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Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapters 13 and 14 | 017
19 Plays16 days ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
It's Season 2! This season, we're on a rewatch of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett in the run-up to the release of The "Mandalorian and Grogu" in cinemas in May.
In our seventeenth episode we're jumping into The Mandalorian, Chapter 13 "The Jedi" and Chapter 14 "The Tragedy". We talk about themes, performances, story details, lore, the quiet strength of Ahsoka at this point in the timeline, her big namedrop, Din's dad energy, the many gadgets of Boba Fett, and much more. Watch out for our brand new segment "West End Geek Girls", which now has a little theme tune!
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Impactful Lines from The Mandalorian
00:00:15
Speaker
Sia. Hi. What is your favourite line from The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 5 and 6? I like firsts. Good or bad, they're always memorable.
00:00:28
Speaker
Nice. but but but That line really hit me quite hard in a weird way. Yeah. In the episode, I was like, what? What does that even mean? What does that mean? It could mean anything you want. You've obviously gone away and thought about it carefully.
00:00:43
Speaker
I mean, yeah. but Not really thought about it carefully. I was just like, yeah, she's right. I like that.
00:00:52
Speaker
Hey, Branwen. Hi. What is your favourite line from The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 5 and or 6? Where is your master? Where is Grand Admiral Thrawn? Oh, more intrigue. The intrigue drop of that cannot be overstated. That is true. I definitely made a note about that. I think that that quote of all of The Mandalorian, seasons one, two or three,
00:01:21
Speaker
is the one that got me the hardest, i think. Oh. I think he's just, he's so, as a character, he's so baked into everything. Yeah. And yet we've seen him in animation, but, and in books, of course. He originated in books and has continued in books. Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
But he's such an ah enigmatic character. Interesting. And to hear somebody in live action talk about say his name was, like, this goes back to, like,
00:01:50
Speaker
Okay. Tell me.
00:01:54
Speaker
tell me yeah were the original like trilogy of books that came out when lucasfil like freed up the license to allow authors to write books after the original trilogy this is before the prequels came out and before to special editions even is early early days the first trilogy of books, Grand Admiral Thorne was the bad guy. Right. So he's kind of beloved in that sense. And his character continued like he was used throughout the expanded universe. Yeah. But then when Disney bought Lucasfilm and they decided to sort of push all of that stuff into legends, yeah everybody was kind of a bit, you know, distraught about many, many characters they'd grown to love. But he would have been one of the most iconic ones to lose. Interesting.
00:02:39
Speaker
And then they brought him back into the Rebels animated show and everyone went bananas. Yeah. And because he looks as he does in the books, we're a slightly different timeline wise, I think. Although I think as time has gone on, it feels like, oh, no, this he kind of is still in the same timeline. At that point, to think that we were going to get him in live action was absolutely mind blowing. Yeah. So my note on this when she said that line ah was, I know that name, but I can't remember why. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're probably doing a lot better than many, many people who are watching The Mandalorian at point. think I just hang out with you quite a lot.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he's come up like many times. I think we've talked about him on the already. I think we have, yeah. Yeah. But I know there would have been scores of people because The Mandalorian was a very successful TV show. Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
And most of the people watching it would not have watched Rebels or read Star Wars books like from the 90s or even recent because there are now new books about Thrawn written by the same author, by the way, who wrote the original trilogy back in the 90s. They've kept him around and now he's written two trilogies about like the new Thrawn story. Kept him on ice ready to go. Yeah.
00:03:55
Speaker
But so that yeah, there would have been loads of people who were like, what? well To me, it was like a climatic moment of the entire series. Yeah, yeah. To other viewers, it it had just been like a throwaway line, like, oh, that's somebody obviously that we might find out about. See, to me, it was like, I know that name. I know that name. Why do I know that name? Who is it? I know something is going on. So it was on my list of things to ask you. So thank you for bringing it up so soon. Yeah, it was good.
00:04:19
Speaker
We would have had to have delved into it at the time. um But yeah, we've kind of covered it now. And I i won't give you any more spoilers because this all coming. It's all to come.
Podcast Introduction and Rewatch Plan
00:04:28
Speaker
Okay. Exciting. You are listening still, if you're still there.
00:04:34
Speaker
To Sisters the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. And me, Sia. Hello. And we dive into all things Star Wars. At the moment, we're in the midst of a Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett rewatch yeah in the run-up to the Mandalorian and Grogu movie that's coming out in May, which we're very excited about. Very exciting.
00:04:54
Speaker
And you join us partway through season two for, what is it, chapters 13? Yeah, it's 13 and 14, but it's episode five and six. Yeah. Just to really throw it all out there. It's so confusing. While I'm typing notes to myself, I'm trying to use the chapter numbers because I feel that's quite logical, like somehow. Yeah, kind of.
00:05:15
Speaker
Although that's going to go all out the window when we get to Book of Boba Fett in a couple of weeks' time. That's going to confuse everything. yeah Chapter the Jedi, and chapter The tragedy. oh my god gosh.
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh my gosh. There's so many tragedies. It was all a lot this morning. I've had a rollercoaster. had to break these two up and watch on different days. Did you? Partly just because I was too ill to watch them all on one day and make notes. But also feel that was a good idea. And I think my initial thoughts is how much more I love these episodes this time round. Interesting.
00:05:52
Speaker
You might have thought they would have... But like, you know, when you've seen something a couple of times, because I've seen these episodes probably three times now. Yeah. Maybe more. And you'd think I'd get bored of them or like whatever. But i I don't know. I feel like I'm more attached to them. Maybe because I'm less stressed about watching them the first time round. It was quite stressful.
Ahsoka Tano's Transition to Live Action
00:06:12
Speaker
I think this episode was called The Jedi. And we I think we knew that Ahsoka Tana was going to be in it. Yeah. Well, lives that she's already been name dropped, hasn't she? Like the episode before. Yeah. Yes, that's true. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker
Although i don't think we were quite expecting it to be like two episodes later. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was a very stressful experience of like, is Rosario Dawson going to her credit to the character? That's, you know, all these kind of mixed feelings because it's an animated character that you've seen before so many times. And yeah the history of all of that, yeah it makes you, it's like going to see and one of the saga films, yeah you know, like it's, you love it and you cannot wait to see it, but it's also very stressy stressful. What if it's bad?
00:06:55
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, what if it's not exactly what I wrote in my head before? think this is where a lot of people have come unstuck um with Star Wars lately. Yeah, yeah. But ah yeah, I feel like the enough time has gone by and I know the story and I know where this is all going. And so I could just sit back and watch it and just love the kind of skills that have gone into making the episodes and like sort of the audacity in a way about some of it because it's very audacious. It is quite audacious. Yeah. We've got two massive Star Wars names pop up in these two episodes. It's just mind boggling yeah to have them in consecutive episodes yeah shortly after we've just been reintroduced to Bo-Katan. Like, what's going on? Big old name drops going on. They're big episodes. I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle because I haven't seen the animated stuff. no So this is my first meeting of Ahsoka. And that was my first note was that I've heard a lot about her, but I've never met her before. Yeah.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah. That was quite interesting. And I instantly loved her. Yeah. yeah I mean, she's i'm and this is it job I'm going to be so intrigued because, dear listener, it's possibly, i don't know if we've talked about this or not, but after the Mandalorian and Grogu, we have just been looking at our schedule and what we're going to do.
00:08:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Is this a good time to announce this? Yeah. I mean, why not? why not We're not going to be able to keep it secret for long, are we? No, this is it. We can't change our minds. That's the only thing. Okay, good point. But we struggled and pondered over what to cover after the Mandoverse. Yeah.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I possibly rather rashly suggested that we do the Clone Wars, which if you've come into contact with the Clone Wars before, you'll know that's quite a big task. Basically, we're going to be doing this for the next year. yeah It's going to be a long one. We are going to break it up with other episodes. so yeah you know If you're a regular listener and you're like, oh, that much Clone Wars? We are going to be dispersing it yeah Fear not. And we're grouping all together. We're not doing like one episode of Clone Wars every week. Otherwise we'll be here until 2030 something. That'll take the years and years. Yeah, it would be terrible.
00:09:07
Speaker
But with that in mind, I am so intrigued to find out what you make of Ahsoka in The Clone Wars because she's she ends up pretty much where we see her in this. Here, interesting. Interesting. That's nearest in the timeline where she is. Clone Wars ends at Order 66. So that's like 20 something years before this. sure So the Ahsoka we end Clone Wars with is similar in vibe to this Ahsoka. To the Ahsoka we've got now. I think so. Yeah. A little bit different, but but mostly there. But Ahsoka at the beginning of the Clone Wars, which is...
