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S02E50: Rapidly Rewatching Mando S1E5
30 Plays8 days ago
He's a gunslinger, alright... at least in his own mind. Come hear Bob, Ben, and Phil dissect "The Gunslinger" as our Mando rewatch continues.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Growth
00:00:00
Speaker
It's a showdown with the gunslinger and it's happening real fast. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper, a 15-minute Star Wars podcast. Before we dive in, hey, I got today, guys, my Spotify wrapped for creators.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I found out in there that I have more than doubled our fan base this last year. I think that trip to Japan and wearing the t-shirts and giving out stickers probably helped with that, but... To all of our listeners who have been sharing the word, as I say at the end, that would be
Highlight Episode and Future Collaborations
00:00:43
Speaker
great. Also, the most attent or most listened to episode was the episode I did with my old friend, Steve Gross. So Steve, if you're listening to this, you are the key. I know you're listening to this. You are the key.
00:00:56
Speaker
I'll hit you up pretty soon. We'll do another episode, but let's dive back into, yeah, go ahead. Ben, it sounds like we need to step up our game. I thought the fans were big fans. You know, I thought we were, thought we were popular guest stars on here. I guess, I guess we got to do better, you know? I'm going have to like come up with some original material. I don't even know what's to happen, but we're going a clearly scheme offline about this. Yeah. I'd start saying something like provocative to get the fans going.
00:01:21
Speaker
ah Well, it could happen with this episode.
Recap and Thoughts on 'The Gunslinger'
00:01:25
Speaker
So chapter five, The Gunslinger, written and directed by the one and only Dave Filoni. Now the chief creative officer at Lucasfilm was not when he did this, but he has been promoted. Here's the summary.
00:01:38
Speaker
After a dogfight leaves the Razorcrest in desperate need of repairs, Mando lands at the iconic Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine. To fund the fixes, he teams up with a cocky rookie bounty hunter, Toro Calican, to track down the elite mercenary Fennec Shand. The mission turns into a deadly game of leverage when Fennec...
00:01:59
Speaker
See, I was doing a cold read and, you know, I had to screw it up in the middle. When Fennec reveals Mando's own high value status to Toro. After a final standoff in the Dunes, Mando takes out the treacherous rookie and leaves the planet unaware that a mysterious figure is approaching Fennec's body. That's chapter five. Let's shake it up. Ben, let's give your reaction first.
00:02:22
Speaker
How did you enjoy the rewatch of The Gunslinger? You know, I thought it was good, but um maybe i'm going to be the one that starts with the controversial thing. I thought this is a little bit of a filler episode. And look, they're not all like huge things, but I think that they did some stuff in here. If I'm starting with the warm feedback, I think they give us a little bit more of like a, here's where Mando sits in the hierarchy. You can kind of highlight how good he is by so showing somebody who's very inexperienced. you know Having him go up against Fennec Shand who is also very experienced. There's a a lot of really cool, you know you can see them kind of matching as equals. So there's a little bit of a dual aspect to it too, where they're dueling. So I think it was generally, you know it was good. It was fine. It's not like it's hitting the nines and tens. I think it's probably more like the sixes and sevens, if you'll forgive my saying so.
00:03:13
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All the, all the kids now are groaning at you for doing that. Cause six and seven is so passe now with the kids. It's kind of my goal to ruin it for everybody. Right. yeah Good. Good job.
00:03:26
Speaker
Okay. You can't ruin something that's already bad. i think exactly. Well, right, right, right. Well, Ben, I'm not going to disagree with you, but the only thing I would disagree with you on is I think in a episode of the week, kind of your seventies style, completely episodic show. I don't think there is such a thing as a filler episode, but yeah,
00:03:42
Speaker
We can argue that point later. i don't know how interesting that is. Phil, what did you think of episode five? Pretty mixed. This is probably my least favorite of the episodes we've seen thus far.
00:03:53
Speaker
um It felt first 10 minutes felt totally all over the place. Tonally, it felt short. I think it is like 10 minutes shorter than like most the other episodes. It felt underdeveloped.
