FWIW, I have dreamed of having Star Wars stories on my television since I was a kid.

I think we need to remember the Disney+ shows are for a very broad audience. It seems unfair to criticize the Mandalorian for introducing Bo Katan and Ahsoka as “digging into the toybox”, when 90% (yes, I made that number up) of the people watching don’t know the characters.

Arguably that’s because even the people writing the movies didn’t know what was going to happen next, or even who would be writing the next one.

Exactly my point. What pisses me off about this Ukraine situation is that they’re just lazily reusing the same bad guys from the old crises we all have nostalgia about. Really? Russians? Again? There better be some surprising twists coming or I’m cancelling my CNN subscription.

What, you mean art?

Those three figures should’ve known better than to piss off their brother.

yeah art critics famously don’t know anything about art.

“Well, no one told me specifically to not draw on the paintings. I blame management for their lack of guidance!”

See when you say it that way, I can vibe with it. It just read a bit condescending otherwise, when at the end of the day we’re ultimately talking about a franchise born of inspiration from adventure serials and such, and I think we can do better than insinuate someone’s of simple intellect if they like something…

I’m not saying that silly fun things are only for children. That SW is only for children. That fantasy/adventure/scifi is only for children. But when it’s this bad, then, yeah. Adults should be at least slightly sophisticated enough to recognize the many ways in which this show is deeply subpar.

It was . . . fine. This whole episode, though, I kept thinking “Man, this would be really incredible if they’d have bothered to lay the necessary groundwork.”

My theory is that all the people airily dismissing the show’s flaws have been Stockholm Syndromed by too many repeat viewings of the prequels. Wooden acting, janky pacing, flat dialogue? They crave that shit now, and Book of Boba delivered.

My favorite thing about his character is that they didn’t even bother giving him a name.

I think Boba should’ve become the mayor. Like the fate of the Tuskins makes him decides it’s time to quit being a lone wolf and clean up the town. Almost everything works better if instead of being a crimelord who is too soft he’s the mayor with an occasional nasty streak he tries to tame but occasionally needs to…

The character assassination of Luke started in the prior episode, where Luke, learning apparently NOTHING from the failure of the previous Jedi order, still pulled out that “no attachment” bullshit and asked a pre-verbal toddler to have the wisdom to make a massive life decision between a life of extreme sacrifice and…

Who needs fundamental storytelling tools when you’ve got a franchise logo slapped on your product? People are gonna watch it regardless. Including me, mostly because I was stunned by how bad it was and needed to see it careening from one inept moment to the next.

Well, if you want to get into the whole “teachers are actually failures” argument, have at it. That doesn’t invalidate the fact that this show was shit.

Didn’t they kind of ruin the entire point of “The Mandalorian” by having the characters reunite so quickly and easily? I’m sure they realized that stripping “The Mandalorian” of its central, defining relationship was hugely problematic.

Because the show utterly failed at the most basic fundamentals of storytelling: who is this character? What is he trying to accomplish? Why? What are the obstacles? What does he learn along the way?

I see I mistakenly credited the Tusken tribes’ murder to Bane instead of the Pyke Syndicate. I apologize for the screw-up. It was my blunder and I have been fired for it.