00:09:42
Speaker
I can't remember how many years earlier, is very different. She's quite a bit younger and she's got much more of a lively character. Some might call her annoying. i mean, she's sort of intentionally written like that to wind up Anakin mostly. Yeah, excellent. But like, it's ah it's an incredible character arc, you know, her growth.
00:10:04
Speaker
And where she ends up where she ends up is phenomenal. And the reason we now see her where she is now is, can't wait. I can't wait. I'm intrigued.
00:10:14
Speaker
But I'm intrigued about your perception of her. Of her as we go. Talk it was about that as much as you like as we go through this episode. Yeah, okay. Because as somebody who's not met her before, that is so interesting to me. Yeah. thought she she kind of she kind of comes across very she's very zen at this point isn't she she's quite like i mean she's not she's a killing machine but she's also like but she's also very jedi in the way she kind of holds herself and behaves and she's quite detached that's interesting yeah that's interesting so i kind of saw a a little bit like kind of
00:10:51
Speaker
Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan-ish. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's kind of made his peace yeah with himself a bit, Obi-Wan had by that point. Apart from the fact that everything was crumbling around. Yeah, everything's going to hell with him, but yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
if I know what you mean. He has a sort of serenity about even when he's talking to Padme about things. Yeah, he's still quite, he's quite, quite Buddha, quite detached, quite Jedi, really. Yeah, which is what you want. I guess that's like what Qui-Gon would have always wanted him.
00:11:22
Speaker
Because Qui-Gon was very like that too. Yeah. And then Ahsoka comes across as quite similar to me in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. m I'm kind of interested in her intervening years because Yeah
Character Development: Ahsoka and Grogu
00:11:35
Speaker
where's she been? She goes through a lot She's been through a lot a like i We don't know where she's been since Order 66 I don't think So this is the first time we're hearing of her?
00:11:45
Speaker
I think so yeah Oh no we do Okay that's an answer that we can't give Can't give It's very very complicated Okay Never mind Strike from the record We'll come back to that Circle back Circle back okay good when we've watched all of Clone Wars and all of Asoka.
00:12:03
Speaker
So this is a Dave Filoni directing episode, which is very stylistic of his directorial approach, I think. pretty bleak. Yeah.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah. That's funny if that was in my first sentence. Was it? It's very bleak. Or the planet Corvus, and in particular this area around Caladan is is really bleak. Yeah. The lighting's bleak. Yeah. the shots are bleak. Flora. It's all bleak. Yeah, it's pretty dark. I was quite surprised that he threw a straight in with Ahsoka. I think it was almost like he wanted to get out the way. Like, sure the kind of expectation of how does we translate this animated character into live action.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah. And rather than, like, try and build up to it, was just like, yeah, let's just show her kicking ass. Let's just bung her in straight off the bat. Which she did, yeah. I mean, an episode that starts off with fight is always exciting. Yeah. That's true. As well as being introduced to her, we're introduced to these soldiers of Morgan Elsbeth. Very strange looking, like combat gear. They sound like Daleks. Yeah. Yeah, the sound design is like really kind of warbly. Very, very ring modulated Daleky to me. Yeah. Like Daleks, but a few semitones down. Interesting. I didn't make the Dalek connection. need to listen them again.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah, definitely Daleks. They're very unique. i got I've not heard them. I mean, they sound style-ballsy to me, but yeah i didn't recognize I don't think we've heard anything like it. And my question is, is the are they wearing masks with the kind of rebreather in? Because... Oh, they can't breathe. There's evidently been like apocalypse on this planet yeah to some extent, which going down rabbit holes of other animated series on Disney+, plus there's a mini animated series called Tales of. There's Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire. And in the Tales of the Empire one, we get a bit about Morgan Elspeth's story and how she ends up here on Corvus as the magistrate. Yeah.
00:13:55
Speaker
They're only three episode long things, just like three short episodes, just showing how she came from, where she came from to this point. And I think in that they sort tell you what happened on Corvus. Obviously, it's the Empire is strip mining or like, you know, they're devastating planets left, right and center to build weapons of mass destruction. Whatever they want, yeah.
00:14:15
Speaker
just a bit And I figure that's what's happened here is that they've like absolutely decimated the natural light life on the planet to the point where the trees are all just these horrible swarted looks like stems. and And I wondered if this is why they're wearing masks, is the air the iss not great so polluted or something? But then they're the only ones wearing masks and you'd think then that the magistrate would, or like important people, quote unquote, would would also wear masks if it was that polluted. But unless there are particular species that are more susceptible to it.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah, because we never see one without their wrappings on. So could be they could be another species. It's true. And they have a they have a language when they're talking their own language as well. they i Yeah, I didn't notice that either. Yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
What was I watching? What was I even watching? What were you watching? They sound like Daleks and they have their own language. Yeah, so Morgan is kind of introduced us without much.
00:15:14
Speaker
We're just left to kind of catch up. Just work out who she is. Classic Star Wars storytelling. yeah like Bring us along for the ride. Yes, I wrote lots of intrigue. yeah What information she after? What's going on? Me too. I put capital intrigue. all caps get After the line, then you know what I want. That's a big foreshadowing to my favourite line at the end of the episode. excellent I love the fact that she's got these two droids that look a bit like her soldiers. They're kind of similar colour and so on. They're HK-87 assassin droids, which I think Mando name checks them. Guess what they sound like. What do they sound like? Cybermen.
00:15:58
Speaker
It's the whole Doctor Who episode. It's a very Doctor Who episode. know yeah they do. They sound almost exactly like Cybermen. I was like, wait, what universe are we in again? What's happening? Well, I wouldn't put it past Filoni and his like sound team to have watched Doctor Doctor Who's quite popular in the US, I think. Yeah, that's true. Among geeky circles. Excellent. I love these assassin droids. I love how they walk.
00:16:26
Speaker
um They look cool. They are very cool. And they're obviously quite expensive because she's only got two, I think. Yes. C2. But they're pretty intense. The whole city looks straight out of a samurai film. I mean, this is another big samurai-influenced film. Yeah, massively. I wrote, you've got these ominous gates that are very like, they look like something from the labyrinth.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. The the main gate, which has got the bell tower up above it, yeah is shaped like the... There's like an archway in Nima Outpost in The Force Awakens on Jakku.
00:17:01
Speaker
And I think it's become like a Star Wars aesthetic to have these kind of... testinging It's like a trapezoid shape, you know, with like a shorter top and longer bottom, but with like rounded corners. If you look where the falcon crashes into it and as it's blasting out of an outpost. Yeah. And I think it's the same shape. I'm sure I've seen them elsewhere in Star Wars as well. I think it's become like... Become a thing. Galactic, you know, architecture. Yeah, it quite labyrinth-y though. I know what you mean. Just the city wall and everything. Yeah.
00:17:33
Speaker
Almost expecting a giant robot powered by a goblin to come out of it. We're not far off that. That was the vibe. Mando's coming into land. He's going to start the landing cycle, which is a classic Luke Skywalker line for Empire Strikes Back. Yeah.
The Mandalorian's Cinematic Moments
00:17:50
Speaker
Now we all know that you have to have a landing cycle when you're bringing Shipham. Get back in your seat. Yeah, he's not listening. Grogo is not listening. not having it. Oh no, he does do it. He does do it. He does do it.
00:18:01
Speaker
It just takes him two. Yeah. And then he uses the force to unscrew those nick the little thing. Which again is another foreshadowing for later on in the episode. yeah As he flies in, the soldier on the wall oh yeah is like tracking him He's got like a tracker like in Yavin in A New Hope. the falcon flies in to land in Yavin when they first arrive.
00:18:26
Speaker
There's a rebel trooper standing in what was actually a rubbish bin according to the making of on a pole and he's he's like measuring or doing something with this like tracker yeah and we saw one in the rise of skywalker as well when they crash landed on the planet where the death star is the moon of endor yeah tiny little easter egg tiny little bits love it My next note was prisoner tubes are horrid. Yeah, they really are awful. This is incredibly bleak. I think they come from Knights of the Old Republic, the computer game, which I have to confess I've not played, so I can't. I'm delivering that secondhand from Children of the Watch because they know nicely of the Republic really well. Shout out to Children of the Watch. We love you. But yeah, apparently they feature in that somewhere in a similar way. But they're pretty cruel, they? Because you just can't relax up there. No, you get electrocuted.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah. Who? Not nice. I didn't like that at all. I liked, there was a, you know, the torture droid from Jabba's Palace. Yes. You know, we talked about him having like a moon head, like the race moons with the narrow heads. Yeah. And it's got those one of them walking down the street the city. Oh, I didn't spot that. Yeah. I think I do you did for the first time this watch through. We get to meet Wing. He is actually played by a guy called Wing, Wing Tao Chow, who is an executive at Disney. He's super involved in the architecture of the parks and developing the theme parks and the resorts and stuff. And he's just randomly here. He eventually becomes the new magistrate. The new magistrate of the He takes back over. He's like the leader of the rebellion, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
Way to use your job perks. I want a part in this Mandalorian show. It sounds good. He's going be involved. He's really good. He's great. So then we've got this whole like moment with the magistrate and Mando being like, go and kill the Jedi for me.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, a Jedi plagues me. she's Yes. yeah That was almost my my line. but That's a good line. She explains that the Jedi are the ancient enemy. Or is it Mando that says that? No, she says it. She says that they're the ancient enemy. She's appealing to him. Yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah. which doesn't really work because he's looking for a Jedi, but he pretends to allow it to work. And she shows him the, is this where she shows him the spear? Yes. The best car spear.
