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cartoonfangirl1218 · 8 months

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Legend of the Dragon S1 Ep 14-26 Watch and Rewrite

Remember how I wrote that by the midway of the show, it was really picking up steam with more tension and intrigue between the siblings and the guardian world in general? It delivers by making Ling more human and less psychotic, Ang is less naieve, and there are far less slo-mo. Actually, in some episodes there is none and when they do use it, it's for appropriate dramatic purposes instead of filler.

Now, it's not without its flaws. The animation is still wonky at times, and it haas its generic melodramatic moments like there was four consecutive episodes in a row where Ang shouts at Ling when she leaves again. And I know it's supposed to be angsty but I just keep thinking of

Without the romantic conotations of course, but the melodrama yep.

Luckily it dies down. The humor (especially the sibling teasing) is top notch, creepy final boss villain, has some unique guardian powers and expands lore. The second half is a vast improvement and nicely sets up urgent business for season 2.

Now to the episodes, beware spoilers unless you want to watch it on youtube.

Sister, Sister has Ling split into four when she steals the rabbit armband and you can imagine the headache everyone has in having to deal with an angry Ling, a depressed, apathetic Ling (that is Valley Girl for some reason), hungry Ling and peacemaker Ling. Zodiac Master has the biggest migraine of all when he gets overthrown by the Lings (literally, he's literally thrown off his own ship) and goes to the gang for help.

While he relaxes in jail (confirming that regular Hong Kong police think he's a nutcase), the group goes to the Rabbit temple where the rabbit guardian, Hye has Ang all aflutter with a crush and Bengail with jealousy.

While this is mostly an amusing episode, I found the attempted character romance to fall flat on Bengail's side. While Ang is clearly experiencing his first crush (that's not going anywhere) and appreciates Hye's sympathetic ear in regards to his complicated feelings on his sister, Bengail's jealousy felt petty as she wouldn't even admit to her feelings. I just appreciate Hye for her maturity in playing along with Ang's crush and assuring Bengail that she has a role at Ang's side and can't be replaced. But tbh, I found her VA's high, soft voice to be lowkey annoying.

I would rewrite this to have Bengail's jealousy over Ang's crush lead to a real fight over Ang feeling unsupported. He knows he shouldn't trust Ling and he mostly doesn't but he's tired of everyone dismissing his hope that she'll change. Everyone expects him to forget that she's his sister and they had seventeen years of history, good history. She wasn't always an evil psychopath and he feels like he's the only one who remembers that and he's tired of being called naive and a fool when she's the only family he has left.

Then Bengail can go into her own feelings since Ling had been her friend too and why she's much harsher on her.

Otherwise, this was a fun episode with plenty of funny moments too and wit as Ang tricks the Lings into turning on each other as they figure out who is the real leader and whose the clone. Also apparently the only thing the clones agree on is shopping which is so random but funny. It does highlight a flaw that while the Lings go shopping, there are no background people. Maybe the clones scared them off but it’s more likely the animators didn’t have the budget to populate Hong Kong which makes it feel very empty.

Associating with Vermin: Another good episode where Ling tricks Ang into believing the rat guardian, is actually her in disguise pitting them against each other before she ambushes them and takes the rat band.

By the way, the rat guardian is a feisty twelve year old girl, Ming (I think she's around the age) whose armband allows her to shapeshift into different animals (mainly rats and snakes) and wolverine claws. Literal wolverine claws! So cool! Seriously, why do they make the guardian powers so much cooler than the protagonists?

And while the rest of the episode is predictable in how they team up to take her down using 's knowledge of her temple, it's full of funny lines. Like when Ling does the villain monologuing explaining her deception and complains no one recognizes her brilliance.

And -- just roasts Ang the entire time like when she says that the only protection she needs is protection from someone stupid enough to be tricked by their own sibling and he's supposed to be the golden dragon, not an oversized twit.

Also Xuan Chi getting to be the voice of reason is always fun switch of personalities.

Shell Game brings the return of the monkey band when Azng finds that a museum curator has it and in his attempt to not tip off the Zodiac Master goons that are spying on him, he accidentally lets the curator place the armband on a suit of samurai armor.

No problem right, they just go back and steal it back. Yeah, Zodiac Master gets it first and brings the armor to life so he can use it like a jacked up samurai monster with monkey powers.

Unfortunately since he cast a spell of evil it bites him and Ling in the butt when the samurai turns against them with another enemy of my enemy team up that ends up blasting the samurai to pieces and the monkey armband is lost to the wind again.

If I had to change the episode I would just remove the trite fight between Ang and Xuan Chi on the morals of stealing and give Xuan Chi a bigger moment to shine as retrieving the monkey band is so important to his arc. There had been a moment when Xuan Chi decides to fight the samurai armor on his own because it's his armband and duty, it is played for laughs as he quickly runs at the armor's might. If it was played straight, it would have added more bathos to this fillery episode.

Thief of Power: A big time thief breaks into the dojo, seeking revenge on Master Chin. But before he does, Master Chin goes to Vietnam and the gang goes to get answers from Shoong and Chin. Yes, it's backstory time!!!!

Apparently, Tommy the thief was actually the Pig Guardian whose greed led him to abuse his powers for thievery so Master Chin put him in jail. The big surprise is that Master Chin and Shoong were the ones that secretly broke him out because they needed him to complete a sacred ceremony to recharge the pig armband for the next 12 years. An interesting addition to the lore here is that one retains the power even in disgrace which explains Tommy's awesome moves and tank-like build.

So it's up to Ang, Bengail and Xuan Chi to keep Tommy from getting the pig band while keeping him within the temple for the ceremony to work. It was cool interplay and this might be me getting used to the show but I feel like there was less slow mo in the fights so that was a plus.

Horse Play had almost no slo mo! We’re getting places and by that I mean, Xuan, Master Chin are heading to the horse temple which Chin warms that things aren’t as they seem.

That’s certainly true as Ang has to trust his instincts rather than his eyes to find the temple under the lake. I just find the setting choices for each temple cool especially as the horse is supposed to represent

From there, Ang fights the Eternal Maiden who initially disguised herself as Manaho, the horse guardian but was so touchy feels and seductive that you know she’s bad news.

At the same time, Chin and Xuan Chi find the real Manaho who warns they have to get the armband back before the volcano explodes.

It all ends as predictably as expected but I thought it was a solid plot with good fight scenes. I would just give Manaho more of a personality, tying it back to the horse zodiac, specifically fire horse by showing her high spirited enthusiasm and well, fire. Something to make her more distinct as a character.

Darkest before Xuan was a fun episode giving the pathos to Xuan that was missing in Shell Game. After being easily bested in a fight by Zodiac Master and Ling, Xuan feels more down about his skills as a sole combatant. His self esteem takes a further plunge when the former monkey guardian comes and rips him a new one.

To be fair, he’s a grumpy old man the others don’t like as he considers them just kids and Bengali is more pretty than a warrior. And he’s bitter that Master Chin made him retire for Xuan to take his place.

So Xuan goes to the dark side and gets a shadow band. Why he thought he’d be able to use it without getting corrupted, I have no idea but he gets corrupted.

There’s fights and eventually Ang and Bengali save the day and remain Xuan of his worth but evil!Xuan is super entertaining. I just generally like Xuan’s arc of insecurity, confidence, slide backs and so on.

Venom has a ticking clock plot when the Zodiac Master sics his cobra on the snake guardian, Cobra (I'm guessing that's a psyudenom or else her parents knew the future) poisoning her. And without her snake armband, she’ll need an alternative antidote or the snake armband, whatever comes first.

Oh and their doctor from the mainland is an actual shapeshifting snake.

Pretty decent episode and has cool moments like Ang getting to use his dragon armband and Bengail’s Tiger armband in tandem. Like that’s the kind of creative action I want to see (tho I still they could have gotten a lot cooler than what they did do). Plus Zodiac Master backstory, apparently he had been the Snake Guardian before he turned evil. That explains why he attacked the snake temple in the pilot. I just wish they included it earlier and maybe showed a bit more of Cobra instead of her being unconscious for most of it. She was all British and badass in the pilot, she should be conscious more.

Empower the Darkest Ling brings back the spirit of the Emperor of Yin who possesses Ling into a dragon snake hybrid to with the power of shadow tiger/dragon/snake. He is on the hunt for one more armband since he needs four armbands to come back to life.

Know who else is on the hunt for the shadow armbands? Ang and the gang because while the shadow armbands keep the world in balance, they're still corruptive.

It ends in battle, it’s not Ang vs Ling but Shoong and Ming come to help for a big guardian showdown.

And while Ling won't admit to being thankful for their help in un-possessing her, she says she's not ready to go back. Being possessed by the emperor gave her in even more power than what she would have with just the shadow dragon band or the golden dragon band. She wants more.

But in big twist, she comes back to the dojo with the shadow tiger and shadow snake bands, warning them that the Zodiac Master cannot know but she is worried what would happen if the Emperor was resurrected. It cannot happen.

It shows that there's still good in there. She doesn't want the world to end and it gives Master Chin hope for the first time that she can change.

I know it all sounds like the plot for the second to last episode or part 1 of a finale. It's only the midpoint but I'd argue it would make a better finale.

That’s why the only change I would make is to rearrange the episodes. Zodiac Master trying to resurrect the Emperor should be a bigger deal and should build to the finale instead of popping up midway and having a bunch of episodes in between.

So I would switch The Last Dragon to episode 11 since that’s when Ling starts showing a hint of good again and is more willing to truce and help her brother.

I would put the scene of Ling giving the shadow armbands to Ang in the end of Emperor of Darkest Yin since that would be after the emperor tries to suck her into the tomb, thus sparking her fear that she's in over her head.

Spy Hard then would be ep 24 where Ling fights against the Zodiac Master for trying to corrupt the dragon temple. It’s then she realizes how far she has come from her original goal to get the dragon band and double cross Zodiac Master before he does real harm. Because again, she wants to win with honor.

Then it can segue to Empower the Darkest Ling as episode 25 where Zodiac Master seeing that he is losing control on his second in command, has the Emperor possess them both in an attempt to seize more power and irreparably corrupt Ling which it does by sparking her thirst for more power and goes into the finale of Double Dragon as episode 26. Yes, much more angsty, dangerous and in keeping with the episode title.

Hair of the Dog has a mad scientist turning into a man-wolf, one powerful enough to overthrow Chow Chow (the dog guardian remember) for man animal supremacy.

Luckily, Chow Chow’s pug heads to the dojo for help, preventing another Golden v. Shadow Dragon showdown. It’s a classic writer’s trick when you want to make someone sympathetic, make them like or rescue an animal. And even though I know what they’re doing, it does work to see how much Ling cares for the pug dubbed Cruiser.

The episode also improves her in another way. After they all save the day together, Ang once again offers Ling a chance to stay, even get all the pets she wants. And Ling shows that she has gotten over her petty jealousy of her brother. She no longer cares about being Golden Dragon, but she cannot return because she doesn’t want to give up her shadow dragon.

The only thing I would change in this episode is the pug. Yes, he’s adorable but it would be more culturally significant to have a pekingese or a shih tzu since they were bred in ancient China to guard their temples just as the guardians guard their temples.

