On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2021 at 10:57 PM, HappyDaze said:

I imagine that taking that path with significantly hurt the show's reception. People may have found the Mandalorian culture stuff interesting, but that's largely not what many viewers were tuning into the show to see. It needs to pull something big to keep its momentum.

Perhaps so, it's hard to judge those kind of things. Just there's no harm in disconnecting and watching something else. To me the Mandolorian was always about the harsh landscape and the gunslinger and the child was his charge. The way it has written itself it has no choice but to become something other then that; otherwise the S2 finite will have no meaningful impact. I don't doubt that Goygu will appear again but his time as a reoccurring character is probably over, for the better really as it was a story that never outstayed it's welcome and closed in a timely and satisfying manner rather then stringing it out across further seasons.

So the real question is whether Din, who is now a considerably more expressive character then he started out with, can carry the show alone. Or will it changed to be more typical of a star treckian styled drama with a more stable cast of characters? That will be interesting to see how the show will morph to accommodate that change in direction that it must accomplish.

My only real concern is that if anything S2 was a bit too tame as no one of consequence really died, Gideon, Bo'Katan despite being shot point blank with a heavy rifle. Part of what made the show interesting to me was that anyone of the supporting cast could conceivably die in this harsh landscape. That illusion has been broken for me especially with the last episode's lack of drama outside of that amazing closing scene. You can't just shoot someone point blank like that without it meaning *something*. Perhaps it's because they were looking to strongly set up book of Boba and therefore limited it's expendables potential considerably, since they couldn't meaningfully be hurt and the commando basically has plot armour at this point, and Bo-Katan is very clearly a potential future antagonist toward Din so that killing her off didn't mean anything. Which leaves the acrobatic Mando as bait that they seem to be saving for something? Basically, they had a team of people that they for one reason or another, couldn't kill and nothing kills my immersion more then character's with very obvious plot armour. I know Din has literal, indestructible armour and as the protagonist will likely never be killed, but someone has to bare that cost to make this incredibly savage world of gunslingers and space imperialists seem dangerous. Watching the supporting cast clean up stormtroopers without meaningful incident like the other 4 or so episodes that featured a more or less re-flavoured version of that "running down a corridor shooting people" isn't exciting drama to me.

That last concern might be just me being overly critical, but I feel it might become a real potential problem going forward now that the Child has reached it's destination.

2 minutes ago, Lordbiscuit said:

Gideon, Bo'Katan despite being shot point blank with a heavy rifle.

Gideon was intentionally kept alive by his opponent, Bo Katan was shot in the beskar with a pistol. Based on what we've seen through the rest of the show with Mando's armor, her survival with minimal injury (we don't actually know what injuries she may have sustained) isn't surprising.

4 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Gideon was intentionally kept alive by his opponent, Bo Katan was shot in the beskar with a pistol. Based on what we've seen through the rest of the show with Mando's armor, her survival with minimal injury (we don't actually know what injuries she may have sustained) isn't surprising.

Was it Besker though? It was set up in season 1 that it was an incredibly rare material (because the Empire took it) and that Din seemed to be the only individual in his clan that wore it as a full set, which is why it is never painted. Up to that point, I had no reason to believe that any other Mandolorian actually wore it over the plastic armour that is usually worn within setting. Further more; it's literally a running trope that only Din get's shot in S2, even his fellow Mandolorians never got hit a single time on screen throughout the entire series, so to me it just didn't occur to me that Bo-Katan wore it. I mean, it's meant to be really rare, they literally spent 3 episodes hyping up the Mando's armour to be literally a princes ransom.

It might be just me assuming wrongly but all the stage cues made me believe that for most part, Beskar wasn't worn by Mandolorians as they didn't have regular access to it. It was just a bit of hollow drama that didn't really achieve anything, aside from perhaps showing how emotionally stunted Gidion was when he didn't hold all the cards.