00:21:02
Speaker
The sound design of that yeah is incredible. I know you were just about to stealing it. Jumping in, jumping in. But the whole like, it's like metal and then some. yeah That's a brilliant way to describe think it's layers and layers and then there's more. Yeah. And it's really, it does insane sound things. And like later on when we see fighting with it as well, it's just like yeah every sound it makes is just wow beautiful. Yeah, we hear like it against stone or whatever she's walking on. And then we hear it as Mando taps it against his Beskar armor. we hear Beskar on Beskar. Yeah. Which has got that kind of ring. But then like you say later on, the lightsaber She whacks it as well. Yes, she does. Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
She's great. She's so awesome. She's really cool, but also really scary. Yeah. ah Terrifying woman. but Yeah, she's really awesome.
00:21:57
Speaker
m Played by Diana Lee Inosanto, who I've never seen in anything else, but she's... nay She absolutely nails this. She's very understated, but also has a massive presence about her. I don't know how she does it. By being really scary. Yeah. Which is the perfect villain, isn't it? It's like somebody who's scary without you actually understanding why...
00:22:22
Speaker
Why they're scary. She doesn't say much scary and she doesn't particularly speak in way scary voice exactly, but she's just got a presence about her. Did you notice, Mando goes off to do his thing, there's a little creature shot, but it's a different kind of creature shot than we normally get. No. No? ah Yes! Yes.
00:22:40
Speaker
So he goes off. He says something like, we must be close. And as he's saying that, you've got a ah wide shot of Mando carrying Grogu through the forest. And in the foreground is a tiny little owl. Yes. I thought we were talking about the her still back in the city. Oh, no, we're out the city now. Okay, so... What is the owl? I've said this is Wizard of Oz vibes. okay. When they're walking through the wild forest. Yes. you remember on their way just before they get to the poppy field? yeah. yeah They're in the forest where they meet the lion, in fact. Yeah. It's the lions and tigers and bears bit. Yeah. And there's an owl on the tree. This isn't why there's an owl there, but it's why it gave me Wizard of Oz vibes. Like there's an owl with light-up eyes in the Wizard of Oz that always used to freak me out a little bit. okay That makes sense. This creature is called a Convor. Convor. And this particular one is called Morai. Ooh. Morai the Convor. Name checked. And when we watched Clone Wars, there's an incredible three-episode arc called Secrets of Mortis. Without giving anything much away, we find out the Convor called Morai is very spiritually connected with a character called the Daughter, who's from that Mortis trilogy. Okay. Okay. And that ultimately has a very deep connection with Ahsoka. Okay. whenever we see Ahsoka or whenever we're about to see Ahsoka in any format, watch out that we often see Morai flying around. Okay. We've seen Morai Clone Wars. We've seen Morai in Rebels. Now we've seen them in a Mandalorian. And then i think we see in Ahsoka as well. okay It's very, very connected and I don't want to send you a wife to spoil lots of story points. Ooh, intrigue. Intrigue. Intrigue me. Ultimately, what it does for your Mando watchers who are Clone Wars fans, it made us know, oh, he's about to find her. He's about to find her. Which he does say, we must be close. Yeah, it's that funny owl thing.
00:24:44
Speaker
Lions and tigers and bears. Why did we not have a lions and bears line? I really wish they'd throw one of those there. That would have been funny. it We get a little mini fight. Yes. Where we start to see how Mandalorian weaponry fights. Built for the Jedi. Jedi skills, yeah. Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker
We've got flamethrowers, grapples. I mean... She does a bit Jedi jumping. She's definitely going to have him, though. She's definitely going to... I mean, she's very, very up there, I think, in her skills by this point. Yeah. I love her line where she's like, i hope it's about him. Yes. she's just like She switches so quickly from like, I'm going to murder you to, what's this guy about? Oh, look at that cute little green guy. Now, I'm intrigued that she may have come across Grogu before. like It's not referenced at all, but she would have been very, very young, I guess.
00:25:39
Speaker
She doesn't say that she's met him before, but then... Yeah. She was around the Jedi Temple during the Clone Wars, and that's when Grogu would have been there. Maybe. Who knows? It's a big temple, I guess. yeah Yeah, it's a big temple. She's probably had other things to do. Totally. And we don't really know about Grogu's past there yet. We've only seen little glimpses or, yeah spoiler alert, we will be seeing little glimpses of his past. But we don't see much. So we don't know if he was widely known about. It could be that he was kept secret in the temple, which, yeah, potentially as a young version of Yoda, you know. Yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
Everybody is in awe of Yoda's skills. Maybe they didn't want people know about Grogu. Know about him as well. That would make sense. It might be somebody's secret love child, like Yoda's secret love child. That would be scandalous. Or they kept him hidden for fear of gossip of him being Yoda's secret love child. Yeah, that's probably more likely.
00:26:33
Speaker
Except for we don't know any other of that species, do we? No. Well, this baffled me. Interesting. because we get that line somewhere. i can't remember what the line was, but she sort of implies that Yoda was the only one of his species that she's never known. But Yaddle is one of the Jedi Council. yeah. Yeah. And I don't think there's been anywhere where they've said Yaddle isn't the same species of Yoda. I mean, they look a little different. And Yaddle doesn't do the interesting like sentence structure that Yoda does, you know, yeah flipping words around and everything. She just speaks in normal basic. Yeah. But I've always assumed she's the same as Yoda.
00:27:12
Speaker
She's the same species. Oh, on Wikipedia it says there's only two. Just Grogu and Yoda. Just Grogu and Yoda. Maybe Yaddle is another species then. Is a different species. Now, that's research. Wow. That's something we've got to look up. yeah Because there is another Jedi that's short with pointy ears. Yeah. That is a different... He's not green. I can't remember his name. I don't think he makes it.
00:27:34
Speaker
Well, none them make it ultimately, do they? Well, no. Too soon. don't And I always was aware that he wasn't the same species because he wasn't green. But Yaddle, I'm sure, is green. Interesting. But maybe not. Yaddle voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard, incidentally. Ah. well Yeah. Well, in Tales of the Jedi, I think it is. Yeah, because in Tales of the Jedi... It's little three episode series about Ahsoka as a young child and how she became part of the Jedi Temple, how she was taken from her home planet and her family and everything yeah and learned to be a Jedi. And during that, I'm sure she's being instructed by Yaddle. Interesting. Yeah, we've got to do some research about this. Okay, that might be a plot hole.
00:28:18
Speaker
We'll come back to it. All right. We'll back around. but So when she's having this little, they have a little meditate together. i love that. It's so quiet and peaceful. It's a beautiful shot. There's forest and ambient sound going on and yeah the lighting is all very warm. Yeah. And there's just like no rush. I like how Filoni just took his time. Yeah. And Grogu's making little noises and Ahsoka's kind of smiling Yeah. Which we're not used to seeing Ahsoka smiling. Yeah.
00:28:49
Speaker
She's quite a serious person of late. Not something she's done so far. This is my favourite. Is that your favourite music cue? Yeah. Yeah. I did like that as a music cue. It's probably potentially not my favourite of the two episodes because there's another music cue later on. Oh, yeah. But I did really like this one. yeah it was lovely. It's like a solo flute of some kind. yeah And then it's just that for a little while. And then we just get that little single violin, like high pedal note that just the first violins are playing and it just stays there. And it's just so slow and simple, like the scene. Yeah. That's the only bit of the episode. That and the daytime shots when they're kind of looking at what Grogu can do amongst all the moths.
00:29:32
Speaker
They're the only shots that don't feel bleak. Yeah, yeah. It's the little warm part of the episode. the little fuzzy part. Yeah. sometimes Sad But then we get all this Grogu
Fan Reactions and Character Portrayals
00:29:44
Speaker
love. Yeah.
