The mystery is part of the character. He also gets plenty of plot, it’s just not shoved in our faces from the get go. The Mandalorian is one of the best space westerns we’ve gotten in a long time.
Eh. I think characters dying as the only stakes is weak writing anyway. If I were using that as a judgement, all of Star Wars is terrible, especially the Clone Wars. Obviously, that’s not the case. Besides, clearly the armor rating is meaningless given the events of the S2 finale – clearly the armor isn’t protecting him from impacts what with his head injury.
We if look to Ming Na Wen’s character I’d even argue that being hit by blasters in New Star Wars is just an opportunity to visit the medic anyway, so Din wearing beskar doesn’t really remove any of the suspense for me.
Are there a lot of Westerns with the main character running around literally invincible to bullets? Or does the outlaw gunplay central to the genre require some element of danger to be interesting?
I think there’s a wide spread. I’d say that there’s westerns like Brokeback Mountain and Dances With Wolves, where the suspense is more from the dire circumstances and grit that they have to work through in order to survive – few times are their lives gravely endangered. Similarly, there’s the Clint Eastwood westerns where you don’t really expect anything to be happening to that main character, yet they’re still well received. The “True Grit” style Western – someone to protect while you rough it through the hard life.
And then there’s the westerns you’re talking about, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, nearly Magnificent Seven style western where the characters present an archetype and have a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall.
The Mandalorian is more like a Western of the Week TV show where you have the drama of the grit, an undercurrent of hope that’s played off the main characters hardships.
Idk. Din being invincible in the show is seemingly irrelevant to me, and not even supported in the content of the show. The first two seasons definitely have space Western episodes though, even if they might not be the more typical main character on the verge of death style ones.
After having just rewatched them all, episode 8 is IMO the only really bad one. It was filled with bad decisions, like those stupid bombers, making enforcing the hierarchical structure of the resistance a major plot point, going from “tracking light jumps is impossible” to “they can only track it from one ship!” like it made any sense at all, both sides of that “chase” failing to use any kind of tactical thinking (why didn’t the resistance fleet scatter if they knew they could only track from one ship? Why didn’t the first order have a few ships use light jumps to cut off the chase? If they could send shuttles this whole time, why not send some for fuel?), Luke deciding because he failed Ben that it’s better to just sit back and let his friends and everything they fought for die, Luke, who refused to fight Vader because he thought there was still good in him, considering killing Ben by turning on his lightsaber while he slept… It’s just a very badly written and produced movie.
Ep 7 wasn’t bad, and ep 9 had some flaws but overall wasn’t bad. They shouldn’t have switched directors (especially to one that seemed to hate what star wars was and wanted to “fix” it), should have had a plan from the start (or maybe even just used the plan Lucas already had for the sequels, though they would have had to use different actors since not much time had passed since RotJ).
The deaths of both Luke and Leia were really dumb. It’s like they were going out of their way to make Leia’s death unpredictable after Fisher died. Episode 8 took 3 good deaths away: the two mentioned above and Finn’s.
Not to mention how the fuck does Rose even catch up to Finn at all when she had turned back and he kept going at full speed intending to kamikaze that cannon but then somehow she’s able to hit him from the side and they both survive the serious collision in barely functional vehicles (after surviving an even bigger collision when one capital ship lightspeeded into another one and it tore open the room they were in–in fucking space!)
And Luke dies from using the force too hard, which is also what kills Leia from sending a message to her son, who in the meantime has been having full conversations with Rey where they see each other and exchange objects between their respective realities.
Episode 8 was just so bad. There’s very little that redeems the movie. Even one of the cooler moments, Ben killing Snoke, was poorly done because a sith Lord should have been able to sense that attack the moment he started turning the lightsaber towards him. It should have been a sudden “lightsaber ignites and then rotates” and even then, Snoke should have had a brief reaction that failed to save him rather than being completely surprised.
You’re missing out! The Gendi Clone Wars are great! They show a Jedi order at the height of their spectacular star wars powers. It feels a little cheesy and ridiculous but like… In a super charming way like a 40s film serial or 70s kung fu movie
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I’ve really enjoyed The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Andor. Rogue One was fantastic. It’s not all bad.
