The Mandalorian - Season 2 Review

the mandalorian season two just had its season finale on disney plus i really enjoyed the first season i thought it was a really great breath of fresh air it felt like very simple star wars kind of back to basic star wars which i liked very much not every bit of star wars has to be thematically rich and very complex this show is mostly a western it felt like a samurai epic it was really entertaining and so naturally i was looking forward to seeing what else happened with mando and little baby yoda in season two now this review is going to be filled with spoilers so if you have yet to see any of this season i'm going to be talking about each episode so that is your warning and i mean everything so please make sure you've seen it having not directed a single episode last season john favreau made his first directorial contribution to the mandalorian with episode 1 which i loved mando teams up with a marshal played by timothy oliphant who has boba fett's armor i really like that boba fett doesn't just show up in this show done and complete and ready to go he doesn't just swoop in with his armor and he's just there he is he's boba fett it's about finding the armor and getting it to the guy who's supposed to have it it's not just that he's finished and complete and ready to go and they team up with the band of tuscan raiders to take down a giant crate dragon that thing that obi-wan kenobi made a noise to scare away the tuscan raiders whichever version of star wars you may have watched that noise has changed considerably throughout the years and to sell the gargantuan size of this thing favra went from the typical star wars aspect ratio of 235 all the way to full frame and shot that sequence in imax which was really effective this was the longest episode we had seen of the mandalorian up until that point and i believe it was actually the longest episode of the whole season it felt like a little mini movie and i really had a great time with it the second episode was directed by peyton reed from the ant-man films or bring it on if you're from that era and i am this was probably my least favorite episode of the season that feels a little bit inconsequential looking back but i'm okay with filler existing in this show in fact i said this in my review of season one i actually like filler if it's entertaining you have to look at this from the perspective of writers and directors do you really think every director who comes onto a show to direct one episode just wants to be burdened with the mythology of course not a lot of these creatives want to have fun and i can imagine it's probably really fun for the directors to just come into an episode and do their best with this arc and then they're finished it allows for the show to have a lot of different visions and not have to just feel confined to one mythology the whole time also this is a very simple show i must reiterate this season is about mando getting baby yoda to a jedi that's it that's the entire point of this season and every single episode in some way gets him one step closer to doing that so inevitably at some point a jedi would show up and we'll talk about that later a lot of people were very up in arms about the fish eggs thing here's my take on it i was not offended by it but i also didn't find it funny it was played for a joke a lot of the times and i never really laughed i was just kind of like oh yeah he's eating a bunch of the babies huh that doesn't really make me laugh but it didn't make me mad either they're they're movie props i don't know i did love one thing about this episode though and that's that it felt scarier it had some horror elements to it with those spider creatures the third episode was directed by bryce dallas howard she worked a little bit on season one as well and a lot of people were very excited for a few specific reasons namely the clone wars characters like boca time played by katie sakhoff making an appearance and establishing themselves within this show katie sackoff was really good i liked what they did with these characters and it was really exciting i didn't really feel that there was much emotional investment in this episode it was just exciting to see those characters and so it was a bit fan-service-y but it was fanservice-y in a way that i was okay with we'll talk about fanservice a little bit later specifically about the final episode this episode was very action-heavy as is a lot of this season and the show in general but it was well filmed bryce dallas howard did an impressive job with the action sequences and seeing the frog lady reunited with her husband and seeing that their family would thrive was um i don't know it was it was right here guys it was right there episode four was directed by carl weathers that's right dylan himself from predator and apollo creed is out here making star wars what world do i live in that is so [ __ ] cool and he did a phenomenal job this is a really fun action episode it's basically entirely about a siege on an imperial base but it has a great chase this kind of stuff is a bit hollow i guess from a story perspective but i really don't mind it i've said this for years and i mentioned it in my review of season one i've for a long time imagined a star wars show or movie that isn't really about any of the skywalker saga or any of the episodic films and just takes place on random parts of the universe with characters doing cool [ __ ] like a heist or a chase like this and this show is giving me that it's exactly what i've wanted out of star wars for a long time star wars does not always have to be filled with emotional depth as long as i care about the characters involved really i'm going to want to go on journeys with them and this