#first thing tomorrow I’m gonna punch Cad Bane in the back of the head

[seamstressthepainteater]

I don’t think I really like how The Mandalorian has been MCUified if that makes sense

Like the first season was it’s own thing, Mando went to different places across the galaxy trying to hide some kid he found from remnants of the fallen empire, it was largely its own thing and helped make the Star Wars galaxy seem bigger for me. It also had its own characters that managed to be memorable and interesting. It was a unique take on Star Wars I wanted to see more of.

Then season 2 comes out, and it’s a bit larger scale wise. Mando’s gotta find another Jedi to fulfill his kid’s destiny, which brings him back to going around the galaxy finding leads on one of these Jedi folks. There are a lot of returning characters in this season; most of the surviving season one character show up for at least an episode, Mayfeld gets some damn good characterization as a former imperial after being a one-note asshole in season 1, Ashoka gets an episode to learn more about Grogu and set up her own show, Boba Fett is a looming presence until he actually shows up and fucks shit up, Bo Katan returns with her besties, and even Luke Skywalker is in this bitch. Now I don’t like cameos just for the sake of having them, but the legacy characters at least either have good reason or are done well. Ashoka needs setup for a show, Fett is finally given the chance to be cool as shit, and Bo Katan going from ruler of Mandalore in Rebels to just another pirate gives context to why Gus Fring has the Darksaber (Luke’s just kinda there to be there though). I wouldn’t like to need to watch Clone Wars and Rebels to know what the hell Ashoka, Bo Katan, or the Darksaber are if I didn’t already, but I feel they’re given just enough explanation to make sense without it. And all of it was tied up in an emotional ending with Mando and Grogu that payed off everything set up throughout the season and made the entire thing feel grounded. It was probably the best ending the show could’ve had. This was the last time I would feel this way.

When Book Of Boba Fett was announced at the end of Mando season 2, I was exited. I loved how Boba Fett was handled in Mando and hoped that the show would flesh him out better. It was then that the rug was pulled from under my feet. Like Fredrick Fitzgerald Fazbear coming down upon a poor night guard in the dead of night, I was jumped with the truth of this show. This wasn’t a show about Boba Fett. This was just a season of Mando they shoved Boba Fett on for more runtime.

Theatrics aside, BOBF was just really disappointing to me. The Boba Fett stuff was kinda garbage, they perfected his character in Mando as a brutal goddamn terminator man, then they went back and went “he doesn’t want to be a bounty hunter, he just wants to live peacefully as a crime boss or something” which felt really weird to me. The Flashbacks were also so fucking boring, they could’ve been shorted down to one episode and given more time to Boba. I praised Mando season 2 for both giving legacy characters purpose and explanation so you didn’t need to know what their deal was. But you see, I’m pretty sure Cathleen Kennedy read my complement on that, realized she fucked up by making a story that can stand on its own, used her fucking Disney witch magic to go back in time, and had the guy who worked on the writing for those episodes shot at point blank range because holy shit they fucking shattered the ball with Cad Bane.

The show makes a point of saying that Cad Bane and Boba had a history, and this confused me. They never specified what exactly this history was, so I looked through everything I could get my grubby mits on. I looked through every one of both Bane and Boba’s appearances in Clone Wars, checked comics with Bane, looked through all of the officially released media I thought could be a lead. Then I noticed something about Bane in BOBF, he had a metal plate on his head. This wasn’t much, but I thought it was something, so I went through his animated appearances one more time and noticed he had the same plate in The Bad Batch. This just made me more confused, so I checked around and found it. The “history” the show was referring too. See when they brought back Clone Wars for season 7 they took unfinished arcs and gave them new life, but some were left on the cutting room floor. I said “couldn’t find any officially released material” because what they were alluding too was an unfinished episode, you can even see the part where Bane gets shot in the head. The crux of Bane and Boba’s unfinished business was an unfinished episode that wasn’t even considered canon at that point.

This was my Joker arc.

This show was so lazy, so uncaring about making the story seem complete without supplementary material, that the only thing they did to give the main villain a connection with the hero was a vague allusion to an event that wasn’t even officially released. Could they not have cut some of the boring-ass shit in the desert to flesh out this relationship? Was it too much to ask for this show to get even close to how Mando used it’s legacy characters? Was it too much to ask for competence?

Besides that, I thought that it kinda fucked up the great ending I thought Mando season 2 had. I knew they weren’t gonna be separated for that long, but I would’ve liked them to be apart a bit longer, or have them reunite in their own show. Feel the same way about Mando’s new starfighter, I think it would’ve been less alienating to have him get that in the beginning of season 3

Speaking of season 3, it’s also kinda disappointing. I think the shift from Mando to Bo Katan was disappointing, it’s like what happened to Boba Fett with Mando ironically enough, but it’s still disappointing that in a world where it seems like almost every character is slated for their own show, Bo was shoved into Mando. I also think Gus Fring seems less intimidating, I feel him being a part of this “Shadow Empire” is less threatening than a warlord trying to bring about his own empire. It also has the same problem as BOBF where you need to know stuff beforehand. I don’t think they ever explicitly state Gideon carpet bombed Mandalore, they just kinda said it was cursed. I know it was mentioned in BOBF, but again I shouldn’t need to watch another show to understand what’s going on in this one. I’m not gonna go too long with this one since it’s not over yet, but I’m not sure it’ll fix my problems with this season.

Anyway my biggest takeaway from this is that I hate Book of Boba Fett way more than I first thought.

#star wars #the mandolarian #book of boba fett #first thing tomorrow I’m gonna punch Cad Bane in the back of the head