00:29:44
Speaker
And we know that his name is Grogu now. Yes. Oh, you can imagine the controversy when that happened. Really? Loads of the fandom like, oh, we don't like it. We don't like it. then eventually like calling him Grogu and loving it. Yeah, yeah. Just have to get used to something.
00:29:59
Speaker
i'd immediately loved it. To me, like Yoda, Grogu is not miles away. But it's far enough away that it's not just trying to be Yoda, you know. yeah yeah very distinctive not trying the same it was our first like if we're going to go with the adult not being the same species thing yeah it's our first other name you know and a name tells you quite bit about species about how they yeah speak and so it's just really interesting to hear that that's true hadn't thought that it like that i love all of the little he does all these little like cute noises and faces whenever kind of a mando says his name but we get more of that creature babble now as well yeah that's not babble yeah grogu's definitely getting a bigger like repertoire of stuff yeah um yeah i think din is doing exactly what we'd have all been doing just grogu just to get the response which ties in into the beginning of next episode so beautifully yeah Dank Ferric. Yeah. So good.
00:30:57
Speaker
I love seeing his fatherly, like when Ahsoka's waiting for him to send the stone back to her. Yeah. And Mando's just like jerking his head. so Go on. You can do Go on. Don't let me down, boy. Do the thing. But then she goes off on this little, I've only seen one other with this power and yeah and fear. and yeah And are we having a little cheeky Anakin reference? Yeah, could well be. could well be she's very wary of of fear. Anakin.
00:31:25
Speaker
she was very very close to hannnakinn and In the intervening years since Order 66, she has figured out who Anakin became and right that's been plaguing her, I imagine.
00:31:38
Speaker
She points out that Grogu's hidden his abilities to survive over the years, which is why he's kind of hesitant to do it to order, I guess. Yeah. She she encourages Din to get involved to like see if yes you know he might have any more luck. Yeah, Grogu obviously kind of trusts Din. Yeah. Although Din says that would be a first. She says, I want i want to see if he'll listen to you.
00:32:02
Speaker
it's like, nope. Nope. No, he won't. He's stubborn. But he does. And Mando is so proud when he does it. He's so chuffed. The Grosgoes done it.
00:32:15
Speaker
But also, like Mando's seen this child lift a mudhorn. He knows that he can do more than rock. Yeah.
00:32:28
Speaker
And then we get new plan. Yeah. Side quest. Yeah. A Mandalorian and a Jedi. They'll never see it coming. That was almost my favorite line as well. I love that one. Yeah, yeah. That was also another. I did have that one as well. Yeah, the plan goes into action.
00:32:43
Speaker
basically the rest of the episode, isn't it? this It is. The rest of the episode is the plan. Retaking the town and getting the spear. I loved Ahsoka cutting the bell in half, like yeah the clang of it as it collapsed and and the visuals of like these two molten halves of the bell. Yes. Really cool. Yeah, coming down. So that is another amazing music cue. Mm-hmm.
00:33:06
Speaker
As she's walking up to the magistrate yeah in that instance where she chucks a bit of ah Mando's armor down. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, but as she's walking, there's loads of strange little pitch bendy percussion things going off in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it sounds cool.
00:33:24
Speaker
I think I put something about like dark but very sparse electronica. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of what it is. It is very sparse, but it's like there's all these little, they sound like kind of tuned percussion hits, but then they pitch bend off into like weird directions that you're not expecting. And it's really cool. I had to listen to it twice. I love that. That reminds me of like...
00:33:43
Speaker
Eastern, I don't know if it would be Japanese or or Chinese or Korean, but like the gongs, they have gongs that pitch change as you hit them. Okay. I don't know if it's the way the gongs are built or all the way that you play them, but they do that kind of sound. Yeah. Which sounds like what you're describing, but like maybe done yeah electronically or with samples or something. I don't know. I don't know It's very, it's quite low in the mix as well. Like you have to be listening out for it. Okay. That's probably why missed it.
00:34:10
Speaker
That's awesome. But it's clever. Yeah. Sounds cool. I've just had a really random realisation. The shot I was talking about where she cuts the bell in a half, I've just figured out why it hit me so much. Have you ever played Wii Sports Resort? Yes. And there's like one of the sword fighting games is like you have to race the other opponent and and there's a guy that chucks, he looks like chef out of South Park and he chucks objects in front of you and you have to slice them in a particular way. slice them And when you sit they're like big grapefruits or like birthday cakes or whatever, random things land and you have to swipe in a particular direction. It looks exactly like the way she cut the bell diagonally.
00:34:52
Speaker
Nice. And then we need Wii Sports Resort, Sabre, whatever it is, but like Soka version. nice but blu Yeah, I've just read ah my notes about the HK-87 speaking. You were talking about the soldiers speaking their own language. I was wondering about the assassindroids.
00:35:15
Speaker
They sound like they're speaking Huttese, which yeah is possible because I imagine the Hutt cartel would be the kind of people who would produce assassindroids to sell yeah or be part of like that part of the criminal underworld. yeah But i wonder if that's what the soldiers are speaking, or whether it's a whole different language. differently In the subtitles, it just says alien language, which is a bit disappointing. Yeah, I would think they would say Huttese if it was Huttese. Sometimes they say stuff like that. Yeah, not always. Not always. It could be just like the native language of Corvus, whatever that sounds like. We don't really know who native to Corvus. I don't know.
00:35:51
Speaker
I'm guessing all of the humans that we're seeing are probably like imperial workers or whatever. Yeah. I did read on her second-in-commander, her captain, Lang. Oh, yeah. And I think he's like a mercenary. don't think he's... He is, isn't he? He's not from there either. No. He's another gun for hire because he tries to appeal to Mando about it. Yeah, like we can just flip the script kind of thing. We can just leave because we're... Yeah, definitely.
00:36:18
Speaker
Which probably, i mean, based on what we know now that this is kind of an imperial... like resources gathering thing that's going on here. yeah like Morgan Elspeth is trying to like step her way up through the imperial hierarchy by doing this kind of thing, you know exploiting planets and civilizations for whatever they can offer the Empire. Yeah, yeah. But I guess knowing what we know about the Empire wouldn't be too much of stretch to think, oh, yeah, they've just like brought in some hired guns or whatever. they don't have to have stormtrooper detachments or anything like that. They can just have whoever. Just have whoever they need. And these random droids. The animation of the droids, especially there's one that climbs up on the roof and it's got that same style that IG-11 has, which looks like stop motion animation. They're super weird. They're really weird. They're quite freaky looking. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
And don't like it. Yeah, that whole he's behind you, it's behind you thing. Yeah. and And he crawls around. Really creepy, yeah. like it ah Like Lang says, so you threw him with the Jedi, and Mando says, looks that way. and it it Looks that way. It's Clint Eastwood. is I mean, he yeah clearly there's a lot of Clint Eastwood in the inspiration for for Din's performance, but that particular line was about as Clint as it's got so far. You sort of want him to just spit out a little cigarilla whatever it's called. Wrap his poncho around his shoulder and then amble off.
00:37:50
Speaker
So then we've got a samurai standoff between Lightsaber and Beskar Spear. Yeah. Which, what? Diana Lee Inosanto. Excuse me, what? It looks like she's doing the fight. it's like we were talking about the other week with Bronwyn about Cara Dune being played by Gina Carreira. It's like, if you cast somebody who can do this stuff and it looks like she can do this stuff.
00:38:10
Speaker
Like her yeah her poise and... She goes from being like really steady and flat facial expression, you know, really neutral to then suddenly you get this like little moment of aggression as she does, ah which is very martial artsy.
00:38:25
Speaker
very cool. Just that kind of control that she has. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. And as you mentioned earlier, the sound design of the sabres on Beskar. Oh my God, it's so good. Loads of these Filoni-like shots that we've talked about before. They're kind of very, very perpendicular on so that both characters are equally spaced. It's very symmetrical with a level-like ground. I noticed there was a lot water in the foreground. We can see the pond, the koi pond whatever it is. Well, she's in water garden, isn't she? Yeah. she feeding something at one point? I can see something. She does feed the fish at some point. The classic. It's like a proper... But there's a lot of the water in the foreground. I'm not sure whether that meant anything or was just interesting framing, but it was all very, like three very specific angles, straight on, like perpendicular, and then the over the shoulder of each side in the fight. Sometimes different distances or different lenses, but it's very precise, precisely shot and precisely performed. And Ahsoka loses a lightsaber to the water. Yeah, to the fish. She probably got back before she left. We don't really know. Yeah, and it looks as though things might be turning, but you've got to get up earlier than that to catch her so cry. She does look a bit nervous, but I think she was just goading Elspeth into a full sense of security. Yeah, yeah. And then get her. She keeps the sabre backhanded, because she traditionally holds one forehand and one backhand, if that makes sense. One backhand, yeah. And she keeps the backhand one and disarms Elspeth with that one hand. It's just ridiculous. Yeah.