X Games Guardians: In the early 00s, there was an interest in the skating craze. X Men Evolution did it, Scooby-Doo did it and now Legend of the Dragon is trying to show how hip they are with the kids by having some young skaters unintentionally steal the ram armband from Zodiac Master.

From there it’s a game of “keep away” with different skaters trying out the ram power as the gang tries to get it back before the Zodiac Master blasts them all in fury.

It would be pretty forgettable but it’s saved that they have Ling on the side of good again and bonding with the original thief/street urchin, Jungi, who she sympathizes with trying to be let in the inner sanctum of the big kids (or in Ling's case, becoming a guardian) and pushed aside (though Ling kinda deserved it).

A way to fix this episode would just get rid of the slang and x games references. Keep the interest in skating since that will always be popular but try to not to date it. Also, make the teens more competent so they aren’t outmaneuvered by a bunch of preteen skater street urchins, I mean that was just embarrassing.

Lost and Found has more revelations for the twins about their supposed dead family members. After fighting with the ram guardian, he accidentally let it slips that she seems so similar to her mother. He supposedly dead mother.

So Ling goes to Ang so he could ask for answers from Master Chin. And yep, she’s alive but amnesiac and the former ram guardian!

Another solid episode that expands the backstory, improves the twins relationship with some good banter and doesn’t end too sappily with their mom automatically regaining her memory. Rather she’ll try as she reacquaints herself with her old yet oddly familiar home.

Monkey See Monkey Do: For Xuan Chi's birthday, we go on yet another search for the monkey armband that leads to a walk on the evil side for Xuan. Well actually, a walk on the wild side since the evil mask Xuan Chi puts on to make up for his lack of power turns him into King Kong. I am only a little disappointed that they didn't take advantage of the scenario to do a classic king Kong holding Zodiac Master on top of the temple scene.

Anyway, Xuan Chi learns his lesson not to use evil to his advantage, it will only corrupt you. While I like that they have the monkey armband be an ongoing arc, this one felt repetitive in the lesson of the day and in the scenario.

The only intriguing parts were Ling's willingness to tip off the good guys to prevent Zodiac Master from getting all the armbands to resurrect the emperor, and Ang talking King Kong Xuan with the classic 'Fight it, I know you're in there" speech.

Others may find it a cheesy cliche, I still enjoy the trope. I feel like it could have been stronger by having Ang recount Xuan's growth throughout the season and their friendship. You know, really pull the heartstrings.

Double Dragon: I have no rewrites here. This was a good finale that has almost all the guardians returning, and Bengail and Xuan get their own spotlight moment in the final battle. The Emperor has a cool design. And it has Ling facing the ultimate temptation when the resurrected Emperor of Darkest Yin goads her to getting the golden dragon armband so she can have the power of yin and yang in ultimate balance.

I just wish Ang had just a big chance to reflect on his growth and how he's progressed from slacker, naive, and undisciplined to the wise, competent Golden Dragon he is today. Also Cobra didn't return and no one turned into a dragon, still waiting for a cooler power upgrade there, but maybe that will be revealed in season 2.

And for the first time, I realized just how dark skinned, Ang and Ling are when in Golden/Shadow dragon form. I must have been oblivious but it does feel weird. Both as a race thing and the artists couldn't keep a proper color palette thing.

Also cliffhanger, it has a very intriguing cliffhanger that will make fighting Ling and Zodiac Master small potatoes.

#legend of the dragon #watch and rewrite

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clonewarsarchives · 3 years

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MYTH MAKERS (#121, NOV 2010)

Star Wars creator George Lucas and Dave Filoni, Supervising Director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, offer some hints about what’s to come in Season Three.

After six live-action films and two seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is there anything we haven’t seen yet?

Dave Filoni: You’d be surprised. In fact, you will be surprised by some of the things we’ve got in store for Season Three. We’re going to jump around in the timeline; we’re going to see prequel episodes that allow us to add new perspectives to the stories. It’s fun to be able to have access to the full history of our characters. As Obi-Wan says, many of the truths we cling to are dependent on our point of view, and we’re going to shift that point of view quite a bit. We’re expanding on a lot of established ideas from both the series and the films. We’re also going to revisit some of the fan-favorite characters from the live-action saga, exploring their back-stories and how they relate to the events of the Clone Wars. As we continue to dig deeper into Star Wars, it becomes more and more evident that there is no shortage of stories to tell.

George Lucas: We’re looking at some classic characters and introducing some new ones based on universal archetypes. We’re going back to the roots of Star Wars. Much of Season Three is going to explore the mythological aspects of the universe and the Force in ways that we haven’t seen before. When I first wrote the original Star Wars, it was rooted heavily in archetypal mythologies. It’s always been an important part of the story, but we’re taking it further and revealing more. We’re going beyond the war effort that we’ve seen in the first two seasons.

“Secrets Revealed” is the overall theme for the season. What kind of secrets can we expect to learn?

DF: If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets. But I can say that we are delving into some important territory, and uncovering some really interesting facets of the Star Wars universe. Anakin’s destiny—and the prophecy of the Chosen One—was introduced tangentially in The Phantom Menace; it was discussed by Qui-Gon and the Jedi Council; but we are going to explore what that means. Ultimately, it’s really important to Anakin’s future and the future of the galaxy.

GL: The movies are just the tip of the iceberg. The galaxy is vast, and the stories are more complex than anything we’ve seen. The movies focused on one thread of the Skywalker story, but there’s more to The Clone Wars than that. We are going to learn more about the characters—where they’re coming from and where they’re going.

What are some of the changes we can we expect to see in the characters?

GL: Time’s passing, and the characters are changing accordingly. Ahsoka’s growing up, and Anakin’s getting closer to his destiny.

The opening crawl for Revenge of the Sith said there were heroes on both sides. We are going to see what that means and how that affects the characters.

DF: We’re going to see some significant growth from our characters and we’re going to start to see those changes reflected in their aesthetics. Because of our extremely tight production schedule, we are limited by our character assets—the digital models that we use in animating the series. But the stories are changing and so are the characters. After three seasons, we’re going to see changes in the way they look, too. It doesn’t happen right away, but we are moving toward the look that fans know from Episode III.

Speaking of the look of the series, how has the production improved over the course of three seasons?

DF: We keep improving our tools and our production pipelines. You can already begin to see the improvement between the first and second seasons; the improvement between the second and third seasons is even more exponential. We’re doing things and telling stories that just wouldn’t have been possible before. We brought in Industrial Light & Magic’s Joel Aron [see Star Wars Insider 120] to share some production tips; it’s one of the benefits of sharing resources with other Lucasfilm companies. He’s helped tremendously. We’re building our asset library and learning better ways of bringing existing assets to the screen. It’s allowing us to visit planets we couldn’t have imagined in the first two seasons, simply from a production standpoint.

GL: I haven’t limited myself with what stories I’ve wanted to tell; this is Star Wars, and I don’t make a distinction between the series and the films. It’s just a different format and a different delivery. But the fact of the matter is that our improved production processes have allowed us to tell consistently bigger stories. Our teams are constantly pushing the envelope, so that the standard keeps rising higher and higher. And we keep asking for more than can be delivered, so we’re always reaching and the show is always improving. Each week is a Star Wars feature, boiled down to 22 minutes.

Do you have any new villains in store for Season Three?

GL: We’ve got a new character —Savage Opress. He’s like Darth Maul, only bigger and angrier. When he’s around, you’ll forget about the bounty hunters for a while —but they’ll be back, too.

DF: We’re packing more and more into each episode. We’ve got more planets, bigger space battles, more dynamic lightsaber duels. There are weird aliens, noble heroes, ruthless villains—everything you expect from Star Wars and even some fan-favorite characters from the features. As a director and as a fan, this feels like the Star Wars I grew up with.

Where is Ben Quadinaros?

One question haunted Dave Filoni over the course of Celebration V. At every panel and every press conference, there was always a lone voice asking: “When will Ben Quadinaros appear in Star Wars: The Clone Wars?” Star Wars Insider has some bad news for the many thousands of fans of the Toong of the planet Tund.

Dave Filoni: He’s not a very practical guy to work with! We would have to change most of the spaceships to allow that big head to fit through the doors. How does he reach the controls of his ship? He can barely reach his mouth with those hands!

Imagine if we took the time in one of our episodes to explain what happens to him after the Boonta Eve Classic—well, the sad thing is I can imagine it!

We have such a narrow range of characters and assets, we’re very careful which ones we choose. We try to do a balance of classic characters that include some based on designs you saw in the Mos Eisley cantina. We like to use concepts that Ralph McQuarrie and Doug Chiang came up with that didn’t see the light of day, as well as our new characters. It’s always a blend.

Dave Filoni on the Chosen One

Henry Gilroy [Star Wars: The Clone Wars writer] and I often talk about what the Jedi must think it means to be the Chosen One in this time of war. Maybe they think it means that unlike most of the other Jedi, Anakin is incredibly adept at fighting and also incredibly powerful, so that there seems to be some relevance to him fighting in The Clone Wars. But what do Yoda and Mace Windu believe it really means to have balance? Season Three deals with important stuff, and it deals with a lot of things that we’ve been waiting to have at least brought to the front of the story. When George was handing out some of the Season Three outlines to me and the writers, we were just like, “Wow, really? Really?” It was a great time for us to just have the experience of sitting down with him and getting into the nature of those things. The fans will not be disappointed!

#Dave Filoni #George Lucas #Season 3 #crew #insider #i121

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thomasjefferson1318 · 6 years

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UPDATED:Voltron S8 Predictions

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD BEWARE*

It’s been a couple of months since the S7 premiere and there have been a lot of theories going around about what is going to happen in Season 8. I had my own theory, but it wasn’t very specific about exactly what’s going to happen. I just threw out some guess based on what I had seen while I was watching, but I wasn’t exactly sure where a lot of it was going at the time. At this point I think I am just about ready to make an educated guess about the upcoming events in the final season of Voltron. The crew works so hard on this show and they try very hard not to make any mistakes, meaning every small detail is important. Not to mention, how much Voltron LOVES it’s character parallels. Here I will be covering both the future basic plot and what ships become canon, including all endings beyond this. This is all my opinion and my predictions, but IDK.

So who will be the new villain?

The answer to this question is actually pretty simple and I think that most of the fandom has figured it out.

Haggar.

Well, sort of. Because, this here^ isn’t Haggar. This is Honerva. Haggar was Zarkon’s second hand, a witch. She was totally insane and her memory was corrupt. But it’s obvious, even if just by her appearance that she isn’t Haggar anymore. She even confronts Lotor on the topic when she tries to get him on her side. She has accepted and embraced her original identity.

Either way, we haven’t seen her since season 6. We’ve heard that she abandoned her army of druids, but we have no canon mentions of her current whereabouts. We know she went to Oriande to learn the secrets of Altean Alchemy. Where is she now? We don’t know. But we can make pretty good guesses as to where she went since then. First stop, was the quantum abyss. She learned about the altean colony from Shiro’s Clone. She knows where it is, how to get there, what Lotor has been doing with their quintessence, their viewpoint on lotor- basically she knows everything that we do. Which is why they were gone when the blades went to go try to find the colony. It’s also why she abandoned her druids.

