or that I can. But it’s just so sad to me. That mediocrity seems to be celebrated these days, or at least excused.

EricJ wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 10:10 pm
Well, the thing we started forgetting in the 00's was, on TV, either you're a "serial", or you're NOT.
Twin Peaks was a serial, because it thought it was parodying soap-operas, but the lines kept blurring after that. We don't have "the Chuckles the Clown episode", "the Turkeys episode" or "the Walnuts episode" on series anymore, we have Season 1, "Chapter" 3.
And good luck if you can remember what happened in it.

Clone Wars kept their serials to limited arcs of two or three episodes, to bridge the gap between Bingies who wanted to Tune In Tomorrow (or at least hit the "Next episode in 10 sec" button), and fans of episodic television who wanted some reasonable closure to the story they watched.
If Filoni keeps that up, that'll be a breath of fresh air, but it won't help D+'s Marvel series, where they were born serialized..
Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland, even all the current DC shows, only two of which (the epic Gotham, and Supergirl)...these are all serialized shows nowadays. Only comedies, usually, retain that story of the week approach. But I don't have by trouble keeping up with any of these, because "previously on" gives the mental nudge and, especially now, most people binge anyway, like I have started on the extraordinary The Queen's Gambit. But as you say, even Clone Wars had limited arcs within seasons, over crossing over so that there was actually some kind of narrative thread.

But there’s almost none of that in Mando...nothing set up so far has been paid off. If anything it’s just becoming the poster series for SW not having any plan at all...they’re taking Indy's call for "just making this up as they go". As opposed to Marvel, that like them or not, have a total plan and know exactly how each film or film-like series stories will fit in to each other moving forward. It’s just a shame that when the new season of Mando came along, the excitement was all on Disney's side, not the fans, who were all overjoyed when those final Clone Wars episodes came to home video, and then went ape when further new episodes were announced for D+. After the hype around the first season, this new one has largely been "oh, Mando's back, that’s nice", not really picking up on Disney's attempts to get us all jollied up again. And that’s the real shame.

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Re: Official Star Wars Thread

Post by EricJ » December 2nd, 2020, 11:33 am

Ben wrote:
December 2nd, 2020, 5:35 am
=It’s just a shame that when the new season of Mando came along, the excitement was all on Disney's side, not the fans, who were all overjoyed when those final Clone Wars episodes came to home video, and then went ape when further new episodes were announced for D+.
And on the D+ Clone Wars:
The made-for-Netflix "final" season did such a good job of tying up most of the Episode 3 and OT questions by focusing on Yoda, I didn't know where D+'s Really Final This Time season was going to go.
But when we got the "Bad Batch" basically doing inserted plot lines with no real movie canon, I thought, "I smell spinoff pilot. :roll: "

Guess what--It was a spinoff pilot.

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