The Mandalorian (s1ep1) (a review post)

--"I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold."

Well, I didn't really intend to do a review for this show. I mean, I figure they're going to be everywhere and that anything I say will be more than redundant. But we, the kids and I, just finished watching the first episode, and... well, all I can say is

😲

Should I feel this way? I don't know. Maybe if I kept up more with fan stuff leading up the releases of things, I would have known some of this stuff, but I actively avoid reading about the production of all sorts of things these days because I want to experience what I'm watching without knowing all the stuff ahead of time. For this show, that meant lots of 😲 moments.

No, I'm not going to tell you. Maybe once the series is over, we can all sit down and have a chat. For the moment, though, I can talk about the production value: amazing! The show looks incredible. And it feels, well, incredible, too. A little bit of western, a lot of sci-fi. In some respects it followed formula, so there's a lot of familiarity to it. But, then, it does things that push it to the edge of the familiar space and you're not quite sure what's going on. AND MAN I WANT TO SAY THE THINGS THAT 😲 but I'm not going to do that.

Which doesn't leave me much to talk about, but I do have two things I can say: one a "dislike" and one a "like."

At the beginning of the episode, during a very familiar-feeling scene (both Star Wars familiar and western familiar), a "guy" gets caught in one of those metal doors that close to the center and it cuts him in half. This door was the entrance to a bar, by the way, not that that matters. All I'm saying is that we have elevator doors that reopen if you get caught by them, so I find it a little difficult to buy into the idea that a bar -- you know, where you have drunk people stumbling around all the time -- would have an entryway that would cut you in half if you happen to get caught in the doorway. Seems bad for business to me.

Then there's the scene with the assassin droid. I need to go watch that again. It was amazing. So far beyond IG-88 standing on the bridge of a Star Destroyer. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to do a re-watch.

Honestly, I don't really have a good idea of how I feel about the show or what I think about it. What I know is 

 😲 

and that I'm ready to watch the next episode right now. All of us were.

And, well, what more is a show supposed to do than have you slavering for the next one everytime you finish an episode?

Clone Wars -- "Downfall of a Droid" (Ep. 1.6)

-- Trust in your friends, and they'll have reason to trust in you.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

The first thing to note about this episode is the music. It's quite a bit different than other episodes. Kind of space rock. Upbeat and exciting. I'm not sure why the music is different for this episode in particular, but I liked it.

Now, the episode, upon casual glance, looks kind of like a throwaway episode, but it actually contains quite a few important pieces of information.

Before we get to the important parts, though, here is one that is just fun:
We get the very first look in "Downfall of a Droid" of the IG series assassin droids in action. The IG series is introduced in The Empire Strikes Back with IG-88.

Ahsoka sees a couple of them deactivated and dismisses them as harmless despite Anakin telling her not to underestimate them. She finds out how right he is when they surprise attack them.

Oh, there's also this really cool thing with some tanks, but I can't tell you about that because SPOILER!

Okay, so, Artoo gets lost. Of course, we know that nothing permanently bad can happen to Artoo, because he has four more movies to go after the Clone Wars series is over. However, his loss reveals a couple of things about Anakin that are important to his character development:

1. Anakin wigs out. The Jedi are not supposed to form attachments but, here, we see Anakin really lose his shtuff over the loss of a droid. Obi-Wan even has to sort of reprimand him and remind him that Artoo is a mere droid and that Anakin should see it as nothing more than that. It's replaceable. Or it should be in the sense that Anakin should not have a relationship or feel ownership over it.

Note: This provides an interesting contrast to how we've been seeing the Jedi and their view of the clones. Though the Jedi should have no attachment to any individual clone, there is a lot of emphasis on their value as individuals. Droids have this same individuality. Or, at least, they have the potential to as sentient AIs. To keep the droids from developing true sentience, though, they have a protocol of regularly wiping the droids memories. [In light of what we know today about sentience, limited though it is, I find this idea of accumulated experience being part of sentience very intriguing, especially since this has been part of the story from Lucas since the 70s.]

2. Anakin has failed to follow protocol and keep Artoo's memory erased. Basically, Artoo has enough accumulated experience to operate as an individual. A sentient individual. Which explains a lot about R2-D2, not that we didn't already know it. But we get to see that played out here along with Obi-Wan's anger at Anakin for not doing it.

So, although on the surface this seems like a frilly adventure episode with no real substance, it actually contains significant character points for Anakin. And Ahsoka, too, in relation to her trying to provide a substitute droid for Anakin, but there's more to that than what it looks like, too, just not in this episode.

Vader's Offspring

My two younger kids got these books for Christmas. I have to say they're pretty awesome. Sure, they look like books for kids. Little kids. I'm sure it's because they're picture books. But they're those kinds of books that look like they're for kids when they're really for adults, like Animaniacs is a cartoon that's really for adults. Sure, kids like it, but kids don't get it; they just think it's funny when an anvil falls on someone's head. Which, I have to admit, can be freaking hilarious. Wait, I'm not making my point, am I?

You do know there was a Star Wars Animaniacs special, don't you? Totally awesome.

Wait! Wait! I'm talking about these books by Jeffrey Brown.
The books have brightly colored pictures that are easily appealing to kids. Funny things happen, like Luke hitting Lobot in the head with pasta sauce at dinner, which are also appealing to kids. However, it takes a certain knowledge of Star Wars and of being a parent for these books to really hit home.

I love Darth Vader and Son. It captures a moment when Luke is probably around six or so and is a great picture of what it's like to be a dad. As in the scene with the pasta sauce: Vader's hand is to his forehead in that great "I can't believe he just did that" pose. This, though, is one of my favorites:

It takes a classic situation and puts a great Star Wars spin on it. The whole book is like that.

Vader's little princess is good, too, but it doesn't quite live up to Vader and Son. Mostly, it's because he used all the great kid moments in the one about Luke. Because of that, the one with Leia is less focused and strays up into teenagerdom and young adulthood. I have to say, though, that some of the dating stuff with Han is pretty funny. Here's one of my favorites from Leia's book:

The books are a lot of fun if you're Star Wars fan and worth having around as conversation pieces, if nothing else. But, if you're not going to buy them, you should at least make a special trip to the bookstore to check them out. They don't take long to read, and it's totally worth it.