What is the dynamic between Honerva and the Altean Colony? Who is the mysterious Altean we see at the end of Season 7? What was with that random crazy robot that came out of nowhere?

Honerva and the Alteans are building fighter robots like the one we saw at the end of Season 7.

We get a glimpse of evidence pointing towards this at the VERY end of season 7, with the appearance of this mysterious Altean who was apparently piloting that crazy powerful Altean ship. Allura comments on the ships altean technology, but as of season 7 we have seen the blending of technologies from different cultures and there are vast differences between this and what we’ve seen so far of Altean technology. Personally, I believe that the robot is a mix of Altean technology and Galra technology, because of the purple quintessence powering the robot and just because of the robots general design. It just screams HONERVA WAS HERE. Like, we’ve seen Haggar build plenty of “robots” and it would be fair to assume that Honerva does have all of her memories from her time spent as Haggar. I do have more evidence behind this that I will explain later, but yeah.

Why?

Okay, so Honerva is building powerful AF robots. But why? We know that Honerva is a scientist and that she is obsessed with unlocking the secrets behind quintessence, but her current motives are unknown. Well we can examine the robot, the way the robot works, previous robots, and the Altean pilot and actually get a pretty good guess here.

So this Robot has the ability to drain quintessence from things using its double swords, which are actually really cool and unique looking. I love the purple translucent-

…

Yeah, okay, so obviously not an exact match. I know. Of course, it’s been around 6 years since Haggar built Shiro’s robo-galra arm and she did kinda half ass that thing at the time too. But my point is that the general design, color scheme, functionality line up. Also the purple lightning is exactly the same. I just wanted to put that out there to prove that the robot has Galran technology in it and that it’s very likely that it’s Honerva’s work. Anyway, so the sycle/ double sword blades can drain the quintessence from Voltron (draining quintessence from living beings was also a huge part of Honervas work back when when was Haggar, more supporting evidence!) and this thing is obviously built for fighting. It’s speed, agility, power, and self defence protocols are insane.

It has shapes very similar to that of Zarkon’s armor and Lotor’s robot, but it’s much thinner and more flexible than either of these two. In fact, Voltron wasn’t even able to beat this robot by itself, it needed help from ATLAS constantly, which just goes to show how powerful this thing is. In which raises the question, why did Honerva send it out to fight against Voltron when she did? It was completely random and sure there was an element of surprise, but it still lost and they didn’t even have any sort of robot recovery team or backup. There is no way that she would have assumed that it would just defeat Voltron straight out, even with the robots overwhelming power she knows Voltrons capabilities and to always expect the unexpected. She is smart, a literal evil genius scientist. A scientist. Which is why I believe that this robot was an experiment. She was testing the abilities of the robot she built, seeing how she could improve her creation, experimenting with its limits. That robot was expendable. A prototype, a test subject. Which makes it even more terrifying than it already was. Earlier you might have noticed that I said Honerva was building robots, in the plural, and that’s the explanation here. Honerva is building an army of these robots with the help of the Altean colony.

What would she need an army of quintessence stealing, all powerful robots for? What do the Alteans from the Colony get out of any of this?

Well there are lots of answers for those questions. Quintessence is the main powersource that the Galra have been using for centuries. In order to obtain this quintessence the galra had to extract it from planets and, in Lotor’s case, people. Let’s say that when Honerva arrived at the Altean Colony that she told them the truth about the second colony. Now I have in the past theorized that Lotor’s original purpose for extracting the quintessence from the Alteans in the second colony was so that he could continue to power their ship and that he had all intentions of returning quintessence to their bodies once he finally had access to unlimited quintessence (Hence the numerous number of healing pod like chambers throughout the small section of the second colony that we saw in Romelles flashback). If this is true and Honerva conveyed that specific to the members of the colony, if they are like Romelle, I think that they would want to shut everything down ASAP. Also, Honerva being their “savior” would probably give them a lot of trust in her. So they would probably turn to her for help. They don’t know anything about quintessence, where to get it or how to use it. And this is an entire civilization that needs to be provided for.

Honerva is smart, I know I’ve said this before, but like hear me out. Like, what if after they asked her about quintessence she then explains that most of the quintessence is controlled by the Galra race, who destroyed Altea, and that they dominate a good majority of the universe. The Alteans decide to go to war against the Galra, in attempt to free the universe from their reign and to usher the world into a new era of peace under purely Altean ideals, which is extremely possible given that it was kinda FORESHADOWED IN THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE EPISODE. Honerva then gets an army of quintessence thirsty Alteans under her finger without ever actually lying to them.

That’s exactly what I think happened. It’s all really simple and it makes sense, tbh. All Honerve even has to do is have fun with her experiment, build an army of super cool robots, and sit back and watch. And the craziest bit is that she could totally turn against them at any given moment once the army is built.

How could Honerva manipulate the Robot army and turn against the Alteans?

See, this is the part where I get to talk about how the robot is piloted. So at the end of Season 7 we get a good glance at our Altean Pilot in her cockpit.

The whole thing gives me major Attack On Titan vibes for some reason, but I just think that this is so cool. If you look at this small cockpit area you can see that her arms and legs are both restrained and that there don’t appear to be any controls for the robot. So how does she control the robot? Look at her head.

There are two glowing purple lights on her forehead and no they aren’t just there for decoration. We’ve already seen technology like this back in the Altean Castle.

The mind linking headgear that the paladins wore. Okay, so I just want to take a moment to say how cool this is. I mean, we’ve seen the paladins link with the lions and pilot them from inside prison cells using their minds, so it’s obvious that this sort of thing is totally possible in the Voltron universe and that it’s very likely that this is how the army is going to be piloted. I am just super excited. Anyway, with the way we’ve seen this specific technology work, multiple of these headgears could link together. I think that if Honerva built a piece of headgear, like IDK some sort of cool crown type thing, that could link to the robots and control them, that she would easily be able to overpower the pilots and take control of the army for herself. Like she needs people inside of each individual robot because they wouldn’t work otherwise, that’s how all of the robots work they need an actual pilot piloting them- plus they would totally act as extra batteries if quintessence is running low. And so yeah.

What does Honerva want?

Honerva’s research with quintessence has always been very focused/pointed in one very specific direction; using quintessence in order to change the laws of life and death. Although, not in the way Allura uses it to bring Lance and Shiro back to life. She has been in search of immortality, ultimate power. She wants to reopen the rift, but in order to do that she needs really powerful quintessence. Lotor discovered that the quintessence extracted from living beings, the Alteans, is far more powerful than regular quintessence that the Galra have used in the past. If Honerva can’t have access to the quintessence in the rift, then this is probably the next most successful course of action for her to pursue. But she is working with the Alteans, so she can’t extract their quintessence, like Lotor did. So who? Who will she be draining the quintessence from?

Voltron.

More specifically the paladins themselves. She wants to recruit the paladins to her side and use their quintessence in order to obtain ultimate power. After all, the quintessence of the paladins is off the charts. They have strong enough quintessence in order to power Voltron, the most powerful weapon in the universe. And even after being drained they are able to regenerate more quintessence. They don’t react the way the Alteans on the second colony do after having their quintessence drained. The difference in that might be that the paladins are willing giving their life force and it was being forcibly take from the second colony alteans, but even then the Paladins seem to have either an endless supply of quintessence or such a large amount of quintessence within them that the amount they need to power Voltron is about a chip of the block. And I know that’s not how that metaphor is usually used, shut up.

Would Honerva even be able to successfully corrupt one of the paladins and how?

Yes. We actually have one paladin specifically who is extremely emotionally unstable and has very little moral support. He has little confidence in himself and rarely ever turns to others for help. We know that he is going to be on edge frequently throughout this season, which makes him a pretty easy target for Honerva. Have a guess?

Honerva will get Keith to join her. Willingly. Keith has struggled a lot with who and what he is throughout the series. We’ve seen every single half Galra throughout the series have this inner battle, which is pretty much a battle between their inner “good” and “evil”. We all know that some Galra are born inherently good, like Krolia an Kolivan and majority of the blades. Which is actually why Keith ran away to join the blades in the first place. He was trying to prove to himself that he isn’t a monster or evil or a typical Galra that they’ve seen throughout the series. We’ve always known that Keith has been a bit of a hot head, aka he has a temper, but as of his battle with Shiro it seems a bit more as if that’s more of a primal instinct than it is typical anger. There is a scene during their battle where Keith has fangs and his eyes are very Galran with triangulated pupils/irises and yellow tinted backing.

And he takes on multiple galran features throughout this battle, walking away with the galran mark on his cheek at the very end of their battle, which I will talk about more later as well. But when keith becomes emotionally agitated, specifically during battle, he has the ability to channel his inner Galra. Literally. And he doesn’t even know he is doing it. He spent months trying to prove that he isn’t some feral beast and he almost lost it during this fight. It leaves the terrifying lingering thought of “what if he hadn’t snapped out of it?” and I totally think that we will be seeing more of this, specifically the inner turmoil with keith throughout the series. But Honerva (and probably only Honerva because she is the only one besides keith who witnessed this fight- she saw the whole thing through clone shiro’s eyes) knows about all of this, and I think that she is going to take full advantage.

Honerva will poke at Keith’s insecurities during a battle, similar to how Shiro’s clone did, and try to cut him off from the other paladins. But here, since Keith has nothing holding him back, he wont turn back once he starts to take on those Galran traits and become feral. It will probably happen a few episodes in, during which Keith becomes more and more agitated by the other paladins. And yeah, I am totally predicting a full on Keith Galra transformation once he get pushed over the edge by Honerva. After which, Honerva will convince him that he is a monster and that his friends won’t accept him like this. Keith, already believing this himself, goes with her. They don’t take the black lion with them, it will be left behind, because Honerva doesn’t need it and it symbolizes that Keith is leaving behind his life as a paladin.

Who will Pilot the Black Lion?

Not Coran. Sorry, that's a definite no. Just because everytime he has attempted to pilot a lion, it's been a big joke and giving that privilege to him now would just come across as a joke too. And I would love to say that Shiro will temporarily go back to piloting the black lion, but he needs to Pilot the ATLAS. So that leaves an opening for a pilot and we have several options for how things could continue. One of our current pilots could take on the position of being the pilot of the black lion. The most likely of our four remaining paladins to do this are Allura and Lance. Allura has been acting as sort of the leader of the group since the very beginning, but when it comes down to it she has made very little emotional growth throughout the series. She may make a good leader, but she isn’t mature enough to properly lead the paladins they way they need to be lead as Voltron. When is comes down to the tough decisions she tends to make the right decision overall, but her general actions are very volatile. Like when she was handling Lotor, her words were very harsh. She was attacking him verbally where she knew it would hurt, which is actually very childish. This would mean that she can’t actually talk Keith out of his current mindset, if anything she would only go to enrage him more.

Lance on the other hand has been shown to have made huge strides in his emotional growth. But is he ready to lead? He is the current pilot of red making it seem that if Keith were to run off that he would take over piloting the black lion, like how Keith took over after Shiro. I think that losing Keith again would ignite a change in Lance. But would it be enough?

