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Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapter 24 with Rebecca | 030 image

Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapter 24 with Rebecca | 030

S2 E20 ยท Sisters of the Force
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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.

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 thirtieth episode we're continuing through The Mandalorian Season 3, with the season finale, Chapter 24 "The Return". We talk about themes, performances, story details, versatile episode titles, whether mouse droids can deliver tea, Gideon clones, epic shiny cinematography, and much more. Watch out for our "West End Geek Girls" segment, 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. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.

Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.

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Transcript

Favorite Lines from The Mandalorian

00:00:15
Speaker
Hey, Branwen. Hello. What is your favourite line from The Mandalorian Chapter 24? Let's take back our planet. Yeah, fair enough. All of the bow fields. Fair enough. There were quite a few lines like that in this episode. Yeah, there It was all quite... Sia. Hi. What's your favourite line from The Mandalorian, Chapter 24?
00:00:37
Speaker
R5, next shield. Oh, lush. Anything R5 related, I'm down for. It

Reflecting on The Mandalorian and Boba Fett Rewatch

00:00:45
Speaker
was great. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. And me, Sia. Hello. Hello. And we are here this week to talk about dan dan du the finale of Mandalorian Season 3. This is the end of our Mandalorian rewatch. Oh my gosh.
00:01:01
Speaker
Oh, no. We've done The Mandalorian Season 1, 2, Book of Boba Fett, Mandalorian Season 3, and here we are at the last episode. Wow.

Rebecca's Return and The Last Jedi Era

00:01:09
Speaker
And not only that, not only are we so hyped about that, but we're also super hyped because we've got another returning guest, the incredible Rebecca. Welcome back, Rebecca.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me back. Hi. Yay. been a while. it has. It was The Last Jedi way back in sequel trilogy era. Oh my goodness.
00:01:30
Speaker
Well, what a delight to be back now and what a delight to return on a chapter entitled The Return. The Return. so Thank you for letting me have

The Mandalorian Episode Title Speculations

00:01:41
Speaker
that moment. Incredible. I didn't even think of that. That is genius. And I love it.
00:01:46
Speaker
Luckily, you didn't come back on The Rescue. or so yeah Exactly. Or one of the other ones, which might have been worse. So we're delighted to return on The Return. The Return. I love it. Perfect. As usual with these episodes, what the The return, they're so vague. What does this mean? We've been going through season three, especially the episode titles are so... like I reckon they just like randomly pulled them out of our hat. I can't... Totally. Did they release the titles of the episodes before they released the episodes? Was there like an episode list?
00:02:19
Speaker
I don't think there was for this. Okay. Because sometimes that's a thing, isn't it? And then everyone goes nuts trying to speculate. Yeah. Yeah. What's happening? They've just done this with more Shadow Lord. They've given episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 titles, which are all suitably vague and yeah like, you know, dark whispers or whatever. But the final episode is currently called the finale. I wear that perfume. I wear the finale.
00:02:50
Speaker
Seals the deal. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, so I can't remember. I don't think they did tell us. And I think even as they were releasing, I don't know that they had titles until a little while after. wow. They sometimes do that as well. There's just like chapter eight and that's all you get for little while. That's all you're

Origins and Capabilities of Mouse Droids

00:03:11
Speaker
allowed. Yeah. Not that it matters in any case this season. There's been no clues. We don't even know what they mean after the things come out. Yeah. No. Just randomly make it up after we've watched it and go, yeah, the return because there was the stone that featured.
00:03:27
Speaker
That's what we did last week. We were very confused. and Before we go any further, Rebecca, do you have a favourite line from The Mandalorian Chapter 24? I do. I was torn actually between two, but Branwen nicked the one of them, which actually made it easy. i She does that, but it actually made me easy then. So...
00:03:47
Speaker
I'm coming in hot is my line because it's the greatest understatement ever. yes And that was my other one. So I'm glad was yeah didn't go with that one now. Well, you know, if you had, both of mine would have gone. So I'm very, me with nothing.
00:04:03
Speaker
but So I'm very glad that you didn't. You'd have been, yeah, flooring for a line. I was just it This is the way. this is the way. Done. Axe. It was an Axe line, wasn't it? is Axe, yeah, yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. He didn't have many lines, but the lines he had. yeah My alternative one, in case anybody nicked, my favourite one was going to be for Mandalore at the end. Yeah, that was. i mean, that was him and the crowd and they repeated I just like, i was crying at that point, obviously. Yeah, fair.
00:04:33
Speaker
This is much wilder than I remembered it. Well, I started this episode, again, my rewatch this morning, and my first note is, we've only got 41 minutes to try and resolve all this. Yes. And then less than that once you've got the recap and the credits. so like Yeah.
00:04:52
Speaker
30 minutes it's non-stop it's really really non-stop yeah it was another one where I was pausing it every few minutes to quickly type my notes and my parents were going can we just please carry on with the episode stuff it and start it I'd forgotten how action-packed and sort of set piece after set piece and I've given it a new title actually know if you want to hear what yes how I what I would have called it chapter 24 the cloney shiny showdown was yeah yeah
00:05:22
Speaker
decided to call this chapter instead do we have your permission to put that on a t-shirt because please i would love that the cloney shiny showdown like want gideon's face and that caption is doing it for me This is a showdown.
00:05:40
Speaker
There's a lot of shine