00:40:05
Speaker
She's too powerful. She is. She's very, very powerful and just really fast and awesome. Yeah. Love her. Yeah. Mando and the captain, have little... Oh, they have a little thing. Yeah, little quick draw. A little thing. little quick draw moment, like you're beat Mandalorian. and Even though the captain guy fakes putting his gun down. like Yeah, we all saw that coming. Still way too slow.
00:40:31
Speaker
yeah It wasn't going to happen. So our two heroes, our hero and our new hero, win the day. We get the Grand Admiral Thorn Drop, which we've already covered. Yes.
00:40:41
Speaker
And then we get this he gets a Beskar spear, but also this really, really gorgeous version of the theme at the celebration at the end. Oh my gosh, yeah. Like with the people. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds so cool. It's like a recorder ensemble or something. Yeah, yeah. It's a really medieval... It reminds me of, I know what it reminds me of now. It reminds me of, okay, so occasionally I teach really, really niche workshops at the aerial studio that work in. And one of the ones I've been doing recently is pole mythical creatures because there's loads of pole moves named after mythical creatures. So because of that, I've been using bardcore adventure music as my playlist. gosh.
00:41:28
Speaker
Bardcore remixes of stuff. And that is exactly what it sounds like. That absolutely sounds right. It reminds me of like Blackadder series 2, I think it is. Yes. Which has similar vibes. I thought at first it was almost diegetic because we see them celebrating in the city. Yeah. But then if we cut our away to this other scene where Mando is sort of going to say goodbye to Grogu because he thinks he's going to... Yeah, terrible. But the recorder ensemble carries on over that scene, which is weird.
00:41:59
Speaker
Maybe because it's just that good. Yeah. Ahsoka sets him off on his journey. Off on your next mission. This is just basically a go on, bugger off. Yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker
Oh my God. My last note for this episode was a question I wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard a rabbit growl? Yes. That's what Grogu sounds like. Yes.
00:42:22
Speaker
I wonder if it is When he's babbling. It might be a rabbit growling. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of... almost That's almost exactly the sound. I've heard Ewoks make similar sound. I think not all Ewoks, but the younger Ewoks, I think, maybe. Do. In a similar way. Could be. Could also be rabbits. Interesting. Yeah. But yeah, what a banger of an episode. What a great reintroduction of Ahsoka and introduction into live action.
00:42:47
Speaker
she looked awesome. She did. Rosario just nails it. She totally gets... Like the fact that she's taken where we left Ahsoka and then come forward sort of a couple of decades and borne in mind what may have happened to Ahsoka in that time.
00:43:02
Speaker
She's just so good. Yeah. yeah We love her. She's cool. I'm in. Want more of that. Don't worry, we're getting it. Need some backstory. Yeah, we've got to do all the backstory. Two animated series to get through for that. and Oh my God. And then, because you can't even say that the Rebel stuff isn't important because she's not in all of Rebels, but but when she's in it, she's in it. A lot happens. Okay.
00:43:27
Speaker
All right. Like feeds into her character and but what's been happening and everything else. so But then we've got the Ahsoka series as well, which is just yeah lush. Yeah. Where is that in the timeline? Around this time.
00:43:39
Speaker
like There's debate whether it's between season two and three of Mando or whether it's just after season three, because we do see her pop up in one of the other episodes of what we're doing in the the coming weeks. yeah She reappears briefly. i think the idea is that she then goes off on her mission.
00:43:56
Speaker
while Mando is going off doing his mission. And then the word is, we kind of alongside we haven't heard this ultimately yet, but I mean, we've heard rumours of it, but we haven't had any confirmation that there's going to be a big movie event eventually that's the coming together of all of the Mandoverse and possibly skeleton crew as well.
00:44:17
Speaker
And so it'll all Rebels characters as well because they're in the Ahsoka stuff yeah okay yeah against probably Grand Admiral Thrawn. I think that's where it's all going. And Filoni's going to do those movies. Intrigue. Yeah. I mean, we're all just hoping that all still happens. like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lucasfilm have announced so many Star Wars projects in the last few years that have just disappeared. Disappeared, yeah, yeah. But being as, like, Filoni like, creative director or whatever his job title is of Lucasfilm, I don't think they're going to, like, if anything was going to get chopped, his film isn't going to be one of those things. Yeah. And they've invested in all of This is a big investment. This show and the Ahsoka show and the Book of Boba Faire. Sure. It's all, like, leading into that. Yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
All right. On to the tragedy. Chapter 14. Yeah. ah ah Very different episode. Very different vibes. On all sorts of levels. We've got Robert Rodriguez directing, who I knew the name, but I had to look up the films that I've seen he's done, which is From Dusk Till Dawn, Tarantino movie. Amazing film. Such a wild one. And Sin City, which I I must seen it around when it came out, but that have been several decades ago. I've seen it, but again, a long time ago. I think he's quite into all sorts of things. He's apparently a composer as well as an editor, as well as cinematographer and VFX supervisor. He's just a multi-talented He's got lot going on. Yeah. What struck me the most, I think struck most people the most, is the fact that this is probably the only episode that we've had not shot in the volume. Oh, I did wonder that. Yeah. It feels very different, doesn't it? Yeah, it does feel different.
00:46:05
Speaker
Is this all on location then? I think so, yeah. i always assumed it was, and everything I'd heard about it was that it was, that it's in the Californian Hills, near Thousand Oaks. And I just thought i'd do a bit of checking on that this morning, and somewhere said, oh no, it was filmed in the volume.
00:46:23
Speaker
yeah. much to everybody's like thing, but everywhere else. And I found videos of people walking up Rocky Peak Park, which is where it is, like with their pieces of paper showing you the scenes of the film and like finding the shots and it's there, you know. yes if If they didn't go and do it there, somebody went and filmed that area so meticulously and then 3D projected it into the volume, which would have been a massive waste of time when when you've got it there. I can imagine their thinking was like, well, let's make Tython We'll talk about Tython in a minute yeah because it's got history. like Let's make it like the Californian Heels. Then we can at least do a live action episode on location yeah without it feeling wrong. Yeah, sure.
00:47:06
Speaker
That's kind of what it felt like. And I can imagine Robert Rodriguez thinking, yeah, let's do that. I'd rather do that. do it and I can imagine being the kind of director that wants to get out there and be pretty. Yeah. Yeah, have stormtroopers running around on rocks and stuff. Yeah. Which which is fun. yeah Looks fun, was fun, liked it. So this beginning, beginning of this episode, we've got the little exchange that they have in the ship, which we kind of talked about. Sort of reminding us of like Grogu doing his thing. Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
But is this, my note there was, is this Mando really starting to hope that he doesn't have to leave him? I think it's us, like it's feeding us that. Yeah, like yeah. Mando may or may not be realising what's happening to him. Right.
00:47:52
Speaker
But we obviously are. Yeah. He's sowing seeds for us. Like Mando's line when he says, when the nice lady said you had training, i just, you're very special, kid. Yeah. It's like...
00:48:03
Speaker
We already knew he was going to find it. We knew was going to find it hard to separate. Like he'd already made that decision to go after him in season one and rescue him from what he had delivered him to show essentially.
00:48:16
Speaker
And since then they've been on so many adventures together and how could you ever part from Grogu? Yeah, that's true. I struggle. Yeah. I'd struggle. There were some very, like, not predictable exactly, but very familiar sounding strings during that conversation.
00:48:34
Speaker
They were just, like, emotional string arranging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Manipulative, some might call it. Yeah, yeah. They didn't have to push too far in any direction. It was just like, we don't have to, like, overthink this scene. Yeah, yeah. We'll just make it.
00:48:50
Speaker
We'll make a nice... So should I give you a little Tython yes tithon background? my next note was lol magic rock, but... Which what Mando calls it. Yeah.
00:49:03
Speaker
And he's pretty much right. Okay. for Tell me. For those of us who have grown up in in the UK, it's a bit like when we had our conversation about Acht-O when we did The Last Jedi. Yeah.
00:49:15
Speaker
In that we live in places that look like this. Okay, we don't live in places like the Californian mountains. We do live near places where there are stone circles or ancient monuments. There's one like 40 minutes down the road from me. Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty around there. Plenty around there,
Exploration of Star Wars Lore
00:49:32
Speaker
yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you've been to most of them.