Either way we still have an opening for a new pilot. Personally I think we have 2 possibilities. Lotor. JK. No, as much as I think it would think it’s awesome to bring lotor back and have him pilot one of the lions, with the probabilities of Keith leaving in the first half of the season being really high, there just isn’t a logical time to place Lotor being extracted from the quantum rift by either Voltron or Honerva. Yet. So our two actual options are probably going to be Acxa and Matthew Holt. They are the only two characters that have gotten enough devoted screen time to take a place piloting one of lions. We know that they are both talented pilots and warriors and their personalities would fit well with any openings in the dynamic.

Personally I believe that the best combination for this scenario would be with Lance piloting Black, Allura piloting Red, and Acxa piloting blue. Acxa is pretty cool headed, but she is also new to the whole “being good” thing. Although, I think that she would be willing to do whatever she could to help save Keith, because of how much of an inspiration he was to her. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that Acxa was originally save by Keith in the episode “Belly of the Weblum” and that was what inspired her to turn again Zethrid and Ezor. I specifically referenced the specific line “-but I knew that I had to find my own path. And it led me to you.” and how she looked at Keith when she said that. Keith means a lot to Acxa, but not in a romantic sense. He was a big part of her self discovery and as I said before an inspiration to her. Acxa piloting a lion also opens up an option to bring Zethrid and Ezor back into the scene and for the writers of the series to finally have them pick a side. Up until now Zethrid and Ezor have been more chaotic neutrals more than anything else, causing trouble for both sides. It would be nice to see our lesbian babies finally take a chill pill, join the paladins side, and get a nice happily ever after.

What about Allurance?

Hooray, I’m finally getting to the ships. That was sarcastic. Ships are always a very touchy topic for a lot of people, because there are a lot of different opinions out there and some people get really offended. I just want to say that I am not ship bashing, just speculating. This is my opinion on the logical course of action for the show to take. Anyway, so I have made a post before about why allurance shouldn’t become canon. But honestly? I think that Allura and Lances relationship is going to continue to go the way it’s been going. Allura and Lance are going to have several romantic/ flirtatious moments that will progress their relationship and maybe even a kiss. A lot of time passes at the end of Season 7 and so it gives them a lot of time to get closer.

Of course, I still believe everything I said before about this relationship being extremely unstable and it would have an effect on the team too. Particularly, I think it will seriously piss Keith off. Actually, all of the paladins will piss Keith off, but Allura and Lance specifically. Allura is the only paladin that stays focused on the mission and is always suspicious, but she puts her guard down and gets distracted easily when she is in a relationship. Keith is probably the only paladin who doesn’t actually have a life outside of Voltron at this point and is probably very focused on training and being ready in case another one of those random robots comes onto the scene, while everyone else is going to spend their time relaxing with their families or inventing, etc. and so on. So yeah. Boy is gonna be pissed (especially if you take into account his learning about everything that happened while he was gone, aka Lance dying). Hunk will probably think that it’s cute and Pidge will probably think that it’s totally gross. And the whole thing is just going to throw off the team dynamic, which will piss off Keith even more.

But then they are ambushed by Honerva and lets say two or three of those crazy Altean war robots or something and by the end of the battle Honerva retreats with Keith. See, I said earlier that Keith going away with Honerva will ignite a change in Lance and it’s true. Lance has always had a weird sort of obsession with Keith and he get easily pissed off/ hurt whenever Keith does something stupid. It’s a big part of their dynamic. It hit him pretty hard when Keith left to join the blades too, because Lance knows Keith. He can recognize that mullet anywhere. He knew why Keith was really leaving to join the blade and he was concerned.

Lance is going to become more hardened, in a sense, during his confusion with Keith leaving and probably the most determined to find Keith and kick his ass for being an idiot. Although, his obsession with Keith is going to be what finally breaks down his relationship with Allura. It was already really unstable and Lance and Allura will get into a fight, finally expressing their true feelings about their relationship. Allura will confront Lance about his fixation on finding Keith and Lance will blow her off, avoiding the topic, saying that she wouldn’t understand. Allura will continue to push Lance, concerned about what this means for their relationship. Lance will become overwhelmed and express that he feels that Allura is only in a relationship with him because Lotor is dead and he feels like a second choice. Allura will get angry at Lance for trying to compare himself to Lotor and Lance will take this in the wrong way, leading to him breaking things off with Allura and walking away from her. Allura will realize that she doesn’t actually feel hurt by Lance breaking up with her, because she didn’t have serious feelings for him. So yes, Allurance will be canon, but it will also be short lived, because of how unstable the relationship is.

What does this mean for Klance?

Well, there is an opening for Klance to happen, but its small and so they would have to play all their card right, but they are in a current position where they could make Klance canon. Although, it would be more towards the end of the show, as a resolve after having saved Keith from his own self destructive path, which is basically going to be one of the seasons bigger climaxes. But we will see some Klance pining moments, more specifically played out and hinted out through Lance. We will see some of this when Shiro comes out to the team as gay, but more of it when Shiro confronts Lance about his fixation on Keith after he breaks up with Allura. Although most actual Klance scenes will probably be more at the season finale so I will talk more about this later.

How to save Keith?

People have pointed out a lot of parallels between Lance and Alfor and Keith and Zarkon. So, some of the dedicated fans/ theorists probably have already figured out where I’m going with this. There has been a theory going around about there being a fight between Keith and Lance in Season 8, where Lance has his sword and him and Keith are doing hardcore one on one battle. And I honestly feel that this is going to be a necessary moment for the two of them.

This moment will likely be the first time any of the Paladins actually see Keith since his Galra transformation and Lance will immediately understand why Keith went with Haggar. Although, the two of them are terrible at communicating their feelings so they will have a full on battle. During all of this the other paladin and ATLAS will very likely be in battle with the Altean Robots, while Honerva is trying to open a portal into the quantum rift using the quintessence she got from Keith. And as everything explodes and the chaos goes down around the two of them are trying to beat the living shit out of each other somewhere on honervas ship. At some point, Lance will appeal to Keith’s emotional side and snap out of it telling him that he accepts him no matter what (and this would be a perfect opportunity to have them kiss, just saying) and the two of them walk out of there together.

How will they stop Honerva?

They won’t. With an army of insanely powerful Altean robots on her side, she will be able to successfully open the portal to the rift. So, what now? Well, I personally believe that Honerva will salvage Lotors ship from the rift and try to resurrect her son, but something will go wrong because of his overexposure to the raw quintessence in the rift. Which would cause Honerva to become overwhelmed with grief and she will either die or become incapacitated. I also believe that we will see a return of the dark monsters from in the rift and that the Galra (brought in by Zethrid and Ezor), Alteans, team Voltron, and ATLAS will have to team up in order to get rid of all the monsters and close the portal to the rift. It would be one big final fight to clean up the mess that started 10,000 years ago.

The aftermath:

The universe will be ushered into a new Era of peace. It will be a combined effort of the Galra empire, the Altean empire, the Blades, the Rebellion, Earth, and Voltron. Although, after 6-7 years of fighting in a war our Paladins would all finally retire from piloting the lions and the new team will take over, traveling the universe with the ATLAS and keeping peace, training under Shiro’s guidance. Wait, what new team? You know, these guys:

So yeah, they will be the new Paladins. But what will happen to our other Paladins? Well, Allura will take her place as rightful Queen of the Alteans with Romelle acting as her royal advisor, as Coran will be off with Shiro piloting the ATLAS and training the new paladins. Pidge will probably end up staying with her family on Earth, the Holts finally getting their peaceful happy ending, all of them together again. Hunk will end up with Shay living either on the Balmera or on Earth, which are right next to each other now so it doesn’t matter much. Krolia and Kolivan will continue to reestablish the Blade. And then, finally, there are Keith and Lance. I know, this is what everyone has been waiting for.

So I’m just going to straight up say that Keith becomes the next emperor of the Galra Empire. I don’t really have much for evidence for this besides the fact that Zarkon was the ex-emperor and that Keith has several parallels to him throughout the series and that him turning full Galra and his emotional growth throughout the series has made him into a great leader. Keith at the end of the series, doesn’t really have anywhere to go, because his mom is with the blades and he doesn’t really have any other family to go back to. If you think about it, it just kind of feels right, because Acxa already has a lot of respect for Keith and it would be pretty easy to persuade Zethrid and Ezor to respect him after everything that all of the half bloods have been through, Keith included. And so those three will act as his general as he brings order to the Galra empire.

What about Lance? Where is Klance? I am happy to say that I think that Lance will end up with Keith in the end and rule the Galra empire by Keith's side. Lance will be what reminds Keith of his humanity and keeps him balanced throughout his reign. He will provide Keith with the proper support that he has always needed, not to mention a whole new family to be a part of. And of course Cosmo would be the royal dog and blah blah blah. And yeah, just happy endings.

Hope you enjoyed, and feel free tell me what you think about all of this! Thanks for sticking with me!

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severalbakuras · 6 years

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we’re heeeeere!

s2e19 and 20!!!

weirdmageddon 2:

oh hey cartoon cthullu’s there! my soft bloodborne au has a fraction of a fraction of a canon basis to it nice.

triangle cult!

holy shit

HAHAHA

ooooh a dome didn’t see that coming huh bill.

rainbows?

oh soos ;A; HE WOULD DIE FOR THEM

HEY THAT GUY

AND THOSE GUYS

chaos realm?

good point dipper.

GO SOOS

GO WENDY

WOAH MABEL

oooooh no mabel. that’s horrible.

shut up dippiefresh.

ohhh this is even worse she thinks they’re free…

FUCK OFF NOT-SOOS DAD

at least he’s more aware of it than wendy…

sure it’s great for everyone. everyone who’s not fucking STONE or the rest of the WORLD.

bill i’m reporting you to HR.

no dipper don’t fall for it.

DON’T FALL FOR IT DIPPER IT’S NOT WENDY

YES

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

SEE HOW BAD IT IS MABEL?

she’s got to be hypnotised she’s never been like this to THIS degree.

same dipper.

OH NO FLASHBACKS

AHHH BABIES

aww mabel…

aww dipper…

TELL HER DIPPER

awwww

oh my goodness dipper ;A;

mabel ;A;

EXCELLENT SPEECH DIPPER

CALLING IT SUBTLE HYPNOSIS WAS INFLUENCING HER

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

waddles is still loyal!!

oooo

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

HEEEEEY THERE’S THE REST OF THE CREW

BEAR GNOMES MANATAURS!!!

oh no these poor new real dudes…

righteous.

weirdmageddon 3:

WOAH THIS EPISODE’S A LONG ONE

ugh the unicorn’s there.

oooh they melded the openings together, neat.

hey the band’s okay!! i wonder if the dipper clones are okay too… although they aren’t here…

so that’s unicorns and metal (why am i thinking steel?) that can stop bill in his tracks... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRhyXB2IGF4

wow that news team’s dedicated.

are you sure about that pacifica?

GO BODACIOUS T

i hope ford and mcgucket get to meet face to face again.

stan no.

bill can sing~

bill backstory!!!

slight bill backstory. mostly death. that he caused.

wait so how’d he get into blendin’s mind???

i second the gunswords, also educating mcgucket on anime.

oh woah.

are they building what i think they’re building.

I THINK THEY ARE

dinosaur?

ANIME

THE FUCK PACIFICA’S THE LLAMA??? i’m so confused.

i mean that’s a fair point stan but that’s also a fair point dipper and more importantly the APOCALYPSE IS RIGHT THERE, PRIORITIES WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE

clever girl

fascinating.

