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Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapters 1 and 2 with Sarah | 011
25 Plays8 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 eleventh episode we're joined by our fabulous friend, creative genius, and Star Wars lover Sarah, as we jump into Season 1 of The Mandalorian, starting with Chapter 1 "The Mandalorian" and Chapter 2 "The Child". We talk about themes, performances, story details, Ludwig, ugnaughts, and much more. Watch out too for a brand new segment we're currently calling "West End Geek Girls"!
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 at www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Lines & Characters from The Mandalorian
00:00:15
Speaker
Sia. Hello. What's your favorite line from The Mandalorian, season one episodes one and two? I don't know how to ride, Blurg. That was so niche.
00:00:32
Speaker
We love flogs. I've got more to tell you about flogs later. Excellent. I can't wait. Of course.
Introduction to 'Sisters of the Force' & Guest Sarah
00:00:37
Speaker
Branwen. Yes. What's your favorite line from Mandalorian season one, episode one and two?
00:00:43
Speaker
I acknowledge bounty hunting is a complicated profession. That was my terrible Werner Herzog impression. Do you know what? I listened to that. Which I toyed with not doing. As soon as he spoke, I was like, who's this Werner Herzog sounding guy? And then I was like, oh, it's Werner Herzog.
00:01:02
Speaker
But recognised him from Adam Buxton's impression of him on his podcast. Amazing. but You are listening and to
Sarah's Star Wars Journey
00:01:12
Speaker
Sisters of the Force. Welcome to season two. Oh my God.
00:01:16
Speaker
We are, as you may know, this season delving into the Mandoverse, i.e. The Mandalorian and the Book of Overfair. And we're going to be doing two episodes per episode for the time being. it's Even more exciting than all of that is that we have another lovely guest today, the wonderful Sarah. Hello. Hello. Hi. Welcome to Sisters of the Force. It's so lovely to be here. So good to have you along. I've known you for quite a few years now, many years actually, and I can't yeah believe it's taken us this long to have like a proper Star Wars conversation. We have had casual ones when we came to visit. We dipped in and out, which is when you discovered I loved it.
00:02:00
Speaker
i am But nothing nothing in earnest, and that's all about to change. Yeah, and this, I can guarantee you will be earnest. Mm-hmm.
Appreciation for Star Wars' Storytelling & World-Building
00:02:09
Speaker
Can you tell us about your like connection to Star Wars? When did it begin? are Where are you on the spectrum of like, I just love all Star Wars or just give me the Mando? No, no, no. and I'm very, I'm the same age as you. So I went to the cinema and saw the New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. i saw those when they were released in the cinema. My mum is an absolute sci-fi geek, and which is great for a farmer's wife. Do you know what mean? You don't normally put those two things together. And because my dad wasn't interested at all, it was us that got dragged to the cinema, thank goodness, to go and see all things Star Wars, all things Star Trek. So it started at that point and just has grown from there. So it gave me it all. i'm I'm there for all of it. Nice. I don't think I've met your mum before.
00:02:56
Speaker
but No, I don't think you have. She's memorable and delightful. But yes, she was the one that started the whole kind of passion for it. And and and we had, in a way, I had no idea what i was coming to Just my mum was really excited to see it. and And then we thoroughly, thoroughly loved it and were transported as you are when you go and see a fairy tale that's all set in space.
00:03:16
Speaker
and And it just grew from there. Amazing.
Creative Process & Details in Star Wars
00:03:21
Speaker
is there anything in particular that like, I mean, apart from the fairy tale in Space Factor, is there anything particular about it that you love or that makes you keep coming back for more? It's the world building, I think. It's it's the fact that you're transported to all of these different these different places where the kind of human endeavour and conflict runs through, but with such different contexts and settings and And it's really clever and really beautiful and really epic and really brutal and has all of those kind of massively important elements of story brought together in a way that just keeps surprising and rewarding. and So you you just when you get used to one thing, there's another thing thrown in. And and so you're never quite sure, but you're always kind of reassured that there'll be something in there that will absolutely grip you.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that thing about it being clever. I think, you know, there's a tendency with geeky stuff that the average punter tends to look down a little bit on those things. But with a a kind of franchise like Star Wars, the cleverness is so off the scale because they've just got the best people involved. in each job you know all of and this show is a really great example of that where you've got the best designers and the best sound people and the best costume creators and like everyone is just really into the detail and all of that creates that world building I was going to say it's the detail that's incredible
00:04:47
Speaker
And we have this thing in acting called the magic if. And I just feel like in all of the meetings, there just must be so much magic if thrown around. What happens if we do this? Where will it go? And it would just be really beautiful to be in that kind of room watching those magic ifs get batted around until they choose the one that they want. yeah Yeah, yeah. I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the story group. You know, the writers rooms must be unbelievable. They must be quite exciting places. Yeah. The little post-it notes that they must leave lying around. Absolutely.
Art & Visual Storytelling in The Mandalorian
00:05:20
Speaker
I've been looking at this, um The Art of the Mandalorian season one book, which I caught a while ago ago. I've still not read it all, I have to admit. I've been kind of like working my way through it slowly. yeah but I revisited it a bit this week in advance of this episode. And there's lots and lots of Dave Filoni's little sketches. And obviously he's like the brains behind a lot of the kind of current Star Wars storytelling. Yeah.
00:05:43
Speaker
i and And he is a big drawer and he he just draws little like frames, you know, of potentially a storyboard or just like a random design. And even though they're just little pencil sketches, there's just so much in them. yeah And I feel like that kind of probably says a lot about how these people work, how their brains work. Yeah, that process must be incredible. The problem is with this podcast, every time you speak, I've got another thing in my kind of basket of dreams of books I want to buy and you've just added another one. It's not good. It's not good. i mean, I have to give them to relatives as presents and then I can just borrow them off them and then that would be great.
00:06:21
Speaker
We're going to have to make a library, I think, don't we? I definitely think a reading list is necessary that we can just yeah kind of oh We can have like a postal, you know, like a post circle. I love this. Let's that. Although don't ever hand things to me. As we found out last week, I'll keep them for 12 years. Oh, this is true.
00:06:38
Speaker
This is true. It's horrifically remiss of me that I forgot, top of the show really, too tell our listeners who you are and what you do. I mean, would you like to like talk about that? Because I think it's really interesting in the context of how we're talking about Mando. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
Very briefly, I'm a drama practitioner, which means I get to do drama in lots of different ways and settings and from lots of perspectives. So i use drama for education, to tell stories. I do a writing, directing, lots of work with young people. So I'm kind of making things all the time, but making things in order to build people up, I suppose, is is kind of a short way of putting it.
00:07:19
Speaker
yeah That's beautiful. Kind of creative empowerment stuff. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. That's what I do as well, Sarah. I was going to that's exactly right. Like-minded people around the screen. We love it. Nice. Right, okay. Well, I suppose we better to get into this because we could just chat all day and we just we've got a lot to get through. This is going to be a very interesting episode um because it's a little bit of a deviation from what we've been doing. We've just been digging into one film, yeah which has been fairly straightforward. Although, you know, even within that, we've fluctuated a bit in our approach. But we now have this new format where we're going to be doing two TV episodes. We're not sure how it's going to go as always. Yeah. Come along with us. Come along for the ride.
00:08:02
Speaker
It's also going to be interesting in that this is, for Branwen, it's a rewatch. For me, sometimes it's a watch. This one is actually a rewatch because I have seen the first, three or four maybe episodes but that was a long time ago and I have not retained anything as it turns out this all felt new didn't it yeah it felt fairly new I'll tell you what didn't feel new which was my other possible favorite line which was the Jawas all going Suga!
00:08:31
Speaker
Suga! That was on my favorite line list as well It's a glorious moment of delight. I love Jawas. They were just so happy with them bouncing around, honestly.