00:49:34
Speaker
They all look similar to this, so it's got that ancient feel. Okay, so Tython as a planet originates, like Grand Admiral Thrawn, in the Legends Expanded Universe. Okay. And it's in the deep core.
00:49:47
Speaker
which I think they've carried that continuity into the new Disney canon, the fact that it's in the deep core, which is like the very, very middle of the galaxy. Okay. It's kind of a mysterious place where there's a lot of force stuff happens, which kind of makes sense, I suppose. Yeah. And it's...
00:50:05
Speaker
Ancient inhabitants were visited by like some of the earliest intergalactic traveller, people who got off their planets. like It was visited really early days with, I don't if it hundreds of thousands of years before, but like a long, long time ago. Okay. And there was a force called the Jedi. Okay.
00:50:22
Speaker
who established themselves as like force users. yeah And they were constantly, the force on Tython was constantly in balance between two moons. One of them is called Ashla and one of them is called Bogan.
00:50:36
Speaker
That in itself is interesting because Ahsoka's original name was going to be Ashla, which comes from mythology from India, I believe. yeah Ashla, I'm sure. So yeah, and and when there was some kind of interruption in that balance, there'd be force storms and bad stuff would happen, including a situation where a ship from this group of aliens called the Rakatan Infinite Empire, they crash landed on the planet and disrupted the balance of the force.
00:51:06
Speaker
And there was a massive force storm, And eventually the light side wins. And as a result of that, it evolved into the Jedi Order rather than the Jedi Order. Okay.
00:51:19
Speaker
And so there's a book in the expanded universe called Dawn of the Jedi, which deals with all this. And there was a comic run as well about it at the time. So there is like history in that. But obviously they've sort of picked some of that and kept it and and then dropped it in the new canon. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:35
Speaker
James Mangold, a filmmaker, he's currently working on, apparently, a film called Dawn of the Jedi, oh which I'm guessing will be set here, think. So they've got the location. Yeah. Yeah. Rocky Peak Park. Rocky Peak Park. Just outside Thousand Oaks.
00:51:54
Speaker
Okay. So what is the magic rock, please? So I think it's just like a, well, they call it seeing stone, don't they? Seeing stone, yes. It's obviously a place that's very strong in the force. Like it's maybe it's a kind of force nexus sort of thing where like convergence is like ley lines, I guess. Yeah. It's our mystical equivalent of that. Sure. It feels like to me, I don't know, I don't think we've ever had explained to us, but that's just my instinct. Yeah, yes. That would make sense. place that's strong, that if you sit on it, it kind of amplifies your, like, force abilities. So Goku can sit on there and call out to the force, which normally wouldn't travel far enough or with enough power to be received by anybody, but by sitting on the seeing stone.
00:52:37
Speaker
There is text around the seeing stone, yes which I don't know if anybody's successfully translated or read. I don't know what font it is. It's obviously some ancient, yeah yeah many, many thousands of years ago. we don't know.
00:52:52
Speaker
So, yeah, I just thought it was like a kind of amplification. Did Bo-Katan say something like that about it? Maybe. I don't know. oh I don't know. Ahsoka said, go here, put him on the seeing stone.
00:53:05
Speaker
He'll call out if he wants to. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just like a big radio transmitter that sends out force signal to whoever's... Well, he does go into like super meditator mode. Yeah. Yeah. And he's exhausted after because I think he's actively doing something.
00:53:22
Speaker
i think when I first watched it, I thought he got like pulled into a trance, but i think he consciously he does it is reaching out to people. Yeah. He's trying to find another Jedi. Yeah. I think he's got the gist of what's going on since talking to Ahsoka. And Ahsoka probably...
00:53:36
Speaker
told him stuff, you know, with their mind-meld or whatever. However they were communicating. And then my next note was, oh hello, we know that ship. Yes! Oh, my gosh. We've seen this before! But not only do we hear it as we heard it in Empire, which is probably... Oh, we also heard it in the prequels, didn't But we get that lovely Doppler as it flies out. It's so realistic. I don't know, something about them being on location. And obviously they're just doing like tracking shots and then like motion tracking that to then get the ship to fly over.
00:54:12
Speaker
But the sound design with the Doppler effect. It's great. Yeah, this is like... didgeridoo sound, which becomes part of the score for Boba. yes Now, Tamara comes from New Zealand and didgeridoos come from Australia, yes which doesn't quite match up. no I don't know if they have like the same kind of thing on New Zealand, but I kind of feel like an American writers don't necessarily go into that level of detail. But I know that Tamara is very passionate about
00:54:43
Speaker
the character of Boba Fett. I feel like you were going to say about the didgeridoo. Maybe he could be. But he's also very like proud of his New Zealand ancestry. And yeah there is some of that incorporated into the character of Boba Fett in the book of Boba Fett, as we'll find out. like They actually brought some of that into his performance and even i think costuming and stuff like that. and So I think musically they're being a bit liberal with the way that they're using traditional instruments of a country not far from of thing.
00:55:18
Speaker
I mean, it works. like boba Who's to say Boba wouldn't have a didgeridoo as his theme tune? Yeah, I reckon he might. But if we really wanted to get to the nitty gritty, yeah. Where are your traditional New Zealand instruments? Exactly. Interesting. I believe there is a similar instrument from New Zealand. Maybe that. We might be assuming it's a d Maybe it's this the New Zealand version of that.
00:55:42
Speaker
Either way, it's a cool sound. and It is a cool sound. It's a sound good. We kind of hear it along with the sound of Slave 1 as it flies over. Yeah. yeah So then they have a little fight. Yeah. And then we get what was nearly my favorite line, which is, let's all put our weapons down and have a chat. and Have a chat. Yeah.
00:56:03
Speaker
I reckon that was a Tamara improv. Like his his personality is just so coming out of there. Before that, I wrote about seven lines of his down, eight lines of his just in succession.
00:56:17
Speaker
I'm here for the armour. Yeah. I don't want your armour. I want my armour. armour. A massive thing, which I've heard other people speak about, is the way he says Tatooine. He says Tatooine.
00:56:27
Speaker
Tatooine. Tatooine. Which is like, it's so good. It's almost bordering on the two names for Thing, which we track. The two pronunciations. I mean, we had that with Jakku Jakku.
00:56:39
Speaker
yeah now we're getting it with Tatooine and Tatooine. It's a subtle thing. He says it a lot in the Book of Boba Fett. It's really cool. It sounds like he owns the place. somehow Yeah. ah And he gave us like the epic I'm a Simple Man making his way through the place. I did write that down and then I was like, I like the put our weapons and have a chat blind bed.
00:57:02
Speaker
The simple man line, I think I'm right in remembering. And one of them says... Django said it And one of them says galaxy and one of them says universe. Yeah. I can't remember which I think it might have been Django make my way through the universe.
00:57:16
Speaker
Yeah. And then Boba, they've like brought it back to galaxy because we talk about the Star Wars galaxy more often. Yeah. I give my allegiance to no one. can't do his accent.
00:57:27
Speaker
I got a little bit distracted during this episode because so much was going on. So I kind of forgot to make notes. But the notes that I have made are things like, oh, oh more ships. Yeah. So it kind of keeps escalating. We've got Fennec, first of all.
00:57:43
Speaker
Well, we got Boba initially. Boba's like our first level of, my gosh. And then Fennec is suddenly back in the mix. And we find out a little bit about Shio's Boba. She's got life debt. Yeah, for rescuing her. And then we get the Imperial dropships coming in and Stormtroopers.
00:57:58
Speaker
ah That's like our first fight. is sit Well, we get two levels of the fight. One is with Boba and he's got his Gadify, his Gaffy Stick. Oh my God. so violent. like He's Cracking stormtrooper helmets left, right, centre.
00:58:14
Speaker
so good. That is wild. Brilliantly performed like his the the kind of physicalisation that he does as he's making these movies. And it's when we see the Book of Boba Fett and how he learned to fight with that weapon. is You can see all of that, but also Boba Fett. You know, we've got the Mandalorians. Mandalorian meets Tuscan. Yeah. So, like, perfectly performed and really well shot. There was another contender for my favourite line just as before we get that, like, massive fight with Boba Fett, which was, flank them, you idiots. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:48
Speaker
The stormtroopers get more and more panicked. It's so funny. So there they come down and then another one comes down, doesn't it? Like there's one dropship and then there's another one appears just when they think yeah they've got it. And this lot bring out a grenade launcher and an media repeater or heavy you repeater. We've got a good old boulder trick for that. Yeah, I love that.