CANDY AND GRENDA ARE DRIFTING

THAT OPENING THEME KICKING IN, IT’S SO ANIME

GODDAMN WENDY

holy fuck those backgrounds.

oooh he’s figured it out.

pyramid bill is such a downgrade from flat 2d bill. honestly getting a physical form wasn’t worth it my dude.

AAAAA HIS EYE HAD A NERVE EVEN IF IT WAS NEON BLUE

hey gideon.

that’s just bad craftsmanship bill.

poor tad strange…

GET MARRIED

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

aww i hope they stay friends.

ROBBIE SAVES THE DAY somehow.

grenda and candy real mvps.

given the episode time… this isn’t going to turn out well…

don’t gideon this gideon you’re just barely scraping the line of likeable here.

no explanation for the llama

STAN GET IN THERE

WOAH THAT’S A COOL BATTLE MOVE

CAN’T BELIEVE I’M AGREEING WITH GIDEON HERE

OH MY GOD STAN.

OH MY GOD FORD.

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD WHAT HAVE I BEEN SAYING ALL SEASON.

PUT SOOS DOWN RIGHT NOW

AHAHAHAHAHAH EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME

it’s all falling down bill

WOAH STRAIGHT TO THE DEATH THREAT BILL

seriously bill the rainbow neon lines highlighting midnight blue look is a vast improvement over the red look.

fucking FINALLY.

… twin switch?

guys. twin switch. he’s too focused on the kids no way he’s noticing what they’re up to.

SADISTIC BILL

he still makes good on his deals.

they totally twin switched.

AHAHAHAHAHHA

oh no.

OH NO STAN ;A;

what’s he saying? i’m gonna have to google that…

NONONONONONONONO

DAMN THAT’S COOL.

aww bye my dudes…

STONE BILL

;;;A;;;

THAT’S NOT FAIR

AAAH THE SHACK ;A;

woah it’s all overgrown in there, time really did get messed around.

soos ;A;

mabel ;A;

WADDLES!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

this is a HAPPY ;A;

SO THIS IS WHERE THAT POST S6 THING CAME FROM SCRAWLERS

~never mind all that~

that’s a little harsh

GET MARRIED

HAHAHAA NORTHWESTS

congrats mcgucket!!

wait if it’s fully recovered doesn’t that mean bill’s alive somewhere?

YAY THEY’RE 13!!

oh jeez gideon.

great speech dipper.

i wonder if dipper has a new wish.

did that canon cannon have blood on it?

sequel series bait?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GIVE IT TO SOOS

!!!!!

SOOOOS ;A;

YES SOOS THAT HAT SUITS YOU

that S is not going to last.

ahh this is sad…

SAME GRENDA

awwww wendy ;A;

WADDLES AAA

BRING HIM

YES STAN

OH SHIT

that driver’s never coming here again.

;A; I KEEP MAKING THAT BUT IT’S ALL I GOT

;;;;;;;;;;;;;A;;;;;;;;;;;;

MELODY!!!

that didn’tt ake long huh.

awwwwwww

NEW MEMORIES OF NEXT SUMMER??

THE DIPPERS!!! THEY LIVED!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LIVE ACTION BILL

god what a good series. biggest thank you to @scrawlers for getting me into it <3

#gravity falls #sb watches gf

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thesffcorner · 4 years

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The Mandalorian: Season 1

The Mandolorian is an 8 episode series on Disney+, written and produced by John Favreau. It stars Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandolorian who I will be referring to as his actual name, Din Djarin for the rest of this review, rather than the fan-name Mando.

Djarin is a bounty hunter, working for the Guild in the early days of the New Republic. His story starts as he takes on an under the table job to retrieve a package; however as things tend to go in this situation neither the package nor the people who are after it are what they seem, and Djarin must decide if it’s worth risking his life and reputation to protect it.

Before the show aired, I wasn’t very interested in seeing it; I hadn’t seen any trailers or buzz and I was still under the impression that it would follow Bobba Fett. Seeing the first episode I wasn’t sold on it either; I was disappointed that we were not following Fett, and that we were stationed after the events of ROTJ. However, I pushed through, and my opinions evolved significantly over the course of the show’s 8 episodes.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. There were some issues, and I can definitely see areas where Favreau can improve for next season, but I think season 1 was a solid starting point. My main complaint is that the season was too short, and even at 8 episodes, it still felt like it spent a lot of time on unnecessary filler. We’ll talk more about this, and other specific issues in the episode breakdown, but if you just want my opinion on if you should see it or not with no spoilers it’s this: If you like the Clone Wars, Rebels or the Solo film, you will like this. If you don’t, you probably won’t. Take that as you will.

So let’s get into this episodes, and I’ll end with some general thoughts and desires for season 2.

Episode 1: The Mandalorian

This episode is written by John Favreau and directed by Dave Filloni, the show-runner for my personal favorite Star Wars series, Star Wars Rebels.

We start with Djarin looking for more work from his Guild leader, Greef Karga, who offers him an extremely well paid, unsanctioned job, to track down a valuable package for some former Imperials. The man, just called the Client, strongly hints that he wants the package dead, and in return he is paying in Beskar, metal important to the Mandalorians.

The package is located on Arvala 7 (yes, I did look that up), and Djarin gets some help on his way, from a vapor farmer named Kuili, and another contractor, assassination droid IG-11. Djarin ends up shooting IG, after the droid attempts to kill the package, which turns out to be a child, the same race as or very loved Yoda.

If you have seen Rebels, than I think you will be very familiar with Filloni’s direction and style; unfortunately, for me this felt like one of the weaker episodes in Rebels. Even when Rebels was great, it suffered from an uneven tone; it could never quite decide if it was a kids or adult show, and as such the tone could fluctuate between really dumb and cringey comedy to serious and violent death in the span of a few minutes.

This is no different; there is some goofy humor, some characters that straddle the line between funny and annoying, but also some darkness, and good, subtle characterization.

The biggest issue this episode has (and it’s an issue the entire show never overcomes) is the pacing. It’s at once very slow, meticulously showing the loneliness and drudgery of being a bounty hunter and extremely fast, covering important character development and plot points in single montage.

Perhaps this is a flaw of Filloni, because what works in animation, doesn’t always work in live action. In Rebels, we could tolerate characters like Honda, we could swallow that characters teleport around and solve season ending issues in a conversation. Live action has a lot more constraints, suspension of disbelief is easier to break, so having character relationships develop at unnaturally fast paces or condensing what should be days if not weeks in a single 30 sec montage is a bit much.

I don’t want to make it sound like Filloni is a terrible director and this is some insurmountable flaw; Star Wars as a rule tends to not do well in developing its characters. Ever since a New Hope, where Luke was more distressed at Obi Wan dying, than his own aunt and uncle, or Leia losing her entire planet, the franchise has glossed over really important bits of storytelling (ahem, somehow Palpatine has returned).There is nothing as drastic in this episode, but it was still frustrating to have the first half of the episode so meticulously follow Djarin capturing the bounty and taking the job, and having the important parts like deciding to save the child or befriending Kuili take up 5 minutes.

On the positives, in a short time we get a really good idea of what kind of person we are following; Djarin is impatient, headstrong, a loner, someone who is very honorable, but doesn’t like showing it. We also get a good sense of the villain; Werner Herzog as the Client is a mix of a staunch and imperial like Tarkin, while also being fascinated by cultures like Thrawn.

An ok start the show, but definitely one of the weaker episodes in the season.

Episode 2: The Child

Episode 2 is written by John Favreau and directed by Rick Famuyiwa. After rescuing the child from the compound, Djarin finds his ship being stripped for parts by the Jawa. He goes after them, but when he manages to get to the top of their ship he gets blasted away. He has a dream about the day his parents died, and is rescued again by Kuili who offers to help him get his parts back. To do so, he must steal an egg from a mudhorn, and almost dies, except the child, using the force creates enough of an opening for Djarin to finish the animal off.

This episode is a vast improvement over episode 1; it has more action, more character development, more intrigue and a much more even pace. It’s still a slow episode, and we don’t learn much about any of the characters, but enough of what happens kept me engaged and interested.

However, this was the first episode where I noticed a bit of an issue with Dij Djarin’s characterization, an issue the show never really resolves.

I think, Pedro Pascal is too old to be playing Djarin. Alternatively, the writing of Djarin doesn’t match the age and gravitas of Pascal. Let me explain.

In episode 1 we learn that Djarin is impatient. This is fine. What is less fine is for Djarin to be brash and impatient enough to think he can a) take on an entire moving castle of Jawa by himself, b) threaten and shoot at the Jawa who already beat him once, c) tret the Jawa like pests even though Kuili and the Jawa themselves already demonstrated that they are intelligent and perfectly capable of negotiating.

These are not the actions of a man in his 40’s who is impatient; this comes off as someone who is too big for his birches, someone young and inexperienced and full of prejudice. A Luke Skywalker or Ezra Bridger, not Pedro Pascal at the same age as Qui Gon Jinn. It’s fine that Djarin is close minded and biased against Imperials and droids; it doesn’t make any sense that an experienced Mandlorin bounty hunter could speak Jawa and yet somehow not know anything about them.

This gets worse in the next episode where the other Mandalorians pick on Djarin and treat him like this young man who got lucky to be paid instead of an experienced warrior of decades. Even the Armorer treats him like a newbie; he doesn’t have a signet, he doesn’t have a jet-pack, and yet he’s in his mid 40’s!

Again, this isn’t just a problem of Favreau; he tends to write immature men after all, seeing as his biggest success to date is Tony Stark. It was also a problem in the prequels where I constantly got the sense that Ewan McGregor was playing a very different character from the one Lucas had written and Sir Alex Guinness portrayed. I just wish we would have gotten more reasons for why Djarin acts so inconsistently and why he’s only impatient and inconsiderate when the plot needs him to be.

The rest of the episode is fine. I liked the dynamic between him and Kuili; Kuili himself is great character, a world weary man who has worked a lifetime for his freedom and has a deep understanding of the value of life, peace and even money. I honestly wish he was in the show more; the best scenes are the ones of him and Djarin interacting. The child was also adorable; trying to heal Djarin, protecting him from the mudhorn. It was a slow build to Djarin increasingly caring more and more about it, even though he has no idea what he’s doing.

A vast improvement over episode one, even though it’s not perfect.

Episode 3: The Sin

Episode 3 is written by John Favreau and directed by Deborah Chow. Djarin returns to Navaro and hands the child to the Imperials, getting a full payment of Beskar for his troubles. He asks what is to happen to the child, which is a violation of the Guild’s rules, and draws the suspicion of Karga and all the other bounty hunters. Djarin gets a new set of armour from the Armourer, as well as a new job from Karga. However he can’t make himself leave, and he returns to rescue the child just in time, as it is being experimented on. Every bounty hunter in Navaro attacks him, but the Tribe of Mandalorians come to his aid, and he shoots Karga before getting away.

This is probably my second favorite episode of the show; it was the point where things finally clicked and I got an idea of what the stakes and the story would be. It’s a little unfortunate that it took 3 episodes for that to happen, but it’s better late than never.