00:08:43
Speaker
ah Diving into the egg. Big Capri's cream egg. Love it. With absolute abandon. It was great. Reckless. like Which all of this reminds me, Sarah, what was your favourite line from episodes one and two? Okay, this comes with a bit of a sorry bow because it's a cliche from it, but I love I Have Spoken.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's just beautiful. And when i first when I first heard it, the first time I watched it, I was like, Yes, we should do more of that. We should make a statement, say, I have spoken and move on. it he says no There's no questioning Quill. you know like Nobody's ever going to question him, ever. Is that his name? Quill, yeah. And it's and it's not it's not combative. It's not it's not argumentative. it's not It's actually incredibly peaceful. And I love it.
Character Speech & Western Influences in The Mandalorian
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, jumping straight into the deep end now, which is cool because it's Celestia's role. his His character and the armourer both speak very intentionally and they don't kind of like stutter. They don't ponder. They just speak their mind in a really clear, succinct way. And it's beautiful in slightly different ways. Yeah. Yeah, but it's such clarity. Both of them have such clarity. So you know exactly where you are with them. And that's a really, a really rare quality in a human being, just knowing where you stand.
00:10:06
Speaker
So I think I find that utterly refreshing. Yeah. The fact that we've got two of those characters in one episode, you know, effectively, it's pretty wild. Well, we say human being. I mean, Quill is an Ugnaught. He's an Ugnaught, yeah.
00:10:18
Speaker
We've yet to find out, if we ever will, what species the armour is. There's a lot of rumours out there on the internet, but we will see. Yes, I am utterly intrigued from the get-go. More intrigue. I love it.
00:10:34
Speaker
um So should we just talk about episode one? I suppose that makes logical sense. let's go for that first. My first note for this was opening music is lush. What is happening? I instantly went off and looked up who the composer is. like Yes. ah Because I was like, this is great. If you get chance on Disney+, go into the Star Wars bit and find the gallery, which is like the behind the scenes of The Mandalorian. think it's just The Mandalorian so far. And season one, they did six episodes, I think it is, like round table sort of thing with various directors and people involved and stuff. There's an entire half hour episode about Ludwig and his process. And you will love it. I will love it. I can already tell. It's unbelievable. Like the footage of him playing with modular synths and then playing his guitar and his drums and his old cranky upright piano and then like the orchestrating of his like melodies and him being at the recording of the orchestra stuff as well. It's just like all of the feels for music creators. As a composer, I just cried through half an hour of a documentary. Yeah. In the best way possible. I felt like, Ludwig, and Ludwig is me. And you will absolutely get that same feeling. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I can see it. It just lands you, though, so definitely in that world, doesn't it? Like, you're there, and what's more you really want to be there with that music? I also had very, very, like, I got, like, Western vibes instantly. Like, it's all cowboys. Yeah. It's basically Western samurai.
00:12:11
Speaker
yeah which is yes George Lucas, well that was his kind of original intention. That was his influence as a kid growing up in the 50s, 60s. What he was feeding into his films, he was consciously influenced by samurai movies, like Hidden Fortress, we've already mentioned that. in the New Hope episode and 100%. I mean, Han Solo is like the original gunslinger. And this is just the so distillation of that. I think because Lucas taught Filoni, Dave Filoni, who's sort of like where he directed this first episode. yeah He's not the show. Jon Favreau is kind of the showrunner, I guess. But Filoni learned so much off Lucas and that just fed into this. They were just like, how can we make the most Star Wars-y thing we can to launch Disney Plus with? Yeah, yeah,
Filming Techniques & Visual Impact
00:12:54
Speaker
yeah.
00:12:54
Speaker
So yeah, musically, we've got that like Morricone, Ineo Morricone type thing. Yeah, it's so reminiscent of that, isn't it? That scene where he first goes to to the underground like cover where the other Mandalorians are and you get those guitars, like those dissonant. So good. So the good, bad and the ugly. I love it. Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, the framing of stuff as well. Again, we're jumping all over the place already, but I did write this down right at the beginning when he first lands on that planet, which apparently is called Pagodon. I had to look that Pagodon, okay. And we do go there again. like it felt like a bit of a one-off little Is this where the blue guy is? it's Yes, in that cantina sort of place, but it's like a little dome, isn't it, in the ice, in the middle of the ice. It's like ah the last frontier kind of fishing village type vibe. LAUGHTER Some of the the framing that he's used, like the whole thing, ah don't know if you've either of you have seen stuff about the making of it. They use this thing called the volume. Have you seen that, Sarah? No.
00:13:56
Speaker
Right. it' fascinating like the way they shoot it It's this. It's like a 360-degree studio. And instead of using lights and set, they project using LED – I don't think it's projections. I think it's like LED screens all around. Right.
00:14:11
Speaker
And all the backdrops are on that. And then they have partial sets. So the bit where he's walking towards the the cantina kind of thing, there'll be a track on the floor of like the the kind of icy walkway with some icy texture either side, which will be physical set.
00:14:27
Speaker
But then all the stuff in the background is just... being projected onto these LEDs. And the cameras, or the camera, because I guess it's single camera, is connected via the network to the way the stuff is being projected. So if the lens on the camera changes, like if they change to a different zoom lens or whatever, or change the focus and things, the backdrop changes with it. So if you're standing in the space, it can look a bit alarming because things are kind of parallaxing and going all weird. But if you look through the camera lens, it looks perfect. It looks normal. Right.
00:14:59
Speaker
But it's' even if it's parallaxing and doing some weird perspective stuff to make the cameras work, it still looks roughly like... So the actors don't have to do all that work they'd have to do in a blue screen or a green screen. They've at least got a sense of where they are. And the beauty of it is it lights the actors.
00:15:15
Speaker
So you don't need to worry about lighting. like If it's a you know a nighttime shoot, they're projecting stars and you know night sky and stuff, then that will... ah affect how the characters look without you having to get too bogged down with light. i mean, I'm sure they do some lighting, but... yeah yeah They must have to do some. Yeah, I think so. But it's it's a lot less. Like backlighting and stuff all just happens in camera and it means they don't have to do loads of post-production, like keying and all that sort of stuff that they would have had to have done in in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and stuff. This just saves so much time yeah in the post-production. Obviously, somebody's got to be creating all the CGI backdrops and all that to like wrap around the volume. But it word I guess that's...
00:15:59
Speaker
easier to do, it's a lot quicker to do than having to composite it all later. yeah And it definitely helps the actors. yeah I think you can see that in the way that they are in these spaces compared to, say, watching like the prequel trilogy where it was so much of it was green screen. Yeah. bluec screenen And that must be so difficult. It's quite a challenge, isn't it? Have you ever done anything like that with acting, Sarah? like and like A little bit, because live theatre is more my thing. It's not something I've... course, yeah. But i have I have done little bits and pieces here and there. and My son was ah part of the Rebels advertising campaign and had to do a load of green screen stuff for the lightsaber fights. He was taught I had to do the lightsaber fights.
00:16:39
Speaker
and when it was first released. So um I watched him do all of that, which was quite interesting. What? Rewind just a moment? She's not going to let you gloss over that. No, I should have. She just opened a whole tin off. And so when Rebels was released,
00:16:56
Speaker
They did a campaign to kind of promote it where you could send in pictures of you doing a, like a video footage of you doing a lightsaber fight. And then they would do all the special effects and layer those on.