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The mystery is part of the character. He also gets plenty of plot, it’s just not shoved in our faces from the get go. The Mandalorian is one of the best space westerns we’ve gotten in a long time.
If they hadn’t put him in a set of invincible armor that immediately dissolved all suspense I’d agree.
Eh. I think characters dying as the only stakes is weak writing anyway. If I were using that as a judgement, all of Star Wars is terrible, especially the Clone Wars. Obviously, that’s not the case. Besides, clearly the armor rating is meaningless given the events of the S2 finale – clearly the armor isn’t protecting him from impacts what with his head injury.
We if look to Ming Na Wen’s character I’d even argue that being hit by blasters in New Star Wars is just an opportunity to visit the medic anyway, so Din wearing beskar doesn’t really remove any of the suspense for me.
You’re the one that called it a Space Western.
Are there a lot of Westerns with the main character running around literally invincible to bullets? Or does the outlaw gunplay central to the genre require some element of danger to be interesting?
I think there’s a wide spread. I’d say that there’s westerns like Brokeback Mountain and Dances With Wolves, where the suspense is more from the dire circumstances and grit that they have to work through in order to survive – few times are their lives gravely endangered. Similarly, there’s the Clint Eastwood westerns where you don’t really expect anything to be happening to that main character, yet they’re still well received. The “True Grit” style Western – someone to protect while you rough it through the hard life.
And then there’s the westerns you’re talking about, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, nearly Magnificent Seven style western where the characters present an archetype and have a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall.
The Mandalorian is more like a Western of the Week TV show where you have the drama of the grit, an undercurrent of hope that’s played off the main characters hardships.
Idk. Din being invincible in the show is seemingly irrelevant to me, and not even supported in the content of the show. The first two seasons definitely have space Western episodes though, even if they might not be the more typical main character on the verge of death style ones.
After having just rewatched them all, episode 8 is IMO the only really bad one. It was filled with bad decisions, like those stupid bombers, making enforcing the hierarchical structure of the resistance a major plot point, going from “tracking light jumps is impossible” to “they can only track it from one ship!” like it made any sense at all, both sides of that “chase” failing to use any kind of tactical thinking (why didn’t the resistance fleet scatter if they knew they could only track from one ship? Why didn’t the first order have a few ships use light jumps to cut off the chase? If they could send shuttles this whole time, why not send some for fuel?), Luke deciding because he failed Ben that it’s better to just sit back and let his friends and everything they fought for die, Luke, who refused to fight Vader because he thought there was still good in him, considering killing Ben by turning on his lightsaber while he slept… It’s just a very badly written and produced movie.
Ep 7 wasn’t bad, and ep 9 had some flaws but overall wasn’t bad. They shouldn’t have switched directors (especially to one that seemed to hate what star wars was and wanted to “fix” it), should have had a plan from the start (or maybe even just used the plan Lucas already had for the sequels, though they would have had to use different actors since not much time had passed since RotJ).
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The deaths of both Luke and Leia were really dumb. It’s like they were going out of their way to make Leia’s death unpredictable after Fisher died. Episode 8 took 3 good deaths away: the two mentioned above and Finn’s.
Not to mention how the fuck does Rose even catch up to Finn at all when she had turned back and he kept going at full speed intending to kamikaze that cannon but then somehow she’s able to hit him from the side and they both survive the serious collision in barely functional vehicles (after surviving an even bigger collision when one capital ship lightspeeded into another one and it tore open the room they were in–in fucking space!)
And Luke dies from using the force too hard, which is also what kills Leia from sending a message to her son, who in the meantime has been having full conversations with Rey where they see each other and exchange objects between their respective realities.
Episode 8 was just so bad. There’s very little that redeems the movie. Even one of the cooler moments, Ben killing Snoke, was poorly done because a sith Lord should have been able to sense that attack the moment he started turning the lightsaber towards him. It should have been a sudden “lightsaber ignites and then rotates” and even then, Snoke should have had a brief reaction that failed to save him rather than being completely surprised.
And there’s still a lot I haven’t even mentioned.
There are only 6 star wars movies for me and there is one TV show
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You’re missing out! The Gendi Clone Wars are great! They show a Jedi order at the height of their spectacular star wars powers. It feels a little cheesy and ridiculous but like… In a super charming way like a 40s film serial or 70s kung fu movie
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