00:59:10
Speaker
Mowing troopers down with a boulder that she has to push with her feet. Oh, I just thought actually, like, yeah, i wonder if she used her bionic... core muscle so like because she's got this kind of new bionic replacement and core to give her the strength because that would be a real core exercise of pushing boulders yeah yeah off the side of a mountain Mando's trying to get Grogu off failing ah yeah and yeah. He's not having a time. So he goes to he goes to try and help with the fight again. Yeah. And he saves Fennec with his whistling birds. Yes. And then Boba reappears yes with his armour on, looking absolutely wild. There is a shot of Fennec just before this where she jumps backwards while shooting to land on the grass. my God.
00:59:59
Speaker
I was like, come on. Okay. And Fennec is amazing. She's just the best. So at this point...
01:00:12
Speaker
It's time. It's West End Geek Girls for all you regulars. You know what that is. It's where we delve into Star Wars the role-playing game, the West End game's early version of
Boba Fett's Armor and Character Evolution
01:00:22
Speaker
it. Tell me. I debated. like i was originally going to do about the Assassin droids, but I think I'm going to do that another time because they come back. Or similar. Anyway. Interesting. I stumbled upon a page in the source book about Boba Fett, and there's just a really nice couple of paragraphs about his armour because okay this episode is about him getting his armour back yeah if we look at what's happening to Boba. So according to the source book, Boba Fett's armour is quite simply astounding. Oh, okay. Yeah. Is that what the book says in those words? yeah and Even though it's old and outdated, bit harsh, but this is before we knew everything we now know about Mandalore.
01:01:04
Speaker
It may deserve the attention of Imperial technicians. Some of his systems could be incorporated into stormtrooper battlesuits, creating even more formidable warriors of the New Order. So I reckon, for having been reading the book about how the role-playing game was written,
01:01:19
Speaker
in this very early period when all we had was the original trilogy, they had access Lucasfilm's notes. And in there, Boba Fett's original design was supposed to be something to do with stormtroopers. I think they were going to be like an elite type of stormtrooper, I think. And then Lucas ended up deciding to just make him his own his individual mysterious character.
01:01:42
Speaker
yeah So it could be they're kind of inverting that almost and saying the Imperials could really do with some of Boba's stuff. He's got tech everywhere, hasn't he? He has, yeah, which is what the thing goes on to tell us, which is why it caught my eye, because I'd written some stuff about that, like and just as my own observations. But they say Fett's helmet appears to contain a macro binocular viewplate, infrared scope, and miniature sensor array system, wow as well as a microcomputer, which combines them into a sophisticated detection network. And I think... We don't see inside Boba's helmet particularly, but we do see Mando's helmet. In fact, we saw his glitcho vision earlier in this episode yeah when he was like trying to looking for the Jedi signs whatever.
01:02:23
Speaker
So I think they've just, like, that info fed into what the Mandalorians generally have. We do see inside Boba's helmet in this episode, briefly. Yeah, we do, don't we? Yeah.
01:02:34
Speaker
Yeah. Is that when he's chasing? No, we see just before, well, he's aiming for the takedown of both of the trooper dropships. The dropships, yeah. Yeah. When he misses the one he to get. When misses the one he wanted to get, yeah.
01:02:47
Speaker
So the armour itself is at least as protective as that employed by Imperial Stormtroopers. Yeah, I think so. It's made of Beskar, then. didn't have Beskar back in those days. Yeah, fair enough. And this is the bit we're into. It's loaded with built-in weapons and hidden devices. In the book, we've only identified a few of these. Fletch only reveals them in combat and he rarely leaves witnesses. yeah love it But listed ah here are those we've been able to discover.
01:03:14
Speaker
Wrist lasers capable of slicing through battle armour. Rocket darts that can be loaded with poisons or paralysis drugs. Turbo projected grappling hook with flexisteel lanyard. We've seen that. We've seen that, yeah. Miniature flame projector. We've seen that. in that And concussion grenade launcher.
01:03:31
Speaker
Don't about that. Could be the things coming out of his knees. Yeah. Yeah. In addition, he wears a jet pack and that provides him with limited personal flight capabilities and has numerous pockets, pouches and compartments containing tools, small weapons and other items, which rich purposes we can only guess at, he says. Excellent. Good catch all there. Side note, several Wookiee scalps hang from his shoulder as further evidence of his deadly abilities, like Wookiee scalps.
01:04:00
Speaker
I think the character of Mandalorians generally has changed a lot in since these days. He's quite literally a walking arsenal, able to use every one of his personal weapons efficiently. He's also well-versed in the use of side arms and carries a sword off blast tech ee3 blaster rifle with mounted scope as a personal weapon i didn't google to see if that's what we're still calling his gun but i bet it is yeah yeah this is what west end geek girls is all about is showing like how far back a lot of this stuff goes yeah and in fact live on the podcast we're gonna google boba effect plaster
01:04:37
Speaker
We're going to Google it. Yep. It's an E3 Blaster Carbine. There go. Yeah. That's the same thing. So big shout out to West End Games from back the day. They put a lot this stuff. I mean, to be fair, they did grab some of it from Lucasfilm, but they added an awful lot. Did they include the weird rocket launcher that he gets when he just down? don't think they did mention that.
01:04:59
Speaker
I don't remember seeing it elsewhere because I think I remembered it it surprising me because when... Somebody's going to disagree with me. Cobb Vanth uses it, doesn't he? Yeah, he does, yeah. ah When the Star Wars figures originally came out of Boba Fett, I remember getting one. He was like a new release before Empire came out.
01:05:20
Speaker
You could order this new character and you had to collect the name things, cut out the little names off the cards of, I think it was like five other Star Wars characters that you'd bought between 77 and 80. Yeah.
01:05:31
Speaker
between seventy seven and eighty And so you cut out the little name things, and then you sent them off to Palatoy, it was in the UK, but it would have been Kenner in the u s And then they sent you Boba Fett in a little white cardboard box. And nobody knew anything about Boba Fett, but we all wanted that figure. And remember getting mine and trying to pull that little rocket thing out to see if it would fire, but it wasn't. It was fixed in there.
01:05:54
Speaker
But I'm sure I've heard people say that they had the action figure where you could fire thing. remember an action figure where you could fire it. I don't think I ever had it, but I remember it being a thing. yeah i think i must have like an early draft yeah version you can definitely get those things in the role playing game like rocket launcher things that you wear on your back so i'm guessing okay yeah so bobber comes back in his armor basically they all scatter music we're gonna talk about the music and the stormtroopers scatter yeah
01:06:29
Speaker
ah Don't blame them at all because he absolutely hammers them. like He's already hammered the first s lot with the gaffey stick. So once he starts firing things on his knees, it's all over.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, the I've called it an orchestral Maori shuffle. Nice. Which is like a junk, junk, junk, junk. It's so Boba Fett. And it sets up a little bit about what we're going to get in the book of Boba which I'm sure they knew by this point they were going be doing because I don't think they'd have brought them back weren't just about to move to the book at the book yes yes we love it I can't wait can't I've been listening to some rewatches of it and it's making me really want to watch it so badly devastation happens though the razor crest yeah no so is this the tragedy or is Grogu being taken by the dark troopers the tragedy both yeah I think both the tragedies both double tragedy
01:07:24
Speaker
We do find Mando at his lowest
Mando's Challenges and Team Formation
01:07:26
Speaker
point. We hear the theme at its most forlorn yes when he's scrabbling around in burnt remains. And he finds the ball. So is the ball made of Beskar? Good question.
01:07:39
Speaker
Because it's one of the only things, that and the spear are all that he Or is it just that Grogu detached it so that it was able to fly around instead of being destroyed? Maybe. Could be, yeah.
01:07:49
Speaker
And I guess there probably was other stuff, but that was the bit Mando found because yeah he needed to find it. Yeah. Sad times. The Dark Troopers. It's the first time we see the Dark Troopers, isn't it? Dubstep Troopers. The Dubstep Troopers.
01:08:05
Speaker
We're still not hearing their full Dubstep theme quite. no No, not quite yet, but it is it's still a really great music cue. Yeah. Them coming down in like formation. Yeah. Oh, so awesome looking.
01:08:19
Speaker
Dubstep troopers. They will forever be dubstep troopers. That is just what they're called. I didn't know what to write, so I just put a little shocked face. Yeah, that's pretty terrifying. We get another one of my favourite film-maker-y shots with a smash zoom where yes I think we're following Slave 1 as it chases after the Death Troopers and there's like a real like sudden yeah wobbly crash zoom, handheld shot from I don't know where they're supposed to be filming this from. Flying along behind Slave 1. Flying along somewhere.
01:08:50
Speaker
My other favourite line, this isn't a spy stream. can the Imperial Cruiser with my own eyes. Yeah. I love it. But ultimately Boba agrees to help. Yeah.