show makes me care about a character that i can't see his face for the majority of the show also baby yoda with his arms up in that ship was it was just delightful you know there's very few times that i will actually use the word delightful anymore and actually mean it episode 5 was the first episode this season that wasn't written by john favreau he took on a lot of writing duties this season this one was written and directed by dave filoni and it's my favorite episode of the entire season ahsoka tano played by rosario dawson shows up and um [Music] look i really enjoyed that okay like look i get it all right i have read tons of reviews and we'll talk about that too in a second i get that people are concerned about fan service and that the the show might not have the heart that it needs to have and that it might rely on other things too much this was incredible this entire episode was directed extremely well dave filoni in my opinion made the worst episode of season one that one episode with bobby cannavale's son in it or whatever that was so bad that was such a terrible episode so to see him completely redeem himself and make something that felt like classic star wars that had incredible imagery that forest with the broken trees ahsoka and the moon and little grogu as we learned he's called really beautiful stuff and i thought rosario dawson was really excellent as ahsoka tano and that's a major character that a lot of [ __ ] people like to take that on your shoulders and she did a very good job and there was a reference to thrawn as well and after the recent announcements that there'll be 87 new star wars shows and one of them will be ahsoka tano i'm assuming that thrawn will play into that show and they're basically they took this episode to set up a show shows do that all the time they put the punisher and daredevil season two and now there's a punisher show of course you know marvel's netflix universe doesn't exist anymore but still the idea being that they set up a successful show in a whole season and then said alright let's let's take season two and have some fun that's clearly what they did and as long as they are doing it well and as long as again i care about the characters then that's to work for me and can i just say that i absolutely adore grosgu grogu it's the most it is the cutest [ __ ] thing i have ever seen in my life grogo they really knew what they were doing with this season when it comes to grogu because they put that [ __ ] in every scene if they could that he was just all over this and it didn't get old he really he really didn't i just want to hug that thing episode 6 was directed by robert rodriquez which i thought was really fun i love that favreau and filoni they're kind of like giving people these opportunities to to dip their toe in a universe that they've probably always loved again carl weathers made star wars [ __ ] awesome that's so cool but robert rodriquez made the shortest episode this season to my knowledge and this one really went ahead and introduced boba fett ripping off stormtroopers faces smashing their armor it was extremely badass mando found this sort of shrine or ruins of like a jedi temple or something and he's placed grogu there and and grogu is sort of like reaching out to other jedi and sending sort of like a beacon or something and slave one appears and i was like oh [ __ ] because when it comes to characters in the original trilogy that pretty much everybody liked boba fett always got [ __ ] he got to walk around and look cool and talk to darth vader for a second then he fell into sarlacc pit he didn't get to do anything really so i like the idea of seeing a character that everybody likes and feels kind of nostalgic for but never really got to do all that much do some cool [ __ ] episode 7 was directed by rick famogiwa who came back after directing some episodes on season one this one starred bill burr as mayfield once again and they needed him because he used to be an imperial to break into an enemy base because again they're trying to break into something or you know follow some imperials or siege on a building it's a similar arc that many episodes have but what made this one very special for me anyway was not just this epic fight atop these roving trucks that was really really exciting it was this conversation where mayfield gets the chance to talk to someone who used to be one of his superiors who he now hates and the slow reveal of why he hates this guy the massacre that took place of all of these troops that this guy doesn't seem to give a [ __ ] about but mayfield certainly does and he's got to do it while the mandalorian is sitting right next to him without his helmet on because he needed to scan his face to get the signal sent you could really feel the world opening up as he talked about his past as an imperial you got the perspective of somebody who hated being an imperial he got that a little bit with finn in the sequel trilogy but it was interesting here to see someone have that opportunity to look back on someone that he felt was a terrible leader and i found that scene very tense and i i did not expect him to just start killing everybody so that was kind of fun too so let's talk about the season finale they brought back peyton reed which i did think was kind of strange now again they don't necessarily know the quality of the episodes as they are delivered but again i thought episode 2 of this season was the worst one so to bring him back i was a little concerned written by john favreau as most of the episodes this season were but not all i forgot to mention that at the end of robert rodriquez's episode moff gideon abducts baby yoda grogu and takes them up to his ship and now mando has to try to find him they've