This episode brought in some more mystery about the child; we still know nothing about what it is or where it came from, other than it being around 50 years old. The Client very clearly wants the child dead, while Dr. Pershing, the collaborator wants it alive for some kind of experiment. The child really isn’t the focus in this story, even if it is what everyone wants and around which the plot revolves; the real focus is Djarin’s evolving relationship to the child and himself.

I think this was the best development Djarin got in the season (outside of the finale); we see his slow bonding to the child, feeling guilty and upset over handing it over. His relationship to the child mirrors his own past; he was a founding, the Mandalorians saved him from the Great Purge, and he already has a history of caring for foundlings, making sure all of his extra Beskar is given to them, and essentially following the Way so he can help more foundlings. Him giving the child away is a direct betrayal to his own sense of self, even if he is a loner who has no idea how to take care of another being, let alone a baby.

We learn too, in the scene I mentioned before that Djarin is an outsider even among the other Mandalorians. He isn’t liked or respected; he is made fun of and challenged by others who consider him a traitor or weak. Whether this is because he’s a foundling and thereby not a ‘true’ Mandalorian (which doesn’t really make much sense considering what we find out later) or his vocation/personality, it clearly affects him enough to act and live the way he does. His constant pretending that he is heartless is challenged both by Kuili and especially by the child, for which he’s willing to risk his life and the secrecy of the Tribe.

This is all basic stuff; none of this is groundbreaking, but it was still nice to see Djarin evolve as a character. If there is one theme in this show it’s fatherhood and community; Djarin needs people around him, he needs a clan, and this episode is the first step for him to accept that.

The rest of the episode was great; it had a nice pace, it was full of tension, I liked the Armourer who gets a bit more personality as well as Greef Karga, who I have a soft spot for, even if he betrays Djarin twice in this episode. The action scenes were well shot and choreographed, I loved the Mandalorians at the end and overall it’s a big step up from the previous 2 episodes, and definitely one of the better ones in the season.

Episode 4: Sanctuary

Episode 4 is written by John Favreau and directed by Bryce Dallas Howard. It’s also my favorite episode in the show.

In an attempt to get some heat off of him after Navaro, Djarin lands on Sorgan, a sparsely populated forest planet. He runs into an ex-rebel shocktrooper, Cara Dune, and gets approached by 2 farmers who need help in dealing with a gang of Klatoonian raiders. What the farmers neglect to mention is that the raiders have an AT-ST fighter, and Cara and Djarin have to quickly train the farmers to learn how to fight the raiders. After freeing the village, Djarin contemplates leaving the child with Omera, whom he has some chemistry with, but a bounty hunter tracking the child arrives and tries to murder it, at the last moment stopped by Cara. Realizing that as long as the Client is hiring bounty hunters, the child will never be safe, Djarin leaves the planet.

I love this episode; it’s the perfect mix of humor and serious action, it has excellent character writing and pacing and it’s a complete story. It’s up there with some of the best Rebels and Clone Wars episodes and I wish the rest of the series was of this calibre.

One issue that I haven’t yet mentioned, was that many people didn’t like that in episodes 1-3, the only female speaking roles was the Armourer, and there were few to no female characters even as extras in the background. I could somewhat excuse that in 1 and 2, since a lot of those episodes were following Djarin alone in deserts and caves, but in 3 I was starting to get annoyed too. The Armourer is cool and important as a character, but she is a tertiary supporting character at best. So it took 4 episodes to get some women in this show, and thank god they are all great.

Cara Dune is absolutely flawless; I loved that she was a rebel shocktrooper, I loved her relationship with Djarin and sparring partners and quick friends who shared a lot of experiences by virtue of living through the war. She is competent, looks powerful, is noble and stoic while still having a lot of personality in her limited dialogue. It takes her no time to start making fun of Djarin’s dumb decisions, and I love that for her.

Omera is the opposite; she is quiet, kind and secretive. She has a lot of knowledge and understanding and clearly has a past involving trauma, but we never have to see it; it’s her acting and dialogue that captures it perfectly. She is intuitive, picks up on Djarin’s insecurities and worries about the child and his choices, and the chemistry between them felt natural, even if they don’t spend a lot of time together.

Unfortunately, this episode also starts my second big problem with Djarin, which I’ll call, wait were Mandalorians always like this?

First off, I had no idea Mandalorians can’t take their helmet off. The characters in both Rebels and Clone Wars take their helmets off all the time, especially when they are around family and friends; they only really keep them on when in battle or around enemies. Even in the prequels Jango takes the helmet off.

At first I thought they aren’t supposed to let anyone take the helmet off, as in without their consent like in battle. That’s when they get disgraced and can never put it back on. But no, apparently it’s ever, under any circumstances. Really? Like they can never let their loved ones see their face? How does that make any sense?

I saw people comparing the helmets to head scarves, like hijabs or nqabs, but people can take those off you know? When women are at home, and in front of their partners and families and female friends. They don’t wear the scarves forever, even at their own house!

Which makes me wonder, do Mandalorians not have partners or kids? Even if we follow the stupid retcon (which we’ll talk about) from this show, and Mandalore isn’t a people but a creed, that would imply that all the Mandalorians are foundlings. But if that’s true, than why is Djarin treated like an outsider, and so insistent on helping the foundlings if all Mandalorians are foundlings? And even if that’s the case, there’s no mention of Mandalorians being like Jedi, and being banned from having partners and children.

If they can have partners and children how does that work? Outside of the obvious, how do you have sex in armour (unless it’s just the helmet and the rest of the armour is irrelevant), do their partners and kids never see their face? Or is it that once you find a partner you take the helmet off and never put it back on? Or do not all Mandalorians follow the Way and the ones who don’t are the ones who marry and have kids?

None of that makes ANY sense, and I hope that they explain it at least a little in season 2, because as is, it’s not only dumb, but it also contradicts everything we know about Mandalorians from other Star Wars properties.

Outside of that, everything else this episode was great. The action was fun, the dialogue was funny, I liked the training montage, I liked Cara and Djarin’s fight, I liked the child being a child, the conclusion to the story, everything. It’s the best episode of the season, and unfortunately, only the season finale comes close to it.

Episode 5: The Gunslinger

Episode 5 is written and directed by Dave Filoni. While leaving Sorgan, Djarin is attacked by a bounty hunter and during their battle, Djarin’s ship gets damaged. He’s forced to make a pit-stop on Tatooine, where he leaves his ship for repairs with Peli Moto. To pay for the repairs he takes a job with Toro Calican, an aspiring bounty hunter who is tracking Fennec Shard, a notorious assassin. If he catches her he can enter the Guild and Djarin can keep all the money. However, things aren’t ever easy, especially after Toro learns that Djarin and the child are worth a lot more to the Guild than Fennec herself.

This episode is about the same quality as episode 1, but it suffers from a different kind of issues. The pacing is much better, and there is some actual tension while Toro and Djarin try to find and catch Fennec. However, after everything in 3 and 4 this feels like pure and simple filler. In an 8 episode season, that’s inexcusable. Making a pitstop on Tatooine accomplishes nothing, it’s just fan-service; there isn’t even character development for Djarin; he ends the episode exactly as he started it.

Fennec Shard is a waste of character and a waste of Ming Na Wen. The marketing for this show made it seem like she would play this massive, important role, but all she does here is shoot at Djarin, get her ass kicked, make an incredible rookie mistake in telling Toro all she knows about Djarin and then gets killed. Even if she’s not dead by the time season 2 rolls around, nothing about her character interests me; for a super assassin who worked for the biggest criminal guilds in the galaxy, she gets taken down by a rookie bounty hunter who can’t shoot straight.

Toro likewise was a wasted character. In a way I see what Filoni was maybe trying to do with him; if Djarin had treated him better and with a little more respect, Toro wouldn’t have turned on him, except the way it came off is that Djarin was right to treat him like shit, because Toro betrayed him when he realized he could use Djarin to get into the Guild. So what was the point?

Peli was adorable and actually had the strongest character arc in that she started the show with wanting to charge Djarin extra for the child, only to fall in love with it by the end, and treat it like her own baby. It was cute and funny, but it wasn’t worth a whole episode. If this was an episode in a longer series I’d have no issue with it; as is it just broke the flow of the show and achieved nothing.

Episode 6: The Prisoner

Episode 6 is written by Chris Yost and Rick Famuyiva and directed by Rick Famuyiva. It’s also my least favorite episode of the season.

Needing credits, Djarin accepts a job with a former crew mate, Ran, who wants him, a former Imperial sharpshooter Mayfield, brawler Burg, droid pilot Q9-0 (Zeroes) and his ex-girlfriend Xian to break a prisoner out of a New Republic droid-manned prison transport. Tensions in the crew are high, and escalate after Xian ends up killing a human pilot on board the transport who activates a New Republic beacon. The crew trap Djarin in the prisoner’s cell (the prisoner being Xian’s brother Qin, who Djarin helped put in jail), and Djarin takes the crew members out one by one, until it’s just him and Qin. He gets Qin back to Ren and as Qin is about to go after him, New Republic X-Wings, following the beacon Djarin placed on Qin arrive and destroy the station.

I can see what this episode is going for; it’s a Cowboy Bebop style, space western, and again, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with Djarin joining his old crew for a job and things going south. It could have been a character building moment, to see how far Djarin has come, from associating with dishonest killers and thieves, to hunting bounties for the New Republic. But even more than the previous episode, this one is filler, and it’s made worse by some truly bizarre casting choices and dialogue, as well as a bewildering ‘twist’ at the end.

Let’s start with the twist. Why would Ren PAY Djarin, let him leave, THEN send Qin after him? It’s not a Guild job, clearly, seeing as Djarin has been barred from the Guild and they are breaking into a freaking New Republic prison, so why wouldn’t they just… shot him as he’s on the platform and let his body fall into space? Answer? Because I guess it looked cooler this way.

Second, the crew. God I found most of these people insufferable. Mayfield was a cartoon character; he kept wildly flip flopping between bad-ass villain and incompetent comic relief, and I couldn’t tell if his goading of Djarin to take off his helmet was supposed to sound like he was hitting on Djarin, or they just didn’t realize it? It reminded me of John Cena’s character in Trainwreck, and I don’t think it was supposed to be a callback.

Then we have Zeroes and Burg who are completely nondescript bad guys (although considering how bad of a pilot Djarin is I was glad to see some good piloting for a change). Xian was a can of worms I’m not sure I even want to unpack. First, why give her and Qin Chinese names, but have white actors play them? Second when are we going to stop with the all Twi’leks are sexualized perverts/slaves/are completely insane? I thought the whole point of Disney taking over the SWU was to eliminate this kind of racist and sexist shit, and yet here I am again, in 2019 forced to watch this horribly written fetish-fulfillment on my TV.

I hated Xian as a character more than I’ve hated anything else in a while, and that’s saying something, because I’ve seen TLJ.

There were some good bits in this episode; the child hiding around the ship from Zeroes, and thinking he killed him with the force; Djarin asking the pilot for his name and trying to diffuse the situation; thinking to put the tracker on Qin. Even the concept itself was good, and I wouldn’t mind the same episode just with characters that are actually interesting, instead of all these insufferable stereotypes. The show really drops the ball with these 2 episodes, so I was honestly glad I only had the finale left.