Cinematic Quality of The Mandalorian Battles

00:05:41
Speaker
going on here. It's very shiny. There's some clones just yeah gone. i was like, perfect. ah But yeah, it was it was it was quite an episode. Quite an episode. Yeah. say yeah yeah I mean, I kind of remembered what ultimately had happened.
00:05:55
Speaker
but Yeah. I mean, i it felt really cinematic to me. And, I mean, Mando's always pretty cinematic. They're pretty good cinematography-wise and they use the volume as well as they can for low you know a relatively low budget compared to what ah a full movie would be. It looked pretty banging. There were some amazing, like...
00:06:14
Speaker
Big shots of stuff happening. yeah The battle, yeah, the Mando's flying in. Well, we'll get there. We'll get there. It was unbelievable, yeah. I've re-watched that bit quite a few times just to sort of take it in because I was trying to make notes the first time I'm like, I'm missing all of these amazing shots. All this, like, I don't know how they do it. CGI, the volume, don't even know anymore. It's just... Bit of all of it. Witchcraft. Yeah, definitely. There's a little bit of that. The Force. I've got some notes on that aspect as well, but when we get there, I'll leave them out. When we get there. Lush. My second note, apart from the how going to resolve this in 41 minutes, was we're straight in with a classic Bo-Katan plan to axe as they're running away. LAUGHTER
00:06:59
Speaker
classic She's very on the fly, very katana. She is pretty good on the fly. she is always somebody who's got a little plan of her sleeve. That's true. It's pretty good. It's a good plan, I think. yeah I kept referring back to it later in the episode. i was like, yeah, this is working. It's working. She's It does job. It's working. yeah yeah These little detonators, because they start throwing some detonators down. and To try and take out the clonies.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, they're called gravchargers, apparently. I just thought they were the typical timer. We've seen them a million times in Star Wars at this point. But these have their own page on Wikipedia, just these ones for this episode and the gravchargers. Wow. So somebody's gone through a lot of work for that little detail. Deciding what they do. What's the physics of them? Has somebody that up, though, do you reckon? Has somebody actually just gone? Is it really what they're called, do you reckon? It will be, yeah. I can't remember where the reference is. Oh, no, it was linked to StarWars.com. So it was in an article on StarWars.com. Because, yeah, that's usually, it's either that or like a DK book or a behind-the-scenes doc or something. This where all the little...
00:07:59
Speaker
sort of trivial stuff is sourced from but Star Wars.com do produce quite a lot of interesting articles which I'm not in the habit of reading and I feel like I i should be to be a better Star Wars fan I feel like I should now as well they give you like a lot of info that you don't get anywhere else and yeah I don't know There's an interesting shot in the the next We've got Mando.
00:08:20
Speaker
He's being dragged off by these two guards. And we get a POV shot, which we've had quite a few. But for this is the first time we've not had Mando or Glicho Vision TM, which is what we normally see. Yeah, we're seeing through his visor, but without without any without any scope on it. Yeah, we just see the T-shape with no...
00:08:40
Speaker
What do they call that? Not user interface. There's a name for it that they always call it in Iron Man and stuff. Like graphical user interface or something like that. We'll call it that. Something like that. Which is usually what we've got and it's usually glitchy and we've discovered through the process of re-watching this season that all Mandalorians have glitch-o-vision. Nobody seems to have high quality. Nobody can ever see normal. 1080, 4K or whatever.
00:09:06
Speaker
It's glitchy and black and white. But this time, yeah, he must be able to just completely turn it off because we see, like you say, out his T-shape. Well, it would be really annoying if it was on all the time, wouldn't it? It probably would, actually. It's very true. It'd be like having Google Glasses on. Not that I've ever even tried them, but don't know you can see. Absolutely not.
00:09:27
Speaker
I guess this is our first bit of like proper combat. He's making a break for it. oh He's off. This is kind of illustrating what we had way, way back in season two, I think, when we were talking about Boba Fett's armor and all his weaponry, and we broke down all of the different things that they have. Oh, yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
And now we're seeing it represented in the troopers, whatever they were called from last week. Yeah, in I can't remember the Imperials. Special something troopers. Anyway, yeah. yeah they They seem to have all of the same gadgetry, which, as we know, is...
00:09:58
Speaker
designed originally by Mandalorians to fight Jedi with, specifically to fight combat Jedi. And they actually seem quite good at using it as well because they do they they do very, very nearly get the best of Din, really, don't they?
00:10:10
Speaker
suppose he is outnumbered. It's only because of IG, like Grogu IG is what saves him, as I remember. And what a perfect thing to save him. I mean, absolutely classic. They're therere in the height of that fight, all those tools being used. It's a baby on a digger. Brilliant. Yeah, exactly. Rebecca, are you