stolen an imperial ship and they use that to break into moff gideon's ship and they've got bokeh tan and everybody else with them and once they're in they have to face off against the dark troopers these things were actually really scary i was getting some real terminator vibes i loved ludwig gorinson's music for them again another season filled with very different star wars music it's nothing like anything that michael g aquino did for rogue one and it's certainly not anything like john williams it's totally different it's completely original he's doing a really fantastic job with the music the fight between mando and the dark trooper was kind of scary especially the scene where he's getting his helmet caved into the wall and you're just imagining his face in there just getting smashed and sequences like that make the fact that he wears a mask for the whole show better because you're just imagining the pain that's on his face he just looks like a rag doll being thrown around if you saw his face you could kind of connect with him but since he's got that armor on while being pummeled like that it kind of makes it scarier and more disturbing in a way moff gideon shows up with the dark saber and they have a battle this fight was also really well done i loved all the action throughout this entire season it was all handled very well it looked very realistic there was never a dull moment when it came to the action sequences but mando is able to defeat moff gideon which gives him access to the darksaber he doesn't realize this but the darksaber has to be one in combat bo katan really wanted that thing and they realized that the only way for her to get it now is to actually defeat the mandalorian now i'm assuming she doesn't have to kill him because mando got it off moth gideon without killing him so that's going to be interesting to see where they go forward with that arc because that's left unresolved at the end of this episode but as they're all trapped inside this room and they think all these dark troopers are about to [ __ ] kill him an x-wing shows up as soon as that x-wing showed up i went holy [ __ ] who is this going to be i think i know who this is going to be throughout the whole season the point of this season was to bring grogu to a jedi he says it in almost every episode i've been quested to take him to one of his kind we knew that we knew at some point a jedi would show up and one did ahsoka tano and she said i can't deal with it alright so someone must be showing up i had all kinds of people in my mind really obscure people from from non-canon stuff obscure people from canon stuff i was like will they find a way to resurrect mace windu and say that he's actually alive because we never saw his death that would have been interesting i thought maybe they could pull a luke skywalker and they did that green lightsaber ignites and destroyed brutally a bunch of dark troopers a lot of people have referenced the ending of rogue one as a comparison that makes sense i'm a jedi like my father before me is something he said and these two scenes viewed back to back absolutely show that he is the son of anakin skywalker without a doubt i miss green lightsabers i don't know why the new trilogy uh hated them so much but i i've always loved luke in return of the jedi and so to to get some acknowledgement of that was of course exciting for the six-year-old kid living inside me but then he walks up to them and he takes off his hood and he was luke from masters of terrace kasi i can only assume that the creators know that that cgi is not finished they must that was not ready yet that cgi ripped me out of the moment it absolutely just took me out of the moment mando taking off his helmet to say goodbye to grogu was very touching luke walking away and leaving mando with our other heroes to figure out what they're going to do next i thought was a pretty good ending i do want to talk about fan service and i want to talk about luke and i want to talk about some of the complaints that i've seen and praises in just a second but first let's talk about the after credit scene with boba fett killing a gigantic bib fortuna officially converting jabba's palace into boba fett's palace and then we're told that a new show involving boba fett will be out next year now some people have speculated that the mandalorian's arc is done and now it's going to be about boba fett i don't think so because they've got that dark saber bokotan moff gideon thing going on that has completely unresolved i'm assuming they'll figure out new stuff to do there and it seems like there's going to be a new boba fett show i mean look i get it okay i get that people are tired people are exhausted there's a lot of material out now for people to consume i haven't watched any of the cw superhero shows i didn't watch iron fist season two luke cage season two i kind of gave up on a lot of these shows because there was just so much i didn't watch agents of shield sometimes it's just like [ __ ] enough i get it the star wars stuff exists but in this case i'm always going to give creatives the benefit of the doubt until i see it i want to see the stuff first and then i'll have an opinion i'm not going to have an opinion on something i haven't seen that hasn't even been written yet or is at least in the process of being written or filmed i will wait till i've seen it because that's what i would want people to do for any material that i put out it's just general kindness but let's talk about a few things regarding this finale most people seem to really like it it's got like a 9.9 on imdb or something which i haven't seen anything like that since one of the last episodes of breaking bad people clearly seem to dig this but there's a lot of folks that