00:04:04
Speaker
You know, it felt like the rookie character, you know, kind of the the cocky rookie plot arc. It felt a little ah stale, surface level.
00:04:15
Speaker
um So that's kind of my, like, I wasn't the biggest fan of that. I will say, you know, I liked the action set pieces. I liked the sniper sequence, you know, in the dark. That was really cool.
00:04:27
Speaker
um But I felt like it resolved really quickly. It felt like we needed, like, 10 more minutes of action. It felt like the climax happened really quickly. um And, i yeah, I think this was my...
00:04:40
Speaker
My least favorite. I did really like the cliffhanger as you alluded to Bob. I am curious to see who is approaching the target and what's going to happen with that. I'm sure we'll see that very soon. Um, I did think the target I've, I'm sorry. I know you said her name. I'm forgetting her name. Fennec Shand. Yep. Fennec Shand. She was really cool.
00:04:58
Speaker
Um, I really liked the droids, the, the mechanics st droids. Oh, that was really silly and cool. Um, But it, yeah, I, it was really like, I was pretty, i was left wanting more with this one, honestly.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I agree. It's a strange episode. ah You know, you got to start off and say, is it really Star Wars if we don't wind up on Tatooine at some point?
Tatooine's Role and Fun Facts
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. but That's actually kind of a point about which I'm critical. I think they've spent too much time on Tatooine in the course of the overall, yeah you know, Star Wars sequence. Yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of member berries that they throw at you in this. So I do think it's really fun that they go into the cantina and the cantina is being manned by a droid, a cantina where famously droids were not welcome.
00:05:50
Speaker
Fun fact, that droid was actually voiced by Mark Hamill in his first appearance on The Mandalorian. hmm. um Also, nerds like me would notice that when Mando walks into the cantina, the droid detector at the door is gone.
00:06:06
Speaker
That's the only thing that has changed from the cantina. the the seat where The seat where Toro is sitting is actually Han Solo's seat. So... It's just trying to say, hey, he's like Han Solo, but he' he's not. He's not like Han Solo. He so lame. he is just a thoroughly unlikable character. Not sad when he bought it at the end.
00:06:29
Speaker
I mean, not a character I want, I need to see resurrected. ah You know, we don't need to find that he gets chopped off and his legs grow back somehow or however Darth Maul comes back. Listen, there's there's a lot of characters in this series that get killed that I'm like, oh, that's really too bad. I'd like to see that guy back again. Or, oh, I feel that loss. I did not feel that with this guy.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yep. This one, not
Character Spotlight: Peli Motto and Fennec Shand
00:06:53
Speaker
so much. um Got to talk about Amy Sedaris. what What do we think about that character, about Amy's character? um Why am I spacing out what her character's name is?
00:07:06
Speaker
The mechanic. She was great. Coward coming at me. No, no, no. That's the bad guy. bad guy Oh, is it? tora calant Let's see. yeah She was great. Peli Motto.
00:07:20
Speaker
Peli Motto. There we go. Peli Motto. No, she was great. I really enjoyed her sequences of interaction with the droids, with the child. That was all really good. um there's one moment, this goes back to an earlier point I made kind of about like, it felt really tonally all over the place. There's a, one of my, probably my favorite moment in the episode and it's featured in the animated end credits is the storm as the storm trooper heads on spikes. Yes. I love that. That was so, so dark. So cool. I was like, this is great. But then we have that like,
00:07:56
Speaker
transition to this sweet goof goofy music when she finds the child it just felt like all over the place it didn't know what kind of episode it wanted to be it kind of wanted to be cool and dark with this you know mysterious rookie character but then it also has these kind of silly sequences with the mechanic and the droid again i liked her i liked her character i thought she did great was was enjoying those bits but it just felt like ah it just felt all over the place frankly yeah yeah Speaking of all over the place, just like this podcast is, I'm going to take it all over the place again. um I always wondered whether they were actually back in the same hangar that the Millennium Falcon was in And I finally realized in this episode, it's not. It is Docking Bay 35, believe. whereas Han Solo was famously in Docking Bay 94. So that was an important detail for me to pick up. It seems like everything else is just a clone of that Millennium Falcon hangar scene from A New Hope.
