11 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

I'm pretty sure "The Way" is practiced by an exile sect of Fundamentalist Death Watch adherents and seeing as how out protagonist was adopted by them during the clone wars he has no idea that all of the other Mandalorians can do fun stuff like take their helmets off and not live in some dour toxic warrior caste cult.

Interesting theory. While this is often overlooked, it's possible that Mandalorian Warriors were active during the clone wars.

54 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

Not really, I am just pointing out that there is a strong cultural/religious mandalorian identity that seems to supersede any sort of national or ethnic mandalorian identity.

Sure, but there are always exceptions. While Boba/Jango are ruthless hunters, they are still honorable. That is the trait all mandalorians share, though each interprets it in his or her own way.

56 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I don't know for sure if that is true. In rebels, Sabine and Bo Katan make a reference to "our way" when Sabine wants to torture Gar Saxon. I get a feeling that The Way existed long before and that the purge and subsequent diaspora, people returned to the the way or were able to maintain community by following the way.

Seeing as the Mandalorians are nearly wiped out(hence calling it the "Great Purge") during their insurrection against the Empire, Circa 2 B.B.Y., I'd say that "The Way" At least in it's current form, moving from place to place, being holed up underground, not removing helmets and such is almost certainly an after effect of the purge. Also, when Bo Katan says that, she's just saying that torturing someone out of spite, revenge and the like, is not the mandalorian way. They don't murder defenseless opponents. That is more the Mandalorian sense of Honor coming into play. But, by all means, you could be right.

7 minutes ago, ArcticJedi said:

Seeing as the Mandalorians are nearly wiped out(hence calling it the "Great Purge") during their insurrection against the Empire, Circa 2 B.B.Y.

You got a source for that?
Because it's not mentioned in Rebels (and with Sabine giving the epilogue I'm pretty sure she'd have mentioned it); and there's no reference to it on Wookipedia (Canon or Legends), and it isn't mentioned on the Star Wars Databank.

"You're going to find that man of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

So, honestly, until it is explicitly otherwise by a character who doesn't have an agenda to tell a half truth, I'm going to assume that or boy was raised by fanatic who got real angry about Satine's reforms, probably followed Maul when he took over the planet toward the end of the Clone Wars and have been outcasts from Mandalorian society for about as long as our POV character has been alive. The hardcore fanatics of the Warrior Caste believed that the other Castes were subservient to them and any change to the status quo was an attack on Mandalorian culture as a whole. I can very much see members of the Warrior Caste treating the end of their cultural supremacy as a "purge" where all the "true" Mandalorians were wiped out.

19 minutes ago, ArcticJedi said:

it's possible that Mandalorian Warriors were active during the clone wars.

And by "possible" you mean "shown on screen in a multi episode arc spanning four seasons of The Clone Wars."

31 minutes ago, ArcticJedi said:

Sure, but there are always exceptions. While Boba/Jango are ruthless hunters, they are still honorable. That is the trait all mandalorians share, though each interprets it in his or her own way

Except For many years the story has been that Jango (and thus his clone, Boba)is not a Mandalorian

Jango Fett was born in the years prior to the Invasion of Naboo. He claimed to have been born on the planet Concord Dawn, a Mandalorian world, but his exact history was unknown, much to Fett's enjoyment. While he did wear Mandalorian armor, officials of Mandalore disavowed any connection to Fett, claiming he was simply a bounty hunter who somehow stole an artifact from their planet's troubled past. However, Fett's armor itself was fashioned from durasteel alloy, while most Mandalorian armor was made from beskar. In most other respects it was the same as the gear that had been designed hundreds of years prior.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jango_Fett#cite_ref-CVD_0-0

Star Wars Databank entry on Jango Fett does not provide any particular ethnicity or planet of origin for Jango Fett. It does not say that he is a Mandalorian and it does not say that he is not a Mandalorian.

52 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

While he did wear Mandalorian armor, officials of Mandalore disavowed any connection to Fett, claiming he was simply a bounty hunter

Although there is no concrete answer in the lore as to whether the Fetts are true Mandalorians or not, I feel people are too quick to cling to this line as an answer. People, groups, cultures use this phrasing all the time for individuals who have strayed from their norms, cultures and ideals and they don't wish to associate them with it.

I still like to think they are Mandalorian, I wish they didn't go the route they did and cloud their backstory so much.