00:17:10
Speaker
And they needed a campaign to show how it was done. So Tom was the actor that did the original one to kind of promote it. This is what you do. And then this is what it looks like. So that was all over the channels when it was first done. Oh, wow. And that was all green screen. That must have been 10, 15 years? Yeah, he was only little because he's 26 now. So he was about sort of 11, 12 years old, which the age that they were trying to capture with that.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah. And but the beautiful thing, not to go on too much of tangent of Tom, is that he's like now really proficient at weapons theatre, isn't he? Yeah, he's a stage combat sort of expert practitioner type person. He's just been at one of the conservatoires today doing his thing with the students. Nice. Seeds were planted through the fabulous
Framing Techniques & Silent Heroism in The Mandalorian
00:18:02
Speaker
universe of Star Wars. Dave Filoni made me do it. Yeah, indeed. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
Anyway, back to Mander. Go back to Mander. So the reason I started talking about the volume is that they've done all these shots of, I think it's as he's coming out of the cantina with the mithral alien guy, the blue guy, and they're walking back along the path of the speeder, the ferryman, we're going to talk about in minute. Oh my God, yes, please. And they have these like perfectly framed horizontal shots with like the horizon. it' all very, very straight on. And that's definitely a felonism if you watch Rebels and some of the Clone Wars as well. You get that kind of framing and animation. And he also does it in... Season two, there's an episode that he directs and there's a lot of that. It's when Mando... No, we won't go down spoil it. Don't... I'm just starting. I know, sorry, sorry, sorry. But yeah, there's a lot of these kind of very straight, flat on like, horizontal...
00:19:03
Speaker
beautifully symmetrical almost most framing which is very western as well and very yeah that figure in the landscape so that that yeah kind of imposing figure in a bleak in this kind of case utterly bleak landscape is just such it's with the music that is completely lush it's just like uh you've landed and it's like whoa here we are and i'm all for it But then we've got the little magic flute. the kubaz with the flute. It's so funny.
00:19:34
Speaker
But the fact that they gave him a little recorder to play. I love that he summons drivers with a little recorder. like what Yeah, he just gives a little toot.
00:19:44
Speaker
And along comes a droid in a speeder and we find out that Mando hates droids. From the get-go. That's just like established and and keeps coming back and coming back in in glorious fashion. It's one of those lovely motifs that every time you it, go...
00:20:00
Speaker
And they play with it a bit, like they don but but it's still unresolved a bit, I think. i mean he's He's done a lot of personal growth, we can say, about Mansoe.
00:20:11
Speaker
By the end of season three, he's done a bit of dealing, but yeah, it's still there. Yeah, and so he summons the droid one and that's not good enough, so that has to go. And then we get that really comedic, clunky speeder. Yeah. Which looks like it's all in bar. With this guy. Did you notice the first sound effect note? It's the same sound design as Luke's land speeder.
00:20:38
Speaker
It's specifically to Luke's land speeder, I think, from by my ears. There's a lot of speeders. We've had a lot of speeders over the years before this. Right. But it's never been that exact same.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's sort of a bit a vacuum cleaner. I don't know. It does sound a bit vacuum cleaner, isn't it? I'm just trying to remember it now. yeah I actually listened to this one on headphones and I think I'm going to do that going forward because it's yeah it's definitely got some great spatial stuff going on.
00:21:10
Speaker
You've got a surround sound system, so that's... so you're experiencing it anyway but yeah sorry sarah we do go down some very sound no sound things i kind of made a pact to myself that i would just sit back and enjoy you doing that like i do when i'm listening to the podcast because i have very little to offer in that department so i'm really happy just to listen to your expertise on that one Happiness is a wonderful thing to offer.
00:21:38
Speaker
He does eventually get into a speeder, though. He does. He doesn't do much good. My notes there were magic flute, exclamation mark. And then the next note that I made is this blue guy seems quite annoying. Yeah. I love him as a character. He does come back like we get a little bit more of him in the future. And I think his job is to be...
00:22:00
Speaker
Quite annoying. Quite a bit of exposition going on there. I think because Mando doesn't speak. like For so long. For so long. yeah just Just that silent treatment is amazing. yeah Can we just like talk about like how is it that he's captured so many hearts? like We can't see his face.
00:22:18
Speaker
He rarely speaks. He rarely moves. like he's so I wrote down one of my early things is that he's very like statue. He yeah barely moves. why Why are we... I don't know. The timeline of him being everybody's hero, ah wonder how many episodes that everybody became convinced. Because i meet him with such a curiosity for the first episode and maybe even the first couple of episodes. I'm just intrigued by him.
00:22:46
Speaker
And his growth, his yeah his flexibility in a completely inflexible world yeah is what's absolutely fascinating. and And you can see that every compromise, every every kind of deviance from the way is really thought out, really kind of, and ah and if he has to do it in spare the moment, then it's really reflected on.
00:23:10
Speaker
yeah For me, I think we absolutely, he becomes so be beloved because we understand that kind of, this is what I want to do. This is what I have to do. This is what, and and that's, and and then is the relationships that grow that obviously we don't really get into in this episode. yeah It's that kind of evolution in front of us.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Of feelings, of emotion, little literacy of all of those kind of things that keep taking him by surprise. And then he assimilates and moves. He's kind of childlike in some ways because he, yeah because he's been, he's clearly grown up um as we discover as things go along. He's grown up in such a like rigid system. Yeah. And like every time, like you say, it's like every time he encounters a kind of a moral dilemma that he's not had to deal with. I mean,
00:23:59
Speaker
Without jumping too far into the spoiler territory, like in the third episode, he makes that first decision of like, well, I don't know that I'm going to go through with this. you know and yeah it still fascinates me how we get all of that from but performance. I mean, it's multiple performances. Obviously, there's whoever is in the suit, which varies depending on what's happening in the scene. It's rarely Pedro, I think.
00:24:24
Speaker
Right. But the voice acting of of Pedro is obviously phenomenal. Like he does so much with so little. And I think that's true of the physical actor as well. Like the slight inclination of a head or the way he sits and And just a tilt of his shoulder shoulders. and and like He does so much so much acting with his upper chest and shoulders. It's a masterclass. And the incline of the head.
00:24:47
Speaker
but yeah Yeah. And I think laying out that rigidity in the first two episodes sets everything else up for greatness. The foundations are built for us to kind of understand how significant every one of those decisions are. And if they hadn't laid it out so clearly in these first two episodes, yeah none of that would mean anything. Yeah, it's true. Some very good writing.
00:25:09
Speaker
So the Mithral, I don't think the Mithral has a name. I don't think even now, three seasons in, I don't know. We haven't seen him loads, but every time we see him, I keep waiting to find out what his name is. But if you buy the action figure, it's just called the Mithral. So that's it. as far as it goes.
00:25:26
Speaker
He drops the first of the kind of Star Wars swears the series, Dank Ferrick. That was close. He says when they escape from the Ravenac. And I would like to thank you because I hadn't really noticed them any other time, but because you drew attention to them in earlier podcast, I was like, that's a swear.
Easter Eggs & Star Wars Lore
00:25:45
Speaker
He's doing a swear. Well, mean, yeah, on what spectrum of swear, I don't know how bad it is. But,
00:25:54
Speaker
We should mention before we leave Pagadon, and the way Mando fights off the Ravanagh is with this, this is an Easter egg geek moment, by the way. oh yeah. You can always tell. go on. i sucked His gun, which is that big long kind of rifle with the pronged thing on the end, yeah sure was originally seen in the legendary Star Wars holiday special that everybody loathes with vengeance, which came out in 79, I think it was. Okay. You can watch it if you dare. your own risk. is is pretty I'm not sure I'll be doing that. like It's known to be a cringe, but I actually don't mind it. The story of it, not going to give anything away. It's something to do with Chewbacca.
00:26:38
Speaker
He has to go home for Life Day, which is a celebration, which we a little mention of in a minute, to be with his family. He's got a son called Lumpy. Yeah. and the rest of his family are all there. And I can't remember the full story, but they all end up on Kashyyyk with the Wookiee family. like And in between, it's like a kind of, it's a literal like holiday special in that there are little intercut things.