Grogu's Development and Role

00:10:31
Speaker
a fan of the Grogu IG combo? Because I know it's a bit, some people aren't so keen on it. or we I'm a lover of it. I love it. I'm a lover of it. And it it kind of takes me back to other sci-fi franchises as well. and yeah Yeah. You know, I thought it's great.
00:10:47
Speaker
I just loved it. I thought kind of empowered Grogu in a different way, in a kind of almost more grounded way, even though it was like IG unit. It was just like... like little gear sticks, little arcade game. thought it was great and I think there's a charm about it, a charm that actually just gives Grogu another angle. And yeah, I love it. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Good, good. There's something really funny about how he's able to disarm these troopers that have attacked Din, but he's also still disengaging from them, but he's also still pummeling the no button the entire time. Is that necessary? He's got one hand doing the fight, one hand narrating it.
00:11:36
Speaker
There's a bit later on, i can't remember where it comes. I'll try and out for it in notes as we go. But there's a bit where IG sort of does something that I don't think Grogu was doing to sort of suggest that IG still has some AI left him.
00:11:49
Speaker
Because I know when the conversation happened with Grief and the Anzelans and Din back on Navarro, there was talk of it being just like a shell. Yeah. But I feel like it was a little bit unclear.
00:12:00
Speaker
The Anzelan was trying to explain that they've taken out the memory chips or something. There was some specification that they've bypassed. Yes. But obviously there's some stuff left because it's more than just a mechanical... Yeah. So I don't know what's going on there. Well, he instantly sprays Din down with the... With the fixing spray, doesn't it? I think that is that the same back to spray that back in episode eight. Yeah, that right at the beginning. Yeah, in the last finale. The first finale, I should say. Sure. What a great spray that is, though. I'd love that spray. I'd want some of that spray juice. That'd be great.
00:12:35
Speaker
That'd be really helpful. Yes, brilliant. Yeah, i love that. Fix me up. I don't actually think it was needed at this point. No, no. but why not have it it's like every morning I'd wake up and just spread it for no reason I'd go right I'm off hell yeah that'd be amazing I want some ah but then Grogu I'm gonna need you to be brave for me okay that was a newly another one of my faves really cute if we don't take Moff Gideon this will never end so it's like he's setting up the stakes we're only in like scene two or something yeah And basically, you know, they've got to take out Moff Gideon. That's basically saying this is how this episode is going to climax kind of thing. yeah He has a little liaison with Bo-Katan to sort of say what's going on. yeah He's going to go take out Gideon.
00:13:23
Speaker
And the captain of the survivors, that I don't think they've got a technical name. Oh, the faction that stayed behind. Yeah, think they're just called the survival gang. They say they've got somewhere to retreat to, to hide while they're waiting for support. I think that's what's going on. It's like every second there's a new thing happening. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what they were sort of implying is that because they know Mandalore still pretty well.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yes. They knew a place to go from Tide Up, which is a really cool place, as we will see. That makes sense. And it is where I first started to like wow at the cinematography because we can get a cut away to the interceptors and the bombers.
00:14:00
Speaker
taking off and it's just the most phenomenal shot yeah the hanging bats of the interceptors which i love yeah i had a little note on them looking amazing and then they've got amazing sound design and it's all very like we love it okay we're in we like our candy we like sound candy yeah all of it yeah give us all of that yes So Gideon's watching Din's Progress. And did you notice? As a little red dot and a elizabeth little green dot. And a little green dot was a bit smaller than the red dot. Yeah, that's it. I assume that was brilliant. But also, yeah what? It was like Gideon's games, you know. Whose idea was that? Or was it some tech, some like imperial tech who's like, oh, I know what we can do. And Gideon's just like pretending not to notice it because he want to look uncool. Totally, totally.
00:14:56
Speaker
It's just really weird because, again, they've got all of these like really high-tech stuff and then they're essentially watching the oldest version of Pac-Man on the screen. Yeah, yeah. It's four-bit graphics. Yeah. On It's the same as that button though, isn't it? i The IG, no, no, no button. just like... It's just an arcade machine. It kind of nods back to yeah old arcade stuff, don't you, throughout this? Like you said, the high gloss stuff and then mixed with wonderful arcade vibe. I know this is definitely Jon Favreau's influence. He has always said he loves...
00:15:30
Speaker
the original trilogy. and i mean, i I've made notes later on, but we can talk about it now because we're on this topic. But when we're on the the bridge of the cruiser and Axe is like getting his crew to evacuate, yeah we see the controls on there much better than we ever have. And it's basically, yeah, it's like late 70s, a combination of arcade machines and home computer graphics. gaming systems, which were very, very limited. There's like little dials. He's even doing the controls and it's just like turning things and like pushing a button. There's no like fancy keypads or AI in the air stuff. No. It's just little buttons. I love it.
00:16:04
Speaker
That is funny. like Gideon has just spent a fortune of the Imperial Remnant coffers on basically a fancy suit for himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the expense of any decent like monitoring equipment or... But, you know, you've got ah a red and a green dot. What more do you need? true you know it does it It does it. He can see where they are. What does the job? Yeah. How is he tracking them, though, as well? Because, like, what I don't understand. Well, I think it's like a bioscanner thing. Funnily enough, I was close to doing Western Geek Girls this week about scanners. Actually, know i was going to do it last week because we saw Carson Tover scanning scanners.
00:16:41
Speaker
that shuttle in space or maybe that was two episodes ago at some point anyway we saw some scanners and I was almost going to do because I remember reading something about scanners in the original role playing game and there were like four layers to scanners there's like passive mode where it's just detecting a huge area but without any accuracy and then get progressively closer in until like the most extreme version of scanners are like focus and they can only detect over like about a meter square but they'll give you like all of the bio information and all that kind of stuff So there are different... This would be like probably the second or the third level.