17 minutes ago, Lordbiscuit said:

My only real concern is that if anything S2 was a bit too tame

Yeah, it was definitely weaker. I appreciate a lot of people enjoy seeing their favourite canon character arrive and act badass, but that only goes so far.

3 minutes ago, Lordbiscuit said:

Was it Besker though? It was set up in season 1 that it was an incredibly rare material (because the Empire took it) and that Din seemed to be the only individual in his clan that wore it as a full set, which is why it is never painted. Up to that point, I had no reason to believe that any other Mandolorian actually wore it over the plastic armour that is usually worn within setting. Further more; it's literally a running trope that only Din get's shot in S2, even his fellow Mandolorians never got hit a single time on screen throughout the entire series, so to me it just didn't occur to me that Bo-Katan wore it. I mean, it's meant to be really rare, they literally spent 3 episodes hyping up the Mando's armour to be literally a princes ransom.

It might be just me assuming wrongly but all the stage cues made me believe that for most part, Beskar wasn't worn by Mandolorians as they didn't have regular access to it. It was just a bit of hollow drama that didn't really achieve anything, aside from perhaps showing how emotionally stunted Gidion was when he didn't hold all the cards.

First off, it reacts the same as his and Boba's when hit. Based on dialogue, what we see on screen, and some behind the scenes reasoning, I have every reason to believe all three characters have beskar.

As for a "running trope," Mando would often specifically draw fire or tank it because he could, and if the others had gotten hit they'd have been in a much worse spot. It's not like they're all running down a hallway side-by-side and Mando takes multiple hits while the others don't.

She references the armor "being in her family for generations," a line quite similar to when Sabine discussed her beskar armor, and if it's just plastoid or durasteel, there'd be no passing down through the generations.

As for most Mandalorians not having beskar, hard to say. I'd say it's rare to have pure beskar, and not uncommon to use other materials entirely instead, but very common to at least have beskar included in your armor's alloy. For example, in Star Wars Rebels, many warriors from Sabine's clan are killed by a superweapon that targets the beskar in Mandalorian armor. There weren't any survivors who survived because they didn't have beskar armor.

Ahhh fair enough, probably worth mentioning that I've not really deeply delved into Rebels so I'll take your word on it.

Though at this point, I still think it's still a potential issue. If it wasn't for the dramatic end, I would've thought it to be a pretty lame episode to end it on. I mean, how many times does that gunner chuck have to clobber someone just to remind the audience that yes, she is a professional MMA fighter or something. When I start see the plot armour on the supporting cast, it bothers me. Just can't helping feeling that way about it.

10 hours ago, Lordbiscuit said:

Was it Besker though? It was set up in season 1 that it was an incredibly rare material (because the Empire took it)...

She's had that armour long before there even was an Empire. It dates back to at least the late High Republic era.

10 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

As for most Mandalorians not having beskar, hard to say. I'd say it's rare to have pure beskar, and not uncommon to use other materials entirely instead, but very common to at least have beskar included in your armor's alloy. For example, in Star Wars Rebels, many warriors from Sabine's clan are killed by a superweapon that targets the beskar in Mandalorian armor. There weren't any survivors who survived because they didn't have beskar armor.

I would say that most Mandalorians didn't have armour, period. That the vast majority of the population (before the Empire purged them at least) were not space vikings in cool armour.

Even your normal non-Beskar heavy battle armour seems like something the average family can't afford and doesn't really have a use for.

Just now, micheldebruyn said:

I would say that most Mandalorians didn't have armour, period. That the vast majority of the population (before the Empire purged them at least) were not space vikings in cool armour.

Well sure, but it depends on what you mean by "Mandalorians."

In the sense of Mandalorians who uphold the Resol'nare, the "Mando'ade" rather than simply denizens of the planet Mandalore, pretty much everyone has armor. It's one of the six tenets of the Resol'nare.

Saints preserve us from Traviss’ “Chuck Norris Meme-dalorians.”