01:09:01
Speaker
Fennec doesn't look too happy about it, but she does nod eventually. She's like, come on then, whatever. i owe you my life debt. She's got a life debt, so she's got to go along. But Boba, I think he just like feels like he's got to protect the child. We're putting a team together. Yeah. It's an awesome team.
01:09:19
Speaker
There's no doubt about it. Already. And it's only a team of three. So this is another one of those ones that kind of has two epilogues again. Two epilogues, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, first one with Kara. Yes. We've gone back to gather. Yeah, back to Navarro. And we find out a bit more about the little Marshall's puck thing. It's like... Yeah. She's using it now. Yeah. She's... yeah She's legit. She's gone legit.
01:09:44
Speaker
I really meant to look up. There's a great New Rockstars. don't know if you've seen you know New Rockstars on YouTube. Shout out to New Rockstars. They're like a YouTuber, like break down all of the geeky stuff kind of YouTube channel. Nice. And they did a great series of breakdowns of The Mandalorian. And in this episode, they did a breakdown of the faces we see on the prisoner screen that she goes to because it just goes flick, flick, flick, all these aliens. And they translated all the Arabesh and like, and I think Ponda Baba might have been one of them. Yeah, yeah. The Aqualish that we were talking about the other week. Yes.
01:10:20
Speaker
But we end up on Migs Mayfeld. He is coming back. Ah, going back to get Mayfeld. Which I kind of knew because I looked at the IMDB. And I knew that he was coming back at some point. He's in multiple episodes, yeah. I'm so glad we got him back. Because although he's phenomenal in the Prisoner episode, just love that we got this other episode that we're going be watching next week.
01:10:44
Speaker
He is phenomenal. He's great. Yeah. He is really good. Absolutely incredible performance. And then we've got Grogu's epilogue as well. Oh, gosh, this is intense. This is intense, but...
Grogu's Powers and Season Finale Setup
01:10:55
Speaker
Grogu essentially beats the shit out of some stormtroopers. Yeah. So I was wondering, is he just not hiding anymore or has the rock made him a bit more in tune, powerful again? What's the sitch?
01:11:10
Speaker
I think this is just survival mechanism. It's just him. yeah and he's also he's angry because he's missing Din yeah and he doesn't like... his new captivity no and it's what ahsoka was warning yeah mando about like he's got anger yeah and he's doing dark side stuff he does force choking them yeah yeah and smashing them against each other and that's proper dark side reaction to anger and it's worrying oh i did write that moth gideon can absolutely do one He's like about awful. Like, he's just the worst.
01:11:49
Speaker
I like it when he says you're not ready to play with such things. It's just like goading him with the Darksaber. It's very Palpatine saying, you want this, don't you?
01:12:01
Speaker
And then the Stormtrooper just fires a stun blast at and then puts him in little baby shackles. Like, the fact they've got baby-sized shackles. You can't shackle a baby. That's very, very irresponsible. It's pretty terrible.
01:12:15
Speaker
Another little glimpse of a liar cane and she's told to go and message Dr Pershing. Yeah. Got to go and get him. We've got the donor. Yeah. Gross. Makes my skin crawl. this was pretty hardcore.
01:12:29
Speaker
We're definitely like, yeah, right in the thick of the story at this point. Yeah. We've got two episodes to go in this season. I can't believe we're nearly at the end season two already. know. That's nuts, isn't it? And this this whole episode feels... I know I i binge watched them the first time, so I watched them all quite close together. Yeah. And that usually means that I forget things or I forget where things go. Yeah. Because I don't leave enough time to digest. um But I think I forgot quite a bit of this one because most of it is fight. Yeah.
01:12:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. There isn't an awful lot story no in it. We find out a few little things. like We find out about Boba's background, his chain code, and his dad, and all that stuff. and Yeah, yeah.
01:13:10
Speaker
Other than that, I went on how Fennec survived. Yeah, like it's only really those little bits of story. yeah It's just a little bit of manoeuvring, getting Grogu into captivity, you know, yes to build up to our finale, our rescues finale. Yeah. Ooh.
01:13:27
Speaker
But it was good. I enjoyed it. It was a great reintroduction of Boba Fett. yeah like We'd glimpsed him in episode one yeah of the series, but we were just waiting for him to show up. And here he is. Show up probably. It was a brilliant return. i mean, we kind of get another return at the beginning of Book of Boba Fett because there's like a time, you know, time flashback the type thing. We get to see how he's back, you know, and all of that. So we get lots of reintroductions to him, which I'm all for because yeah i love him. I think he's my mum's favourite character and has been since yeah like the original trilogy. i He was a big fan favourite. It's interesting because we didn't ever know anything about him. yeah And there was in the Expanded Universe, there was quite a lot about him. And I think people fell in love with him maybe through that. yeah
01:14:14
Speaker
But since then, we found out about his childhood through the prequels and the Clone Wars. Yeah. Yeah. but we don't know much about him as an adult and it's interesting the way that they develop his character coming up from here I mean we've got a glimpse of it here where he's being honourable and saying that he'll go and help Mando get Grogu back and I know there are a lot of fans who don't like that because they want him to be that kind of completely ruthless character but I don't know I like it character development yeah it's like you kind of have to think back of like how did he get to this point and
01:14:49
Speaker
He had a difficult childhood yeah and has been missing a lot of things. And maybe he's found an opportunity to give himself some of those things to make him better as a person. and Yeah.
01:15:00
Speaker
Potential. Everyone's allowed to grow, yeah. yeah it ah For me, it would just be boring if he was just like bad guy all the time. We can have Gideon doing that. Yeah. And we know he's to come with us. Gideon's suited for that. Yeah.
01:15:15
Speaker
But we can't have Bubba being like that. so No. So all the pieces are in place. They are. Nearly. Nearly. Yes. And we've got a returning guest next week, haven't we? Ah! Yeah, I think it's our first returning guest. She's our first returning guest. She's very chuffed about this. She's so excited. I'm so excited as well. i absolutely love to hear it. I'm excited And I can't wait to hear, well, episode eight.
Podcast Community and Engagement
01:15:42
Speaker
I know. is going to be all over. She knew what she was doing when she was picking episodes. She's immediately like, that one. That one, yeah. Before anybody else can. Yeah. So we'll be back with her. We haven't name checked her yet. You'll have to come back next week and find out who we're talking about. yeah Don't forget to follow us on all of the things. You know where we are. Search for Sisters of the Force. And i don't know if we've said this much, but don't forget to review us. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Good point. We keep forgetting to do that. Please review us. Please talk to us. We haven't reviews. like We've got a few star ratings on Spotify, but nothing on Apple.
01:16:19
Speaker
Come on, people. you're on Apple, get on Apple. At least give us a five star. You don't have to type anything. Just go, yes, five stars. I think you should type something. But type as well, he yeah. Like you would not believe how much different of a difference. It's the difference between when somebody searches for like Star Wars podcast of us not appearing at all and us appearing in their list of results. So yeah if you want help spread the word and more important than ever is just tell people. If you know Star Wars people, spread the word, ripple it out through your Star Wars connectivity in your life. yeah Can I do a quick...
01:16:51
Speaker
A quick rundown. Where are we? We're on YouTube. We're on Facebook. We're on Blue Sky. We're on Instagram. Yeah. All of those places. Those the places that we are. Well, YouTube, we're not. I mean, I do kind of monitor the YouTube channel, but really like fed by the podcast. Come talk to us on Instagram instead or Blue Sky. We'll talk to you there. Instagram or Blue Sky. Those are places where you go. Or Facebook. I'm on Facebook quite lot. Facebook, yeah.
01:17:19
Speaker
But Blue Sky and Instagram are where I'm at the most. And there's some great Star Wars communities on Blue Sky. Excellent. It's a really good place for like communities. And you can chat. There's like super cool people there. Like the writers of the books and stuff are on there. Yeah. And they'll just chat with you. Like, yeah it's so good.
01:17:38
Speaker
So yeah, get on Blue Sky. Come and hang out with me. yeah And Sisters of the Force on Blue Sky. you in the Blue Sky account. Oh yeah, good point. and I'll do that. I'm not actually on Blue's Guide. I will be by, I don't know, give me a week. Sometime, yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
By the time we finish Clone Wars. the time we finish Clone Wars. No, I'll be before that because I've spotted some other people that I might be slightly interested in who are also raving about Blue's Guide. It's because of your vibes.
01:18:05
Speaker
Okay. Cool. We'll see you back here next week. Yay! Chapters 15 and 16. Here Can't wait. See you then. Bye.
01:18:15
Speaker
Bye.