00:27:03
Speaker
And one of those intercut things is an animated like Boba Fett episode, okay which is the first time we got to see Boba Fett. Like yeah he's there riding a big dinosaur. Yeah. for the end of Book of Boba Fett for a little call back to that he's riding this big dinosaur and he's got this pronged weapon and it's that okay in case you're interested is an Amban phase pulse blaster an Amban phase pulse blaster yeah going to be testing you on this later you won't oh my goodness I will fail I will fail which as we see later is pretty horrific it is really horrific taking out jouers later on that's about so grim just horrifically yeah The Trandoshans that jump him in the little canyon as well. he's just destroying like disintegration, which I guess is where Boba Fett's line, no, it's Vader's line in The Empire Strikes Back when Vader gathers the bounty hunters and he's talking to them on the bridge and he says, no disintegrations.
00:28:00
Speaker
And Bubba Fett nods his head. So I think that's probably where that... That's where it comes from. Interesting. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, they love like this kind of detail of like callbacks. Yeah.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, the blast. And then like a few seconds later, the Mithral mentions Life Day. can't remember what he says. He's got a line about Life Day, which is rarely spoken about because of the holiday special thing. It's like they were determined to get a couple of holiday special references in there just to say, hey, we don't completely hate the holiday special. We don't completely hate it, but we're not going to talk about it.
00:28:38
Speaker
My notes are a little bit jumbled, but I did notice that some of my friends were being eaten. It's like a very upsetting scene with some monkey lizards being roasted. Oh, yes. Oh, no. And they don't try and disguise the original nature of the meat at all, do they? It's like, it's so, there you are. There's one watching all happen. It's so horrible. I will, like, last time we spoke about these, I did say, don't worry.
00:29:10
Speaker
There's a bit of, like, comeuppance that's going to happen. So we're scarred at this point. Okay. But it's all going to be okay. Don't worry. Okay, it's all going to be all right. Well, it's not going to be okay for the one that was for you. Yeah, that's so grim. Yeah.
00:29:26
Speaker
It does feel quite like, us are they sentient? I mean, you know, Salacious Crumb. They are, kind of, aren't they? that It's a bit weird, isn't it? oh Yeah. yeah I don't know. I still don't think make eating them in front of other ones is nice.
00:29:43
Speaker
indely isn't you you It You're absolutely right. And it was the amount of detail they'd done as well to really make it clear exactly what they were. What it is, yeah. And they could have just shown us the one on the spit. And most people would have been maybe if they knew, oh they would recognise the shape of it. Yeah, but having a whimpering one in a cage as well is so horrible. Just waiting for that fate. You're next. Tell them.
00:30:09
Speaker
So yeah, we're on Navarro, which is a recurring planet that we visit a lot throughout Mando. We come back and see its development as the years go on. okay We got Carl Weathers, like Rocky, Predator, all of these. He's just casually, apparently, so I learned in the Art of the Mandalorian book, which I was reading this morning, they designed a Wee Kwe mask for him. Wee Kwe, they're not the same race as the ones that keeping Grogu, the child, at the end of this episode. the sort of pirate-y types. They're not those, but they're similar. There's one Return of the Jedi. He's one of the skiff, you know, the Jabba's sail barge has got those couple of skiffs that fly around. And the one that pokes Luke to get him to jump off the plank with a sort of leathery skin, that's a weak way. And they'd kind of built a mask for this character, for the head of the Bounty Hunter Guild to be wearing. And then they were like, hang on a minute, we've got Carl Weathers. Why would we put a mask on him? I don't think that was the right decision. Yeah, yeah. So great. His character arc as well. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's only the very, very start of the story when we see him this time. Where he takes that character. Intrigue.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. We love him I love that we're getting all this bounty hunter guild politics straight away. yeah I think one of my overarching like reactions to watching these two episodes is the amount of lore, L-O-R-E type lore. It's just so much like yeah about the bounty hunters, about the Mandalorians. There's just like all of this stuff. It's so detailed. And it kind of somehow doesn't make you feel too overwhelmed, I don't think. I don't know. No, I didn't i didn't feel particularly overwhelmed. I felt like it was quite, it's dropping in
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's deftly done, is what I said. It's really deftly done. And I think it's really interesting as well, because up until now, we've been kind of obsessive about Jedis, and we've not really thought about any other yeah the cultures that might have just as much sort of history and legacy and lore, L-O-R-E, that goes with it. And then suddenly we're introduced, yeah, it's not just Jedis, actually. There is equally complex and and embedded kind of rituals for a completely different sort of way of being. And I think that's really, really interesting. i especially love that with the bounty hunters. I think like with the Mandalorians,
00:32:35
Speaker
It's a little more complicated because there is some Mandalorian stuff sewn through Clone Wars and Rebels in places. It's not like you know all the time, but there are certain arcs within those series. But obviously they're animated series and and less people watch them than what they did, live action stuff.
00:32:52
Speaker
But the Bounty Hunter Guild, I don't think we've really had very much at all. Again, there were mentions of it in Clone Wars, but very little. And it's something that's been around from day one. um Well, from day two, I guess, since we saw... Well, no, day one, because Greedo was a Bounty Hunter, wasn't he, for Jabba the Hutt? So we did have a Bounty Hunter, and it's definitely in the role-playing game, which is one of the earliest sort of sources of information. yeah But we're all guessing, really, until now. Yeah.
00:33:17
Speaker
We're starting to get specifics about like the pucks that were introduced to the little bounty hunter pucks. Yeah. Which I'm not quite sure how they work. It's quite interesting. No, it's very hard. like they write They talk about chain codes as well, which has been mentioned in other things briefly. But i think this might have been the first time we heard the phrase chain code, which is like a kind of an ID, a digital ID, I guess. Yeah.
Imperial Remnants & Mysterious Motives
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:40
Speaker
Super interesting. Yeah. And I suppose just even from that shift of it should be done like this, this and this, and this particular bounty isn't being done like this and this. So yeah we get that suddenly starting to have to flex just a little bit. Yeah. I think that's some of the deft storytelling you were mentioning. absolutely. Like let's have a bounty that isn't like the others because then it helps us to explain why that is the case. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:05
Speaker
Love it. Great writing. And so he goes to find out about it from none other than Werner Herzog. Which still plays well. Every time he goes into that room and Werner Hock, I'm just like, what what is going on? Like, this is Star Wars and we got Werner Herzog. It's unbelievable. I'm never going to get over for it, but i love it. I had to Google it and just be like, who is this Werner Herzog guy? And then had to be like, oh no, it is actually him. That's why he sounds like him. He just doesn't look like him. He is him. yeah.
00:34:42
Speaker
With an Imperial medallion around his neck. And stormtroopers. What was that about? The stormtroopers, like decommissioned, I think they're referred to as because they're a bit messy, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. Looking bit worse for wear. A close second for my favourite line was going to be a double line, which is and one of the troopers says, we have you four to one. And and Mando says, I like those odds. That tells us a lot.
00:35:08
Speaker
What a ridiculously cool thing. It's a very tense scene now. I mean, Werner Herzog obviously plays this great like tension yeah in his like and calmness, stillness kind of thing, ah compared to Pershing, the doctor who comes in, Dr. Pershing, who we do learn quite a lot more about as time goes on. He's a key character and he's really edgy and is not happy about what's going on. I like the way Herzog said something. i call him Herzog. He's called the client. I think he's another character. They're all characters with the Mandalorian, the child, yeah yeah the armorer, the Mithral. And yeah, he says, the the client says termination is okay, but you'll get a lower fee. And yeah Dr. Pershing's like, what? Instantly like, no, don't do that. No, we need this 50-year-old being, as we learn, yeah alive.
00:36:02
Speaker
and And that's kind of the deft storytelling, isn't it? Because that status is it immediately established. The fact that the plan isn't what he thought the plan was, you get a real sense of the way that that that kind of hierarchy is working, which is Lauren to himself. He's definitely, and i love that in the kind of mirror of the Doctor.