i um listen to who don't and that's cool i have concerns of my own and i have to wait to see what they do with mandalorian season three and four if we get one and like let's say that there's eight seasons of the mandalorian and six years from now we've seen the whole show and luke skywalker is in it for maybe 10 to 20 minutes and that's it okay i think looking back in retrospect at that point we'll be like that really wasn't fan service it felt like it was fan service in the moment but it really never came back again and he was just sort of there to establish that he's there and training jedi at the moment which he is in canon so that makes sense that he would want to train another jedi it makes sense if that happens i'm not gonna have a problem with this but if they keep bringing back cgi uh star wars rogue squadron three rebel strike luke throughout the rest of the show then i'm gonna be like pump the brakes guys okay i like what we're doing with mando i like this new world we've established let's let's focus on that but if luke shows up at the end of a season finale and cuts through some dark troopers and fades into obscurity again okay and here's how i view fan service and i've talked about this before especially in my review for dr sleep because the last 20 to 30 minutes of dr sleep was a lot of fan service for the shining but they still had a two hour movie before that to establish the characters the world and the story and make us care and dr sleep did that for me that's the hard part for anyone looking at a blank screen trying to write something filling that up with things that make us care and then also towards the end saying let's have some fun for a minute and then you do that and you've made us care and you've set up these characters and you've set up a world and now at the end you're gonna have a little fun for a minute because you've earned it it's why i didn't mind seeing boba fett or the clone wars characters or ahsoka or luke skywalker because season one of the mandalorian did all the work boba fett was not in season one neither was luke skywalker or ahsoka tano and dave filoni directed two episodes in season one i imagine he thought it might be cool to have ahsoka but they're like let's set up our [ __ ] first let's earn it then we'll have some fun in season two and that's what they did so i'm okay with fanservice as long as you earn it as long as you set up characters that i actually care about and want to watch and stories that are fun and exciting and they've done that now we've seen disney go back to episodes of the mandalorian and fix things that were a mistake they've taken out some people who accidentally appeared in a shot with cgi and they've re-uploaded that episode in that way so it's possible probably not going to happen that over the years they might add more work to luke's face for future viewers i mean i know george lucas was sitting at home going oh special effects need a special edition [Laughter] and this is one of the reasons i love the mandalorian show both seasons because it has elements of the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy as well as prequel lore that i love it takes the best of both of those worlds and for that reason the show can really benefit from that so favro filoni just keep doing what you're doing because you guys did a really good job with season two despite some minor issues i had with it and as long as season three isn't like fan service everywhere okay i'm okay with seeing luke and ahsoka and that that's all fine as long as you earn it and they did the hard part so i don't know what faction of star wars fan i am i certainly love nostalgia but i also love new stuff and i also like simplicity and the mandalorian season 2 was extremely simple the original star wars movies were very simple the best star wars is simple it's they're just republic serials with heroes and villains fighting it's great when they can go above that and really push some complex emotion into it but that doesn't always work and it's not gonna work for every show or movie and i'm really loving what they did with mandalorian season two and i did like it more than season one because there wasn't a single episode in this show that i didn't like season one did have one that i think was episode five that was so bad so it was nice to see an entire season of at least good episodes and a few that were legit great i'm gonna give the mandalorian season two an a minus guys thank you so much as always for watching and thank you for bearing with me as i talked about my thoughts on fan service and fan reviews and just sort of sitting back and enjoying something again that's one other thing i do want to say let's try to stop convincing people who disagree with us that they're wrong just let people enjoy things or just let people hate things it doesn't really matter it has no effect on you just let people like after this year man i'm very happy to like something guys thank you so much as always for watching look forward to more reviews very soon and if you like this you can click right here and get stuck manized [Music] you

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 799,446

Keywords: The Mandalorian, Season 2, Season Two, Chris Stuckmann, 2020, Review, Film, Scene, Clip, Trailer, Teaser, Ending, Show, Disney, Disney+, Mando, Baby Yoda, Grogu, Ahsoka Tano, Thrawn, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, Bib Fortuna, Darksaber, Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Amy Sedaris, Bill Burr, Katee Sackhoff, Michael Biehn, John Leguizamo, Rosario Dawson, Timothy Olyphant, Star Wars, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, George Lucas

Id: xd2sh6yjtcg

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020