Episode 7: Reckoning

Episode 7 is written by John Favreau and directed by Deborah Chow. Djarin gets a message from Greef who has survived their last encounter; he wants the Client gone so the Imperials who have taken over Navaro leave, and Djarin wants the bounty hunters to stop coming after him, so he accepts, and recruits Cara and Kuili to help. Kuili insist on bringing along the reprogrammed IG-11, who is now a nurse droid.

The group meets Greef and two bounty hunters and as they head back to the town, they get attacked by Mynocks. The child heals a wounded Greef, and he kills the two bounty hunters, who were there to help him betray Djarin. They devise a plan; Cara is to pretend she captured Djarin and the child, while Kuili takes the child back to the Djarin’s ship and barricades himself inside. Unfortunately, the Imperials sense the betrayal, Kuili is killed and the child taken, just as Moff Gideon arrives with a platoon of death troopers and kills everyone inside the compound including the Client.

I liked this episode though it is a bit uneven. The first half is spent with Djarin recruiting Cara and Kuili, while the latter is a rather tense standoff with the Client and subsequently Gideon. I liked that we got Cara and Kuili back, enjoyed the tension between Kuili who used to build Imperial weapons and Cara who fought for the Resistance.

What I didn’t like so much was the child randomly being jealous of Cara? Like he tries to crash the ship when she and Djarin are bonding over weapons, and then tries to choke her?

This is sort of a bigger problem for the show. We are 7 episodes in and we still know nothing about the child; we don’t know it’s species, why it is force sensitive, why the Imperials are after it, or even why it seems to randomly switch personalities. My further question is who exactly are the people after him? By this time, the First Order should already exist, especially if this takes place after the battle of Aquila, so is the Client First Order? Or Palpatine’s goon? Unaffiliated?

There is an extended montage that shows how Kuili reprogrammed and taught IG to be a nurse droid which was sweet, but wasn’t really necessary; I find it funny that this montage is longer than both the training section in ep. 4 and Djarin learning to ride in ep. 1.

The ending was appropriately a cliffhanger and I hate that they ended up killing Kuili’s character off; it was clear it would happen, especially after his fight with Cara, but it still sucks that they did it. I also didn’t like that they wasted the Client; he could have been a really interesting villain and Herzog is an excellent actor, but they never gave him a chance to do anything.

An objectively good episode, but not my favorite. I felt that more time could have been spent on building up Moff Gideon and the Client than Mynock attacks and training montages.

Episode 8: Redemption

Episode 8 is written by John Favreau and directed by Taika Waititi. After being captured by stormtroopers waiting for the order to bring the child into town, IG rescues it and shoots up Moff Gideon’s platoon. Gideon in return threatens the group to surrender, calling each member by name, which shocks Djarin because the only people who know his name would have died or at least been on his home planet during the Great Purge.

Gideon injures Djarin who tells the others to use the underground tunnels to get help and/or escape. IG stays with him, convincing him to remove his helmet to administer bacta to his head injury. In the tunnels the group finds the Armourer alone, as all other Mandalorians have been killed or escaped and she gives Djarin a jet-pack and his signet; a clan of two. She ordains the child a foundling and in accordance with the Way makes Djarin responsible for keeping it safe and returning it to its people.

The group uses an underground lava river to escape, and IG self-destructs to take out the ambushing stormtroopers. Gideon attacks them in his TIE fighter, and using the jet-pack Djarin manages to knock him down. The group says farewell, with Cara staying behind with Greef to help rebuild Navaro, while Djarin and the child leave. Gideon, having survived the crash uses the Darksaber to cut himself out of the fallen TIE and the season ends.

This is my second favorite episode behind Sanctuary; it’s action packed, tense and full of Waititi’s recognizable humor. The opening scene alone had me in stitches; that is by far the best use of stormtroopers in any Star Wars media, outside of that First Order SNL skit with Adam Driver.

We learn a decent amount in this episode; first that the Empire still has pockets of powerful followers, that Gideon and Djarin have some kind of past, that Gideon wants the child and most importantly that he has darksaber. How he has it we don’t know; he either took it from Kryze or is himself a Mandalorian.

Now, we get to the second wait, were Mandalorians always like this? I thought that the Mandalorians were a warrior race, but according to Waititi, they are a creed. This… doesn’t make sense. Why was there a civil war between the different clans? Why are there foundlings and not? How does one become a member of this creed, do you have to be a foundling? Or do you just have to follow the Way? Do all Mandalorians follow the Way? If anyone can be a Mandalorian if they follow the Way, then why can’t the child? I didn’t realize the foundlings also have to be Spartan-strong or else they don’t count.

Then we get to the helmet thing. Now, no LIVING being can see their face, so this confirms that not even their partner and children can see their face. WHY? What purpose does this serve? Why make it this dramatically ridiculous? I guess cause they liked the line ‘I’m not a living being’.

Waititi really enjoys taking established properties and spinning them on their head; in Thor Asgard was no longer a place, but a people, here Mandalorians aren’t a race they are the followers of a creed. But that doesn’t make sense if this creed has no rules or hs arbitrary rules that keep changing.

The rest of the episode was fine. Jrin completes his arc, but getting attached too IG, enough to be sad when IG self-destructs. I liked how insistent Cara was in saving him; a very soldier thing to do, and in general their friendship is excellent. I really hope this isn’t the last we see of her. The humor was also excellent, as it always is with Waititi and it was a good way to end the season.

Concluding Thoughts:

I feel like I always come off more negative than I mean to in all of my reviews, but it’s just because there are only so many ways I can say I liked this, this was well done, I loved this. I did I really enjoy this season; I can safely say that I love all the characters, Djarin and the child especially, I am very curious to learn more about Moff Gideon and his hipster top knot and I hope Cara Dune and Fennec Shard come back and have more to do.

I don’t have any theories about what the child is; I’ve heard people say that it’s a reincarnation of Yoda, that it’s the Force itself in a body (like Anakin, but double), that it’s a clone of Yoda from either the Clone Wars or even Palpatine’s experiments.

Personally, I’m more interested in learning more about Djarin, and how Bobba Fett ties in with his past considering it was his signet that Djarin gave to the child at the end. I also would like to visit or revisit some more worlds; perhaps see some worlds from the books like Aquila. There are rumours that characters like Lando and Ahsoka Tano might make an appearance, and while that would be neat, I don’t necessarily mind the lack of Jedi in the show.

As for the people working on the show, I think each director brought something to the table. I would love for Deborah Chow, Bryce Dallas Howard and Taika Waititi to return in season 2, though I’ve also heard Waititi is getting his own show.

Them’s my thoughts. If you got to the end, thank you for reading, and I might be back quite soon, because I would like to re-watch the Clone Wars before season 8 comes out later this year.

#the mandolarian #star wars #sw the mandalorian #moni talks #the mandalorian review

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glamournews-blog1 · 5 years

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Vlada Tabachuk - Startup Fashion Week

Startup Fashion Week - Vlada Tabachuk

Vlada Tabachuk is an incredibly talented designer, she is based in Toronto and will be showing a full collection of unique apparel at Startup Fashion Week Runway Show on Oct 25. She is an incredibly talented designer

DO YOU DESIGN YOUR OWN CLOTHES, OR YOU HAVE GO TO LABEL?

I’ve always liked to up-cycle clothes I already had to give them a second life but I rarely make my own clothes from scratch. I’m not really a patron of one particular label and I don’t really subscribe too much to trends. I like to shop around for items that I could see myself wearing forever.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST REALIZE YOU WANTED TO PURSUE A CAREER AS A DESIGNER?

I’ve always known this is what I wanted to do. My life has taken me on a lot of detours but I would always end up doing something fashion related. Once I made the decision to attend the Fashion Design Program at Ryerson University, I started to feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and after graduation I just kept trying to start my own brand until my team with an investor found me and approached me.

ARE YOU SELF-TAUGHT OR DID YOU STUDY FASHION DESIGN?

I started sewing things when I was still a kid and tried to learn new techniques as I grew up. The DIY movement and creation of YouTube really helped me learn but I never felt that I could learn as much on my own as I could in a design program so I decided to get a degree from Ryerson University.

WHAT OTHER SKILLS ARE IMPORTANT?

I think the most important skills in any work are the ability to network, ability to multitask, and the ability to adapt. To me networking is how I get inspired by others and how I continue to educate myself in what I do. Being able to multitask is crucial because as a new brand I am always hit with multiple things that are ALL priority and nothing can be put off until later. Lastly, it’s very important to be able to adapt to any changes that have to be made to the original plan when issues arise. My biggest motto through the whole process of starting my own brand when things would not go according to plan has been “Make it work!” (Tim Gunn from Project Runway)

WHAT ARE YOU BIGGEST FEAR WHEN GOING OUT AND STARTING YOUR OWN LINE?

I can’t say there was ever a big fear of failure or disappointment when I was starting the brand with my business partners. Not to say that it wasn’t scary doing everything for the first time like registering a corporation, building a business plan, making big financial decision, creating mass production product etc. but I was never afraid of it turning out differently from how I expected. It’s rare that anything turns out how you expect so I went in ready to adapt and fail as many times as I needed until we figured it out.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT BEING A DESIGNER?

My favourite part about being a designer is putting on some inspiring jams, spreading a clean piece of white paper on the drafting table and spending the following hours/days figuring out how a garment will be constructed, how every seam will interact with the fabric, how the construction and complexity will drape and interact with a body, how the construction will affect the costs and manufacturing time etc. It’s at this stage that I really get to submerge into my own mind and play with this giant puzzle of sorts.

COULD YOU GIVE ME A DETAILED BREAKDOWN OF THE STEPS IN PRODUCING A COLLECTION...(FROM CONCEPTION TO THE RUNWAY)?

1. Come up with a concept and inspiration.

2. Do market and trend research.

3. Create a mood board that combines your ideas and what the market wants/needs for your collections season.

4. Sketch as many designs as are in your head following your moodboard as inspiration and consistency guide.

5. Choose your final designs and tweak them as needed to ensure they work together as a collection and that the construction of them will remain within your brand’s manufacturing cost bracket.

6. Find your fabrics, trims, and hardware.

7. Create production documents necessary to create patterns for the garments..

8. Started creating garment patterns, testing each one out in muslin and then in actual fabric. At this stage some changes are often made to fabric choices and designs in order to improve the overall appearance and to decrease manufacturing costs where possible.

9. Once the patterns are created, additional manufacturing documents are created that include a record of material quantities per garment, costs, and specifications. They are used for the brand to communicate with manufacturers, calculate production costs, and come up with retail prices for the garments.

10. Create and order care tags, hang tags, size tags, and brand tags.

11. Create double sample of each garment to use for photo shoots and promo while the manufacturer is producing the total quantity.

12. Plan and execute a look book shoot and create a stock of brand photos to use for social media and PR.

13. PROMO! Reach out to your network to share news of your new collection; create exciting and interesting social media posts; go out and be seen/heard; reach out to media to make them aware of this awesome thing you just did and get them excited about your new collection.

14. Get ready for the runway: model try ons, runway moodboards for Hair and Make-up Artists, start stocking up on thank you cards and gift merch.

( I hope this isn’t too much! I tried to condense it to crucial steps.)

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR BRAND?