00:36:20
Speaker
how we think he's not 100% down with what's going on here. Like, is he being coerced by this Imperial remnant to do something awful? And that carries on and on and on through into season three and beyond. Well, we don't know what's going to happen. But like, we're still not sure of his loyalty. He's such a great like character of mystery and intrigue.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's become our catchphrase. It has, hasn't it? And has to be done in a slight whisper. And I like that. yeah yeah And as if all of this wasn't enough.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah. We now get to go and see like and a Mandalorian cover living literally underground, yeah as it seems
Mandalorian Culture & Lore
00:37:04
Speaker
they always do. Wherever we go and find Mandalorians in the coming episodes, they're always underground underground somewhere, like literally underground, as well as living underground in hiding kind of thing.
00:37:15
Speaker
And the Armourer, who's played by Emily Swallow, who is an amazing woman. And she goes to loads of the cons. And she's so good with the fans, especially when there's kids wearing the Armourer costume. It's just like, oh, she's so good with the fans. She's quite happy to go on a podcast. I've heard her on podcasts. We love this generosity of spirit. We She's a good egg. And another brilliant voice actor. Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker
Oh, has your signet been revealed? What what does that even mean? and And I suppose and she's a really lovely juxtaposition from this Mandalorian who's having to flex and change, and this character that is not at all ah bitter, but is not changing, utterly constant, and metronomic in their following of the law. dogmatic and gives it a really really lovely kind of you see him waver and and kind of go all over the place and she's just steady which i think it makes his decisions even more sort of poignant and significant yeah yeah we do get a little that a little flashback a little bit of mando history don't tiny tiny taste yeah and it's so So well edited, like editing the clangs of her hammer as she's hitting them, Beskar, into shape with like, I was watching it, it's sometimes a cut when she hits and we go back to the thing, but then it sort crossfades sometimes. And yeah ah the visual language of it is beautiful. and And the way they've shot the flashback.
00:38:52
Speaker
with the kid and the droids and it's just like, what is going on? And they tell us so little, but like it really wets our appetite. You just said that so much more eloquently than my note that says flashbacks well handled. that was much, much better.
00:39:05
Speaker
I think I probably wrote the same, but I just got carried away. Also, I've just watched the episode where that motif happens again oh and in season three. So another bit of intrigue for you is they return to that in a slightly different context in in season three, which is nice really nicely done.
00:39:24
Speaker
I think if you ever want to find out a bit more about your past, go and see the Armourer and she'll make something for you. That's what you have to do. That clang is going to... She'll give you flashbacks. Reveal magnitudes. Yeah. May or may not be a good thing. No. I've just noticed that my note for all of that was flashback editing. All right, good.
00:39:45
Speaker
i I wrote musically, this is a lot of fun. There's some very pleasing sounds going on. Yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah, the soundtrack. Yeah. Is this? No, this isn't. ah This was almost my favourite bit of score. Ooh. Because we, like I mentioned, those dissonant guitars, the distorted guitars. Yeah. But then there's also like these weird synths, isn't there? like yeah Yeah. Like do do dooo that' like gate There's some gating going on. There's some comb filtering going on. There's loads of bizarre side chaining going on. I was just like, ah, this is cool. Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
At this point, we've had very little of this. in I think there's a few odd Clone Wars episodes where they tried some experiments okay with electronic score, but it not very often, yeah occasionally it does. But pretty much until this point, we had never had anything like this. Well, all the films are very orchestral, aren't they? Yeah, 100%. You'd never get something like this. I love that they it would have been so easy to just get a composer like one of the Giacinos or whoever to just... like channel John Williams and yeah give us that Star Wars sound. But i love that they went to, you know, he was already an established composer and he'd already done some some great work.
00:40:54
Speaker
But he was like, he's a hip hop producer as well. yeah know, he does all sorts of different stuff. And to bring him him in, he's obviously a Star Wars lover. but He just created this whole new palette. So good.
00:41:07
Speaker
We get Tabla later on, a bit where he's looking at the blurgs through the thing. Yeah. we get this kind of distortion, tabla, tronic, I don't even know what it is. It's an entirely different musical vocabulary, isn't it? It's whole different But somehow it it doesn't jar. you don't go You don't go, oh, no, that's not Star Wars. you It is absolutely yeah Star Wars, but in a completely different sound. Okay, I had a very, very, very niche observation.
00:41:34
Speaker
Go on then. I'm a bit terrified, Branwyn. I don't know. i I'm going to say that this was intentional, I think. Okay. Right. i I'd never noticed it until last night when I watched it. Right. At the end very end of this scene with the armourer, she's made him his thing...
00:41:51
Speaker
um and she made him his pauldron thing at this point I can't remember anyway whatever she was making he's sitting there and he's just had his flashbacks and in his visor you know they have like the t-shape like eye slot thing that's reflective it's reflecting the burners on her like blacksmith forge thing yeah and there are three of them and it's a bit like bars like a prison cell and it's like he's trapped in the Mandalorian dogma, which is going to become a massive story point as these seasons go on. And he there's all this stuff about, you know do you ever take your helmet off? Which you know we've mentioned briefly in in this episode. Somebody was somebody might up in the Mithril said, I heard you guys don't take off your helmets. Where they're just sowing those seeds of like, well, if you're in this Mandalorian sect, you don't. yeah And he does have to
00:42:43
Speaker
battle with his identity as a Mandalorian and not even just that but his identity as a Mandalorian of the Watch which is what like well we don't really know the name of their covert but this particular covert or is it to do with but all the other sects of Mandalore where you can take your yeah anyway jump ahead myself I feel like he's it's sowing seeds of his imprisonment as a Mandalorian literally on his helmet which is the icon of being a Mandalorian I don't know theatre maker in me the the kind of yeah does that that was a complete accident and then when they saw it they went that works i'd like i i can't help but think that because that happens so often you don't plan something it happens and you go brilliant we're having that and we're taking credit for it but it could be either way either way it works The last ever school play I was in, I smashed something on stage and I went, oh no. But then everyone came out being like, it was really symbolic. And everyone went, yeah, that's exactly what happened. There you go. I totally intended that. Definitely was meant to smash the props. It was a choice. It was a choice.
00:43:55
Speaker
Okay, blurgs. Blurgs. I love them. But it the Westernness of it Because in every Western you have an unbroken horse yeah that the hero has to break so they can ride it off into
Foreshadowing & Action Sequences
00:44:09
Speaker
the wilderness. And the Mandalorian equivalent is a blurg. And Quill is like the old timer, you know, watching the young buck trying to control the stallion. And at the end, there's just this profile shot of Quill and he just gives a little nod of approval. I did have a note about this. As as a horse rider, yes as oh as of which I've been doing recently, this is more lore about me. ah As a horse rider, you don't chuck someone on bareback that's never been on a horseback. broken horse is that frowned upon that's frowned upon you generally at least give them a tack the first time and they because i was like oh maybe they just because when he was trying to ride the bloke back i was like well maybe that's just how they ride them but then in the next shot they've got saddles they've got yes they have okay now you've done it the really hard way like let's let's make easier shall we give him a saddle the first time around
00:45:11
Speaker
This is like a guitar teacher, like you must learn on a six string acoustic yeah for two years and you like bleed your fingers and then they give you an electric guitar and it's like, oh, this is really easy. yeah yeah Oh, I'd forgotten that they had saddles. I didn't even log that. That's so funny. That's that glorious insight of someone who knows. yeah We do get a cracking line where he says, your ancestors rode to the great mythosaur. Yeah. And if that's not foreshadowing, yeah I don't know what is. Well, I thought that must be foreshadowing as well. yeah Haven't had it yet, but is I'm sure it's coming. Do we know do we know what a mythosaur is?
00:45:49
Speaker
Yes. The opening shot of the armourer's blacksmith forge is like a shot above the thing. And there's like how yeah the skull thing, which Boba Fett has on him as well, I think.