My opinion: episode 4 was pretty poor compared to the first 3. The only one so far I haven’t immediately wanted to watch again. I couldn’t place why though. My wife and daughter saw it this morning and she hit the nail on the head: the protagonist talked too much.

The whole mysterious brooding man-with-no-name trope is ruined when he becomes chatty. I hope the next one gets back to slow nods and sentence fragments.

5 hours ago, BlueSquadronPilot said:

People, groups, cultures use this phrasing all the time for individuals who have strayed from their norms, cultures and ideals and they don't wish to associate them with it.

Yes, well it's one thing when its a press release and someone is trying to downplay their connection with a fascist or a terrorist or the like.

Its a whole separate thing when it's said in regard to a fictional group about a fictional character and not in the bounds of a story. That's basically the WORD OF GOD (as in TV Tropes WOG) at that point.

For instance if there was a story about the PR campaign trying to clean up the reputation of The Rebellion and them saying they aren't affiliated with Saw Garrera, that's one thing. This is just the Visual Dictionary saying "Fetts aren't Mandolorian." There's no opinion to be swayed, just facts.

7 hours ago, ArcticJedi said:

At least in it's current form, moving from place to place, being holed up underground, not removing helmets and such is almost certainly an after effect of the purge

So I'm still questioning the existence of a "purge" of Mandalor/Concord Dawn after the events of Rebels, but here's one other thing.

When asked if he has removed his helmet our protagonist says that he hasn't done so since he was "a child".

So, he's probably about, or at least 30. It's 5 years after Endor, 27 years after the First Battle of Geonosis. That puts him as born around the same time as Sabine (21 BBY) and about 3 to 6 years old when his parents are killed by Super Battle Droids and he becomes a foundling.

He's been wearing that helmet for 20+ years.

Definitely a cult.

11 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

Definitely a cult.

I think orthodoxy. Mandalore at the time of the clone wars was a secular, pacifist society. I don't see any reason to doubt that a purge happened, and it makes sense that the highly organized, community centered, orthodox warrior sect would be the ones to survive.

As a father, I really liked episode 4. Especially when they were fussing with the cockpit switches lol.

27 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I think orthodoxy. Mandalore at the time of the clone wars was a secular, pacifist society. I don't see any reason to doubt that a purge happened, and it makes sense that the highly organized, community centered, orthodox warrior sect would be the ones to survive.

Orthodoxy/cult is a distinction without difference. Again, looking at the context, The Empire formed 29 years prior to the events of the show. We know that before the blockade of Naboo the Warrior Caste waged a civil war against Dutchess Satine and her government because her government allowed the other casts to have power. This civil war was won by the New Mandalore Movement that then pledged pacifism and neutrality. This led to the Death Watch operating in secret on Concordia and eventually being exiled when Pre Visla was exposed as their leader (this is where I'm placing the "purge"). Later Maul shows up and with the help of the Death Watch takes over. After Maul kills Pre Visla the Death Watch Splinters and some remain loyal to him and some remain loyal to Bo Katan who was seeking to avenge her sister. Bo Katan ends up becoming the ruler of Mandalor with the help of Sabine Wren returning the Darksaber to her in 2 BBY. As I said earlier, I'm pretty sure Sabine would have mentioned some kind of purge in the epilogue of Rebels had such a thing happenedbecause Mandalor is pretty important to her.

Much of the Beskar armor was melted down during Satine's rule and repurposed to non-weapon uses (covered in The Clone Wars). Later the Empire took control of Beskar production while Gar Saxon was Viceroy and that lasted for 17 years. This is what leads to jetpack guy's freak out about it.

Mando's character arc is to come out from the armor and embrace love. To realize that being saved doesn't mean you have to sign on to someone's fanatical cause. The rule of his sub group is that you can't take off your armor in the presence of anyone else (or anyone not family presumably.) He's been under that rule since he was 10-13, somewhere in there. That's a heck of a lot longer than Bo Katan taking back control of Mandalore.

2 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

Orthodoxy/cult is a distinction without difference.

Then I think we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion. There is a legal, cultural and historical difference between the two.

58 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

legal, cultural and historical difference between the two.

Not really

On 11/30/2019 at 3:28 AM, TauntaunScout said:

Great homage to both The Seven Samurai and, curiously, Ewoks: The Battle for Endor . Proving you don't have to be repetitive even if you don't make it all from scratch.