00:08:53
Speaker
Can I ask though, are there really 94 hangars there or more? That's a really good question. Maybe they have some odd numbering scheme. Somebody's probably thought about that before, but all right it is a space. All right. So we're standing.
00:09:06
Speaker
i You can answer this question for us. Let us know in the comments. Yeah, please. I got a, got a question, Bob. You mentioned, you know, Dave Filoni written and directed. Um, ah you You guys obviously have watched the series in its whole. I have not.
00:09:21
Speaker
How do you guys feel about his style in relation to Favreau's? Obviously, this feels like a Filoni episode and it's my least favorite of the ones we've watched so far. do you guys feel like that tracks or do you feel like how do you how do you kind of feel about Favreau and Filoni? Obviously, they are sort of like partners in this series in a lot of ways. So what's your take on their respective styles?
00:09:39
Speaker
I think to your earlier points about just the overall writing on this episode, to me, it felt like an animated show. You know, Filoni is famous with his Star Wars animated shows to make them increasingly more mature as they go. If you watch some of the first season of Clone Wars,
00:09:58
Speaker
It's like made for six year olds, five year olds, not even the 10 year old boys that Lucas made Star Wars for. If you look at the very last season, the final episodes of Clone Wars, it will hit you with a punch.
00:10:11
Speaker
Ben, remember, you you and I watched those at your house for the first time and it was just like, it's shell shock. You know, it's great stuff. So Filoni kind of grows. I feel like. this was him back in his early one of the first things that he wrote for live action so it felt a little bit like that and directorial too i think i gotta say dave filoni not my favorite director of live action star wars and i kind of got the sense though that he was kind of laying groundwork for later stuff you know what i mean i think felonies heart and soul as a writer is in the world building
00:10:48
Speaker
I mean, as evidenced by the way, he kind of builds up all this, you know, the stuff in his animated worlds. And so I kind of, you know, when you get the bit of Fennec Shand, who I think, Bob, correct me, doesn't Fennec Shand come in from some other prior Star Wars property? Or is this a brand new character? So I think this is it. But then we do see, well, spoiler film, we do see a lot more of her.
00:11:10
Speaker
she She ain't completely dead. Well, you know, the the the boots walked up. Yeah, that's the sort of the implication is that she's still there. yeah Right. So she does get reused. Filoni does get to sort of lay in these kind of foundations. There's a bit of world building happening here with the you know the Mandalorian and the guild and where everybody sits and all that stuff. So that that sense seems very Filoni-like. But I think you know you've always got to balance that kind of exposition versus the pace and action and the stakes and all the things that make for a good standalone episode too.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Fennec Shand played by the lovely Ming-Na Wen, who looks like she's 30 and she's older than me. i think she's 60.
00:11:53
Speaker
Like and incredible actor and martial artist. And i am glad they did not leave her for dead because she's a really fun character. And you can actually occasionally meet Fennec Shand if you come to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. So you guys let me know if you want to come and see Fennec.
Wrap-up and Fan Engagement
00:12:13
Speaker
We're running out of time. any last thoughts on episode five?
00:12:21
Speaker
It's only up from here. It's only episode six. You know, we'll see. ah But definitely a meta episode. ah That's it for this episode of short for a storm trooper. We'll be back next week with a look at chapter six, the prisoner until then, please. Yeah. Let's keep growing that fan base folks. Woo. Hit like it. Subscribe. Tell all your friends, you know, wear the t-shirt if you have one until then, may the force be with you. We'll see you next time.
00:12:50
Speaker
Bye. Bye. Who's that line? Let's do it. Podcasts, help you see them through. Star Wars is your favorite unit. Let's chat for 15 minutes. Aren't you a little short?
00:13:01
Speaker
Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper? Aren't you a little short for a slur?