00:46:01
Speaker
That's a mythosaur. Okay, gotcha. It's also on a flag outside Maz's palace in Force Awakens. There's a Mandalorian flag hanging down. And the Mythosaur is like, each Mandalorian sect has its own thing. I think each Mandalorian has their own iconography. They do. Yeah. That's when she says, has your signet been revealed? Yes. yeah She's asking him what is going to be put on his armour as like his symbol of him. But the overall Mando one is that creature.
00:46:29
Speaker
Right. It's a bit like a coat of arms. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Like the Welsh dragon. yeah Yes. The Mandalorian mythosaur. Nice. Equally good. I'd be happy with either. So then we go and meet the bounty hunting droid who...
00:46:46
Speaker
I think sounds really cool. But before that, before that, before that, we've got my favourite musical cue. I was just going to say the music around that time is just, and that was the bit I could contribute musically. i just just, I think it's before the bit that you're going to say, but just the the music while he's learning to ride is such a glorious kind of adventurous sagary. It's great.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yeah. if As you keep watching, Jon Favreau... Oh, yeah. I didn i did note some montage. Well, we've already had several. Yeah, yeah. In one episode, we've had more than one montage. ah Yeah, and what my favourite cue is in the riding montage, yeah which is like the travelling, and they're travelling across the mud planet, and we get the full da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, you know, the whole theme with the horns and everything that, like...
00:47:32
Speaker
Oh, it just gives me all of the feels. It's probably the more traditional yeah part of the score. You know, like we've been talking about all the different musical colours that we've had. This is more of the traditional Star Wars, Western, classic, all-American feel almost. So nice. But it's done so well.
00:47:50
Speaker
The recording of the orchestra and the playing and everything is just exceptional. It's so good. I don't know quite what it is. But yes, then we get to the compound where the... ah the Nikto pirate, whatever they are, who we still to this day, we don't really know who they were or why they had the child. down Because that was one of my questions. We also don't know who hired IG. We never find that out, do we?
00:48:17
Speaker
No, and he says his instructions were to terminate yeah the bounty, whereas the client, Brass Mando, to bring him alive if possible.
00:48:27
Speaker
If he had to, he could terminate, but like the preference was to bring him alive because clearly they want him for something. But IG was to kill. Who Who is hiring IG-11? Intrigue. It's still a question we don't know the answer to. it is oh i love something We may never know, but I feel like it might be an important thing. I'm just enjoying the intrigue thing. every would almost if it was written down, it would be in a different colour, and I love that.
00:48:56
Speaker
this I've been wondering what our next set of merch is going to be because we've the the merch we've got is just our logo so far. And I've been like, what else are we going to have? Intrigue. I definitely so. I had a note about this whole sequence where he teams up with the droid.
00:49:12
Speaker
It's very Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's almost like a shot for shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. was like, where have I seen this before? Oh, yeah. It's such a homage. And I just think they almost wanted to go, bounty hunters can be like Mando and bounty hunters can be like this ridiculous st droid. Compare and contrast. Yeah. Here we go.
00:49:35
Speaker
It's beautiful that we get so many things with this droid. Like, apart from the fact that we get Taika Waititi, who... If you watch what we do in the shadows, you know, he's like, and and he brought us Thor Ragnarok, which we love. yeah And he's going to direct an episode later on in this season. But he's also playing this like slightly deranged, that looks like a droid we already know and love from Empire Strikes Back, yeah whose head is also one of the things behind the bar in the cantina. yeah It's the same bit of prop. It's been doubled up. And we get to see how he moves. And also for deep cut Star Wars people, if you played Shadows of the Empire in the N64 in the 90s, you had to fight this guy on a train. oh okay
00:50:21
Speaker
But we never got to see him move like this where he does the thing with his arms sticking out. and yeah kind of he He's got strange legs. I can't work out. Yeah, how do they... like he's He's got to be animated. Yeah, but like he's animated in this weird... He looks like he's been stop motion. You know, like as there' a model that's been animated...
00:50:42
Speaker
I don't know, it's really strange and I love it. It's very unearthly. I didn't know it was Taika Waititi, that just makes it even better. yeah Yeah, next time you listen to him. I instantly said he sounds cool. I was like, there's something about him that makes, I love his sound. So that's what I was picking up on. When he's saying about like initiating the self-destruct, the way he makes it comedy because he keeps doing it is, i mean, it's comedy in the writing, but the way he delivers it is yeah so Taika. Yeah.
00:51:12
Speaker
and And I suppose we kind of needed a bit of relief at that point as well, didn't we? We kind of needed just a little bit of, because it's all very intense and we're being given deftly kind of produced exposition and we're trying to take it all in. And then something that's essentially akin to slapstick is great.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, in this shootout, like you say, it's almost shot for shot. Like with the big shootout, the showdown where all of the Nikto's appear on top of the buildings and round corners. Then one turns up with the like repeating blaster on a repulsor lift and he lassos it with his grapple hook. So good.
00:51:50
Speaker
And the final shot. We've been talking a long time about one episode, but I think we're going to be talking more about this episode than the next one. Yeah, there's so much set up, isn't there? There is. that What's the famous, is it Michelangelo with the finger the touch of God. Yes, a creation of Adam God. And the child's finger coming of the... So gorgeous.
00:52:09
Speaker
It's so good. It's like the perfect full stop. Yeah. it's just We brought you here like by hook or by crook. We've come across many, many things in a very short amount of time. yeah yeah But we are now here. this is This is where the show really begins. Yeah. It's perfection. and Before we move on to the next episode, the concept art thing that happens at the end of every episode. oh gorgeous. Oh,
00:52:35
Speaker
Just like perfection. Like, I think at the end of episode one, I was like, as if I could not love the show even more already. And there's the credits. yeah but The Child, episode two.
Grogu & Mando's Relationship
00:52:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:50
Speaker
We've got one of our famous... Creatures. You've probably be noticed in our... We're tracking things there. No, I put it at the top of my list. I've small animal in establishing shot. Yes. There. You are officially a sister of the force. I am, I am. I want to be.
00:53:13
Speaker
not only do we get some little lizards in an establishing shot, we then get more of them, and including some baby ones. There were some little miniature ones that were out with their parents. my God. And Grogu, I noticed, see, you were bringing Grogu into shot there. I brought Grogu back in. This is one of the things I had to ask, is that obviously at the moment he's the child. We don't know that he's called Grogu. I haven't watched further than this. I don't know that he's called Grogu, but I do know that he's called Grogu. And how and when? Soon. Soon. okay Season two. Season two? season two? Does it take that long? Halfway through season two. Yep, they keep us all the way till then.
00:53:53
Speaker
Wow. I've just watched, quite binge watched it, so I didn't realise we had to wait that long. But it is officially said, is revealed in absolutely certain terms that Grogu is his best. In a gorgeous scene. Grogu's a gorgeous scene. Yes, absolutely. So good. That's all right then. Yeah, Grogu is, or the child, is hungrily looking at the lizards. Out of the corner of his little prams like, ooh, dinner. Yeah. Another lovely motif that keeps recurring. So good. So good. Season two, episode two. Anyway, we'll get there. We'll get there. The Trandoshans. So these are the same race as Bosk, who is another of the bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back. The lizard-y type ones.
00:54:38
Speaker
or reptilian, their voices. I'd never noticed that before until I watched it. They've got this kind of weird dialect, which a lot of them speak basic. When you read them as characters in novels, they tend to elongate the S's. Okay. Like Bosk's. I think Bosk has three S's in it, I think, if you write it down. Sure. And there's dialogue like in the comics and stuff. You see they speak with multiple S's. So that's when they're speaking basic. But obviously in this, I think they're communicating in their own language. Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Which I don't think I've ever heard before. Okay. It's really cool. Just a little sound design note. Sound design note, good. We were talking about the nonverbal communication and the acting that's so eloquent in without words.