There's just so much in this show that I hate the idea of, but love in execution. The battle plan makes no sense if you think about it, but, the scene still worked.

It is not a "homage", it is a particularly cheap Disney copy of one of the greatest film ever made. Even Lucas was stealing more artfully. Kurosawa must be spinning in his grave.

3 hours ago, Rumar said:

It is not a "homage", it is a particularly cheap Disney copy of one of the greatest film ever made. Even Lucas was stealing more artfully. Kurosawa must be spinning in his grave.

Oh please. Seven samurai is one of the most referenced plotlines in fiction. Magnificent seven, bugs life, episodes of MacGyver and the A-team. Don't try to pretend that it's suddenly untouchable.

1 hour ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

Oh please. Seven samurai is one of the most referenced plotlines in fiction. Magnificent seven, bugs life, episodes of MacGyver and the A-team. Don't try to pretend that it's suddenly untouchable.

It is not untouchable. But you have to have the touch, which the makers of The Mandalorian obviously don't have. Magnificent Seven - mediocre copy. Bug's life, MacGyver or the A-Team don't take themselves as seriously as The Mandalorian embarrassingly does.

On 12/1/2019 at 4:30 AM, Zrob314 said:

So, he's probably about, or at least 30. It's 5 years after Endor, 27 years after the First Battle of Geonosis. That puts him as born around the same time as Sabine (21 BBY) and about 3 to 6 years old when his parents are killed by Super Battle Droids and he becomes a foundling.

There's 2 problems with this statement:
Sabine was born year two of the clone wars. It started in 22 BBY and ended in 19 BBY, so the mandalorian would have to be born around 25-28 BBy(assuming he's six when his parents are killed). Also, the Mandalorian is set 4 years after the Battle of Endor, not 5. So...(again assuming he's six when he becomes an orphan) he would be... 36-39. Anyone think this math is off?

27 minutes ago, Rumar said:

It is not untouchable. But you have to have the touch, which the makers of The Mandalorian obviously don't have.

Considering the fact that the mandalorian just knocked Stranger Things off its throne, I think you mught hold the minority opinion.

19 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

Considering the fact that the mandalorian just knocked Stranger Things off its throne, I think you mught hold the minority opinion.

We'll see. There are so many hard core Star Wars fans out there that it takes more than one crappy episode to derail the whole series.

This isn't just star wars fans. This is everybody. The demand is something like 95 times higher than the average streaming show. It is beating out really popular Netflix and Amazon titles like Stranger Things, The Crown, Man in the High Castle... Chapter 4 has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I am not trying to say that there cannot be criticism of the show, apparently there was a boom mike in shot in this last episode, and even I don't think it is perfect but come on. Disney, Favreau, Filoni and team are knocking it out of the park with this one. This is some of the best Star Wars to have come out in a long, long time... long time.

4 hours ago, ArcticJedi said:

Anyone think this math is off?

Legit, honestly I got messed up in backdating from battle of yavin and adding in the front dates, which is stupid. Everything should be from Empire Day as that would have probably been a year 0. The greater point is that he's been wearing the helmet for 20+ years which means that his psycho little cult has been living an offshoot wanna be spartan existence for longer than that. Meanwhile we know that the rest of Mandolorian society moved on without them.

by u/FlynnsGarage

It's possible these guys are essentially the Doomsday Preppers of Mandalorian culture. 99.9999% of the time they're a total punchline, just a bunch of whackaloony weirdos living in bunkers and never taking their masks off because they're paranoid The Man might send their black LAAT/i's to abduct them, but then the "apocalypse" actually does happen, and it turns out the galactic government really is an evil authoritarian surveillance state that oppresses wrongthink with violence, so the crazy hicks in their bunkers are the only major organised remnant after the Empire gets all purgey.

This is the Way

by Sean Miller

On 11/30/2019 at 2:21 PM, TauntaunScout said:

Ya kinda sorta can some of the time. I suspect because of the red lighting inside the cabin they're harder to make out. When I was a kid, back before night vision, the army used red light at night for similar reasons.

We still do.

On 11/30/2019 at 11:14 PM, Zrob314 said:

This is just the Visual Dictionary saying "Fetts aren't Mandolorian." There's no opinion to be swayed, just facts.

Visual Dictionary? Most people mention a Rebel's quote as their only source for this. I haven't seen the episode but everyone's description of it comes off as very "not a true Scotsman."