Project 313 Apparel is a luxury street wear brand that is heavily inspired by techwear through it’s use of fabrics, fit, and function. I like to create items that stand out through small design details and manufacture them in fabrics that are both eco-friendly and unbelievably soft to the touch.

WHERE DO YOU GO FOR INSPIRATION?

I find the most inspiration just wandering around busy the streets and observing. Toronto is a fantastic city for that because of the vast diversity in architecture, culture, people, styles, tastes, music. I got design on my mind and my mind on design 24/7 so it’s never hard to find inspiration. I can look at any object and visualize an article of clothing that reflects it’s vibes or aesthetic so Toronto is truly a never ending supply of inspiration.

WHAT ARE YOU FASCINATED BY AT THE MOMENT AND HOW DOES IT FEED INTO YOUR WORK?

I am currently obsessed with exploring untraditional and challenging construction techniques. I am a glutton for a challenge. Our launching collection called Order x Chaos for Project 313 Apparel features some complicated style lines that are unconventional for hoodies and tees. It was a challenge to create an odd hood shape that looks like it sits on your shoulders but I love how it turned out.

HOW DO YOU WANT YOUR CLIENT FEEL WHEN WEARING YOUR CLOTHES?

We want the Project 313 Apparel customer to feel like they are draped in luxury and comfort when they are wearing our clothing. It is important to us that our clothes inspire confidence and become an extension of self. I think there is nothing worse (clothes related) than being constantly aware of what you are wearing because of a bad fit, uncomfortable fabric, or restricted movement that’s why Project 313 Apparel provides style that allows it’s wearer to be free to move.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL STYLE?

I would describe my personal style as “always in transition”. Although I don’t generally follow trends and on average buy only 5 new fashion items every year, I am constantly trying to reinvent my style through finding new ways to wear the pieces I already have. So my style is essentially a rotation of basic with a few oddly patterned pieces. For example some of my favorites are: pants with floral water colour print from Banana Republic, a men’s button up with ice-cream pops I found at winners, a Clover Canynon pull-over sweatshirt with interior design CAD graphic. One day I will fully commit to funky patterns but for now I feel like my collection is just not big enough.

IF YOU WERE A SUPERHERO, WHAT KIND OF POWERS WOULD YOU HAVE?

If I were a superhero I would want the ability to clone myself like Dr Manhattan (without the public nudity) so that I could do more at the same time.

IN YOUR OPINION, WHICH SUPER VILLAINS NEEDS FASHION ADVICE?

If I had to pick one... Doc Ock is probably in the bottom 10. His costume is just a bit boring. He looks like a middle school math teacher, stuck on primary colors, who also forgot it was Halloween so he pulled together a last minute “zucchini” looking outfit. His outfit is just not fear inducing whatsoever so he would really benefit from a makeover.

#Fashion Designer #Fashion Show #Fashion Week #fashion #Fashion #Startup #Startup Fashion Week #Startup Fashion #Canada #Canadian Fashion #Canada Fashion #Canada Fashion Week #Vlada Tabachuk #Vlada #Tabachuk #Project 313

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sammybnhawthorne-blog · 7 years

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Unturned Generator

As soon as possible get access to review articles are offering our preliminary verdicts on in-creation level trainers. they're seeing subsequently accomplish for their wallets. developed your structure by harvesting recycleables on this planet, you'll carry on more time and stop harder. |If a sufficient amount of people today invest the amount of money for precious gold improvement, hope way more sophisticated extra features in becoming additional. B) no it's not "pay off to gain" as precious gold potential customers their particular servers to enjoy on. This can be his actual post: "good onto the water vapor marketing: for individuals which do not know, at this moment my fundamental concern is reworking the marketing to make use of water vapor level cheat servers. A 1-gentleman business may appear with a lot of “on every one everyday basis i pick and choose something which visual appeal amazing to function on, put emphasis on a little, finish it, and proceed to the next few aspect,” claims sexton. “just for the reason that nighttime i seasoned each and every gun, additional attachment facts and also |“for age ranges every person tend to be asking for helicopters and motorboats as well as other transport understanding that i had usually expressed ‘yeah could be, we will “some of [he’s] a big enthusiasm around my working experience because he foretells the city, and it is not frightened to test out something which strays a little by way of the simple route that Unturned Hack 3.0 could get." sexton concurs the Pretty much every improve helps make the game play way more fully free, way more expansive, way more laissez-faire. You may hop in and enjoy equivalent working experience as every person otherwise. Also, he mentions that we have seen purports taking Unturned Hack 3.0 away his arms forever. His pals, his efforts, his collection, his livelihood, all obsessive about just one undertaking he begun in mature university. |You will find charts with massive dams besides the fact that there is not a dam subject dangling in existence," claims sexton. Then this organisation can talk to game enthusiasts in several versions, but is in fact a little too serious for any dev of these organisation he was appointed, to accept community and explain the company's level cheat, unless of course they offer him some house of maneuver, in particular cs:go devs often talk in reddit, primarily about specialised things by way of the level cheat. Continuous that starting quote, he expressed, “but then - and that’s not saying it's pretty good, but one never knows - they tried out it plus they particularly particularly was pleased with it, and wouldn’t have tried out it if it enjoy a asking price." it’s not to ever like a person that designed a level cheat done by around lots of people one week and claims “who knows” about regardless whether it’s superb. “but upon i had well-known the style and type given that the results glimpse, how the surroundings is, i constructed with that. Looking out again, this just shows up the sort of foolish aspect to finalize. Like every person otherwise during those times, he was energized by dayz heralded. “it was like beginner simple tips into unity, understanding that i just presumed i almost certainly could provide a clone of deadzone in unity, even so i had no idea of these things i had been practicing. “if i’m being focused on a completely new feature understanding that i haven’t wanted for people’s hints, or revealed exactly what shows up as if, it believes particularly unique.” i challenge if he’s only a of course reassured someone, understanding that he or she is, at least about Unturned Hack 3.0. |Essentially, all over the web presentation, i clicked amongst the mistaken keys and my demo wound up never moving, to be certain that was horrifying.” up until the time a few days ago, Unturned Hack 3.0 has was pleased with regularly up-dates, recurring the culture sexton placed by way of the first of all introduce. “there are these charts which are most likely superior to my normal charts, and several people today appear to all agree,” he claims, gladly. “when these level trainers are published, everyone’s energized merely because it’s, ‘wow, we are able to recreate things inside a taking walks dry television shows demonstrate!’ and, ’it’ll serve as the greatest outstanding structure-building up level cheat!’ they end up truly being done by a lot of different people today, plus they are not usually healthy and balanced for them all.” he’s encountered exactly the same in Unturned Hack 3.0. “i consider to some degree a few of these hints don’t work well together. Bananas for sure are pricy in canada. Be grateful for penning up. Essentially? Nelson is comparable to level he accumulated level cheat and relesed right away just like level with minecraft. Without a doubt, the boxy zombies of Unturned Hack 3.0 are 100 % precious. |They sharpen on noise and lightweight, and as a consequence to avoid them you have to slink very carefully in existence plus your display illumination away. On my small small to medium sized eighth or ninth existence, i deliver these people with things of great use: a sledgehammer. I straightforward it and junk extra into my load. Not new there, and therefore i am not specifically wondering about constructing a huge residential home immediately. And, just when i’ve begun to seem like it’s all turn far too fundamental, i've established by myself encircled by having a deceased design workman, a moldy sailor gentleman, and 2 creeping culinary chefs. It is fully free, it’s wonderful, and more importantly, it’s a spook level cheat that is not going to cram a z into its subject. The full obstruct sharp graphics aspect has misplaced its charm. If you decide to utilize a desktop computer, you’re scouring the web at code running. |I found some characteristics appear truly kid-fashioned - my most popular products are any juice, orange extract, and whole milk. Making is really a soreness within the ass however the tactical and search was truly wonderful the 1st handful of celebrations in existence. Unturned Hack 3.0 doesn't have uncanny valley to lead to struggles, so something that does not glimpse privilege would be forgotten about totally and you’re just having fun with the “gameplay”, this is just easy and delightful. I’d be skeptical about this all if it wasn’t to the trailer directly below, which provides the opponents are cool like have fun playing-doh so you can push a fireplace truck. I really like that! I really like this aspect moved from very humble beginnings to truly being done by many more people than corrosion, terraria and dayz. Performed a little by utilising it during the last nights, and figured which it will require a little bit more steps you can take whilst in co-op, though singleplayer is really a preferably junk working experience for quite a while. increase, it'll glimpse exceptional. Offer you time long before undeniably evaluating the game play have fun playing and article content. I’m totally taking pleasure in it at this moment, i purely do not know how extensive it'll have attraction. Women and men results place it far better all around the most done list than rocket league and quit 4 dry 2. |may seem to overshadow fundamentally a decide upon handful of titles on water vapor. The kid-heavy human population of Unturned Hack 3.0’s servers first of all expanded in becoming obvious around my working experience while i contacted I actually do not fault any person for heading overwatch various nuts. I purely desire this video game is not going to are priced at any individual everyday lives. I was 100 m into the woodland long before he found. Even with evolving into an unappealing, untidy, super-derivative level cheat, Unturned Hack 3.0 is generally more beneficial at truly being dayz than dayz is. This makes it quite extremely difficult to identify begun, whenever you cannot get the accessories wanted to preserve you and your family inside a feral lord by way of the flies cast that live in the servers. And lots of, a large number, a large number blizzard level trainers feature vast pieces of other level trainers, shamelessly taken from their stash. Initially glance, Unturned Hack 3.0 could be very easily wrongly diagnosed say for example a economical using-engineered afternoon z replicate with poor sharp graphics, but simply because of the some time to a straightforward your head, it will be deep and sophisticated tactical level cheat. |This makes the Time period of level cheat have fun playing the activity might appear small to medium sized, just make sure have fun playing you'll discovered that just enjoyable the basic requirements dangling in existence - you should accumulate supplies to live longer than, it is best to have a gun, clothes remedies, taking in remedies, so you want a physical condition - need gentleman hours of level cheat have fun playing. Questing program the leveling program by way of the level cheat may well also be truly spectacular. The best of this, it's fully free. Styles are perfect, even so inside a a few. He wanted if he could have fun playing garry's mod on my own small to medium sized credit account understanding that i allow for him to. It's sophisticated tactical characteristics. Farmville needs a face lift, a extensively necessary specific. |They can be simple to sneak but but turn toxic in vast results. Questing up program - getting rid of zombies honors working experience will develop tactical skill-sets. The looped Also, pressing “z” will put you into inclined, climax avoidable to complete throughout by zombies. But unfortunately, privilege-simply clicking also make use of lasting power. I jogged approximately and such as tree and chipped in online promotion possessing a pickaxe for the superb moment long before finding out which simply an axe, fire axe, or chainsaw are often used to trimmed less expensive foliage. Just accumulate and then click on. Dress, say for example a doctor's cover and pink top, can even be designed so long as you hold the proper capacity of cloth. They can get located in the o’leary military structure, in conjunction with military knives. |But unfortunately, precious gold-option game enthusiasts are unable to working experience usual servers, only on precious gold-option servers. trying to pay for the 5 dollars doesn't equivalent a pay off-to-gain procedure, mainly because the gains are isolated.

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