00:55:20
Speaker
And I realised that one of the things that they're doing, particularly in at the start of this episode, is they use breath really eloquently. Yeah. So breath sounds yeah where there's no words. And it's a really clever way of communicating because we do we do communicate through our breath. yeah whether it speeds up or slows down or is slightly more laboured and there's loads of really beautiful breath speakiness and completely non-verbal but like just using that the sound of the inhale and the exhale in a really eloquent way just if you look at it there's there's some lovely use of that at the beginning of this episode I need to go and re-watch this now I'm to it again. Yeah, I might binge the rest of it and then I'm going to go. and then do a rewatch. And then do the rewatch. Good plan. Can't ever have too much Mando. Because I'm realising that not only have we got Mando who we can't see um and he very rarely speaks, his acting partner is a puppet that doesn't speak. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It shouldn't work. And it absolutely does. We're getting in all of the feels. We're getting so many feels from their relationship in that scene after this little moment. And Mando's trying to like cauterise his wound and Grogu comes up to help and like lays his hand on it. And the music tells us something's going on here. yeah There's no dialogue or anything to tell us anything. And Mando dismisses him and puts him back in the yeah the crib. But like there is something going on which we'll find out later. Yeah.
00:56:44
Speaker
Well, he's force healer, isn't he? yeah like That was my note, was that we're setting up force healing instantly. yeah yeah yeah For me, this is where the bonding begins, this little scene, this little campfire scene. It's like Grogu's obviously like rooting for him and trying to help him.
00:57:01
Speaker
And Mando's kind of realising, and he doesn't quite know what to do with that, so he puts the baby back in the yeah thing. and But it's like it's started I think. yeah But it's a brand new, it's a brand new thing, isn't it? He's not had that from anybody. He was a foundling. He didn didn't have any parental input. He's not had, bonding is something that hasn't happened and it's not part of the way because bonding is not allowed to happen. There's there's all of this distance and and lack of connection really, except for the fact that you belong to the same creed.
00:57:34
Speaker
And then suddenly he's he's given it really naturally and it is just this, this is a whole vocabulary idea. don't understand i don't know of but somehow it speaks to me and how do i how do i marry those things up that there's an innate pull towards it and yet it's not something i understand or know not yet it's that whole baby animal thing as well though isn't it it's you innately want to take care of infants yeah unless they're crying but
00:58:06
Speaker
Which Grogu is a 50-year-old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And somehow manages not to do a lot this. Not to cry. He's pretty patient and peaceful as ah as a child. As a child, yeah. But that whole like kind of big eyes and yeah big eyes and helplessness thing, isn't it? The amount of design stuff in that book that i was talking about, the art book, like of how they got to Grogu is wild. Like they went through so many different incarnations from Dave Filoni's little tiny sketch, which pretty much had him already, I think. But they went through more baby looking things.
00:58:40
Speaker
And then more Yoda looking. And yeah I think they got the balance. Like he was worth it was worth the design process. He's cute. So it it turns out that Jawas have managed to, like they don't just live on Tatooine.
00:58:56
Speaker
Which I don't know at this point whether we knew that. Although we did see some on Navarro, I think. So maybe we did know that.
Humor & Wisdom in The Mandalorian
00:59:02
Speaker
This is where we see like a whole enclave of Jawa's with a sound cooler doing their thing, scavenging somebody's perfectly good ship.
00:59:12
Speaker
This is where if you'd asked me for a line in this episode, I had one just in case, which is, I love the line, you speak terrible Jawa, you sound like a Wookiee. It was a great, great laugh.
00:59:25
Speaker
the history actually just starts flamethrowing. I had a note about the Jawa murder in front of Grogu feels a bit much. Disintegrating Jawa is left, right and centre. Yeah, the things that Grogu sees the Mandalorian do in those in that first episode is they're together, sorry, that episode two.
00:59:45
Speaker
I mean, they're just, he's watching him do such brutal, brave, you know, that whole thing of learning from your parents, the things that he's learning in there. That's awful. It's really brutal. Although, to be fair, you know, he spent a certain amount of his life in the Jedi Temple. Completely. as we know from the prequel trilogy, that isn't necessarily the They're also quite brutal. No. Yeah. Which I think is why he's unfazed. He just watches it. He's not shying away, Oscar, and that kind of backs that up. He's seen lots of things, but now he's watching. There is a bit of ear drooping, you're right, a little bit.
01:00:20
Speaker
But then he'll just eat a frog like that. Carry on. A whole new he new realm of comfort eating. yeah
01:00:32
Speaker
I like how he is doing this little ah a little bit of hunting for frogs at Quill's. like There are frogs around and he's like, you can see it coming before actually happens. Quill gives us a nice line about the Jaws. He says, Jaws steal, they don't destroy, yeah which is an interesting one. That is nice. Yeah.
01:00:51
Speaker
They nick things, but they won't have broken any of the things that they've nicked. Yeah. Quills are full of brilliant lines, actually. They really don't like you for some reason. While I did disintegrate a few of them was another beautiful exchange. There's just all of that writing is just absolutely on point. Yeah, he's he's another character that's like, we've got a lot to thank. Like the writing is brilliant. Nick Nolte, who's playing him, like his voice acting is just yeah supreme. And I ah kind of want to shout out Misty Roses, who is the physical actor, because so often people talk about Nick Nolte. Like, yes, he does bring so much to the character.
01:01:28
Speaker
But Quill has got a lot of physicality. Yeah.
01:01:51
Speaker
Nima outpost on Jakku and then you know a few years later she's playing an ugnaught an old male ugnaught you know who's been ah been through everything and she brings a lot in a very subtle way it's the partnership of all of that but it happens time and time again you've got that kind of design that craft the actor the voice the writing and and the way that comes together so beautifully in so many moments but that's a really good example of it Yeah.
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. What a character. What a really whole lived in. We know the way he talks about servitude at the end of the episode is like, I was almost crying. Like what all we know of Ugnaughts if we've just watched the movies is them on Cloud City and they seem to be here yeah certainly very low down on the food chain in Cloud City, just dealing with the trash and everything else um running around doing everybody's bidding.
01:02:45
Speaker
And I think we do know from the more expanded universe that they are very much that that race that get you know abused, used and abused. And so the fact that he's managed to escape from that through whatever route. And he just wants peace. And he's very reflective about service.
01:03:00
Speaker
And yeah, he just wants to bre be and like, he won't take anything. He's such a great character. my My note is that he's the personification of wisdom and honor. And that's that's what really kind of comes out at you to to kind of live a life like that and come out of it wise, not bitter.
01:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. He's really very impressive. I love that. Yeah. So Mando gets sent on this little mission to go and find the egg, which is just like such a classic. Yeah. Side quest. I mean, this whole episode is a side quest. It is a side quest. It reminded me, don't suppose you watched the Mighty Boo Shava, Sarah, did you? No, I'm afraid not. I probably missed out, but I had to. You really did. There's an episode of that where they go and find the egg of Mantumbi in season four. They go to the Antarctic or somewhere. Look deep into the bargain. Oh, no. Oh, here we go. Don't let – maybe we need a spin-off Mighty Booth podcast. You've got a lot to get through before you can start thinking spin-offs. True, true. There is so much. So he goes to get the egg. It's fairly classic scenario. Nasty Monster is guarding the egg. Yeah.
01:04:19
Speaker
But is it the nasty monster's egg? Well... So no wonder it's guarding it. It's not nasty either, really. It's just a mother, isn't it? Doing her thing. I felt a bit bad. Just unfortunately, it has what the Jawas want. The Jawas want to eat the baby. Come on. but Brutal. There's so many things about this
Grogu's Abilities & Series Lore
01:04:40
Speaker
episode. But I feel like the main thing that this episode is, is discovering that the the child has some extraordinary abilities. Really powerful.
01:04:51
Speaker
I love the moment of him doing that. And i love the fact that he has to have a little sleepy afterwards. i think that's something he's not. I really love the fact that that at that point, we're allowed to know so much. So we go, that's the force. We know all about the force. Whereas Manda's going, what? on what is going on. It is that. yeah Yeah, that's true. So we're really wise and he's really naive and there's just a nice moment where we go... Which is the opposite of everything else. oh be Yes, exactly. Exactly.
01:05:21
Speaker
So before Grogu steps in, in that battle, I think that's my favourite music cue. Yes. That battle because it's just... It's so wild. It's got those little vocal samples. Yeah. loved it.
01:05:36
Speaker
So weird. Some really like resonant analog synth stuff going on It's weird and wonderful. couldn't even tell what half the sounds were, but I was like, this is incredible. must be really good for you. When you can't work it out, that must be like the absolute creative challenge of what is going on. Yeah, it is peak. Give me a couple of hours with a synth that I can recreate. You'll work out. But it takes a while.
01:06:02
Speaker
At this point of the episode, I'm going to introduce a new feature. Ooh. dump I feel very honoured to be here. have mentioned this to Sia, but like I haven't mentioned that was actually going to do this episode.
01:06:15
Speaker
ah Sorry for the lack of order. I haven't figured out her name yet. I think it's going to be called either West End Girls yeah or West End Geek Girls. West End Girls or West End Geek Girls. Okay. okay Right.
01:06:26
Speaker
The original role-playing game, which we've mentioned many times, I'm now showing. I've not seen it before, it's good to have the visuals. There's many, many books. I've got several books behind me. But this is the source book, which came out the origin of it and is made by West End Games, hence West End Geek Girls, you see. Gotcha.
01:06:44
Speaker
And what i suggested to Sia that I might do is each episode of the podcast, I'll find something in The Mandalorian that comes from or is referenced in the role-playing game. Because it's not a game that carried on. like ah I think people do still play it, but it hasn't got like the longevity that Dungeons & Dragons had, for instance. had some intel that they're doing a reprint of the game. Are they? Wow.
01:07:09
Speaker
Nick told me this. We may have a secret plan, which is going to be a sort of one-off bonus episode that we've been quietly talking about behind the scenes with some of our our other role-playing geeky friends connected to this, which is why I kind of wanted to introduce the role-playing game in a bit bit more detail. So I found something in this episode.
01:07:29
Speaker
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni – well, i don't know about Jon Favreau, to be honest, but Dave Filoni 100% has this book and played the role-playing game. I'm pretty much around my age. and like the amount of things that are specific to the role-playing game that I've seen them reference in the show. Obviously, there's loads of stuff in the role-playing game that's in all of the Star Wars that we know you know. It wouldn't be a surprise if I looked up Stormtrooper in here. yeah We know that. that yeah um But the details and the naming of things sometimes makes me feel like, yeah, they're specifically doing this. So in the battle that he has with the Mudhorn, his last-ditch effort, he's on his knees, and he's got his little knife on,
01:08:06
Speaker
Yeah. yeah and and the mudh horn just charges him down and that's when the child saves and yeah that little knife is called a vibra blade and you can see it if you look carefully there's like ah one of these amazing horizontal profile shots of yeah muon and mando And you can see the blade just vibrating a little bit. It's very tiny, but you can see it going glowing. And we have had them in Star Wars before, so it's not new, but it's something that I remember. So in the source book, it says, vibroblade, for most applications in general use in industry and in combat, vibroblades have all but replaced knives. Well, we didn't. You have be told that, really. A tiny ultrasonic generator in the handle of the vibroblade creates thousands of tiny vibrations along the blade edge every second, making the blade cut through most materials with only slight pressure.
01:08:54
Speaker
A tiny capacitor powers the generator, which is turned off when not in use. When turned on, the vibrations produce a low but audible hum, which is a typical, like, you need to know that in role-playing games in case you're trying to sneak up on somebody. Yeah, sure.
01:09:08
Speaker
Vibraids range in size from tiny medical scalpels with sensitive variable controls to the well-known industrial three-meter-long fast cutter built by Craftsbeam. I love the calm brand name Craftsbeam. Obviously. Where else are you getting your vibrating knives from?
01:09:27
Speaker
Gravespeat. All have been employed as weapons at one time or another, which again is very role-playingy because the first thing you want to know is can I use it as a weapon against this whatever it is on fire? Yeah. So you can look forward to that in every episode. going to find little thing. Great. I'm excited. A little West End Geek Girls Easter egg. I love that.
Musical Themes & Creative Influence
01:09:49
Speaker
There's another musical cue just after when they're rebuilding the Razorcrest together in a fast seven time. Yes. I had to really count. Like it's super quick tempo. It's like I think a one, two, three, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, two type of seven. Yeah. And it's really like busy, busy, busy. Yeah, it's a montage. Yeah. But it's another interesting colour. It's kind of more like Middle Eastern its rhythmic content rather than all the other flavours that we've been having so far. It's fascinating and you'll know much more, but the fact that they can have all these diverse things, all sorts of motifs and scales and all of that kind of key, but it still holds together. If somebody with less craft did that, it would be all over the place and it would feel disconnected it would feel disjointed, but somehow they managed to make it all one glorious thing out of all of these disparate parts, which I think is the same for the filmography and the same for the characters and the same. It's just so clever. Yeah.
01:10:55
Speaker
I think it's that wonderful creative tool of limitations because even though there are many things, they still have like a finite flow chart for all of these things. Where they're like, well, these are the core things that we're centre around, i.e. samurai and Western.
01:11:11
Speaker
We might also venture into these other places, but that's all we're going to do. And they stick probably fairly rigidly to those things from here on out. And yeah and it maintains the the feel of the show until they such time as when you're three seasons in and you decide, well, let's just have a wild episode where we go off book. Let's change that. Which I've just watched. Yes.
01:11:32
Speaker
Yeah. But once you've established stuff, that's when you can go off book. Yeah. yeah But you do need to establish and and earn those kind of episodes. definitely Sure. Yeah.
Reflections & Future Collaborations
01:11:44
Speaker
oh my gosh. This was amazing. Yeah. I've had such a nice time. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope you will come on on again um when we're breaking down something else. i would be delighted to.
01:11:56
Speaker
Cool. We'll hold you to that. You have brought so much interesting insights, loads of stuff I've not even begun to imagine. But soon as you explain things, which is very on brand for you, you just managed to make me go, my gosh, of course. Of course. That's just, of course. And I love that so much. That's why you're here.
01:12:20
Speaker
How do we all feel after, well, re-watching or watching for the first time? Yeah, I'm going to binge watch the rest of the season and then it'll be a re-watch for me as well. I think that's very wise. Give two days and I'll have done it. so I got this invitation. I was like, great, I've got such a good excuse to watch it all, which is what I've been doing. And then went back and watched one and two again, just to kind of be ready. And it was like, that's that's no hardship. Did you say this is your third third time? I think it's probably my third time watching the whole season and then an an extra watch of one and two. And then now I need to go and do Boboff. because there was the crossover between two and three and I was like oh my goodness and I'm back in and and then Andor needs to be re-watched and then so I'm off I'm a you back into the world with a vengeance and so thank you for the invitation absolutely anytime as we say it will be happening again for sure
01:13:10
Speaker
hu So don't forget, listeners, thank you very much for joining us. And you can follow us on the usual places, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, YouTube. All of those. Just search for Sisters of the Force. Yeah. And you can get our merch.
01:13:25
Speaker
Search for Sisters of the Force on Redbubble and you'll find our little merch collection, which currently only has one design. But as of this episode, a new one is on the way. i'm waiting for the intrigue line. then I'm buying it out. We'll give you more. amazing we'll be back again next week uh at which point we're going to be breaking down episodes three and four of season one of the mandalorian which is a very happy place for me so i'm here for it excited until then we'll see you soon bye bye