R5's Character Development

00:17:14
Speaker
Sure. So it can detect and possibly identify a person within quite close range because they're not that far away. Yeah. I mean, that's how the role-playing game explains it, but as we know... level of information is like amazing as always brown rain i mean there was me just thinking i would switch out that suit that moth's wearing for a green and red dot any day if i could walk around looking like him and just have a green and red dot scanner thing yeah i'd totally do that because you're like the scanner levels i'm like wow i love it it's great Oh, God. My next question, though, R5. Has he been there the whole time? Where did he come from? Yeah, so R5, I've lost track of what happened to the M1 because he would have been in the M1.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah. But no, but then he would have come with Bo in the gauntlet. Yes. So he would still be in the gauntlet, I reckon. Because doesn't he... Where does he... Or was he on the surface? He's on the surface.
00:18:13
Speaker
Did Din leave him there last time he was here? That's what I was wondering. Is you're asking? Has R5 been, like, just been abandoned there and waiting this entire time?
00:18:25
Speaker
That's very interesting. good point. Din definitely came down with Bo-Katan last week because she had Grogu on her lap and he was in the cockpit with her. I feel like R5 was there in the ship. ok Okay, okay. Might have to recheck that. I think he was there. I don't remember him being on on the pirate ship, not the pirate ship, you know, thisb lang ski la the Langskib. The Langskib, yeah. The big Survivor's ship thing. Sure. I don't remember seeing that, but he could well have been.
00:18:55
Speaker
Okay. Or he could have just stayed on the gauntlet, most likely. Maybe that's me just not being very observant, but I was like, I feel like we haven't heard from R5 in a while. Yeah. And suddenly bury in. We are 100% hearing from him in this episode. Yes, that's I am absolutely loving R5 in this episode. I think even my, like, you know, player of the week, he... he's great.
00:19:17
Speaker
he's so So yeah, this is his moment, isn't it? Yeah, his moment. Din calls him, i need you buddy. Yeah. All of the feels that den is calling a droid buddy.
00:19:28
Speaker
is now. Yeah. I love that so much. den his character development, he's fallen in love with this droid. He's come filled full circle. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, he he wants R5 to come and help him to find Gideon's control centre because he didn't know where it is. He can't understand R5's binary, no but he says, like I can't remember his line, but he says something about the fact that i trust you. yeah and And that again is major. Says I'm counting on you. Yeah, yeah that's huge character development.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, and he rockets down in an R2 style. When he lands, the sound of his motors, yeah this 100% straight from the original and New Hope tapes of R2. Like the ambience of it is the same ambience that they recorded the original R2 motors in, whatever that sound design is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To my ears, it sounded like it's got tape as well. It's like not got the super highs and the super lows that digital sound has. It's like a bit saturated, boxy sounding. you think they've just nicked the soundboard? Yeah, I'm sure he went like, Favreau will have gone over to Skywalker Sound, give me the earliest r two yeah tapes. And use those.
00:20:41
Speaker
Transferred them. I bet that's what happened. I'll put money on it. love that he goes and looks over the edge and has a little minute of... feeling scared about looking down. You've just checked it down there, R5. Come on. yeah i mean I suppose it's setting up that he's a nervous droid. if you hadn't been watching closely, to you might have seen him checked down and thought, wow, that's a brave droid. So we needed a reminder, no, he is not a brave droid. Well, me he's a hero. I mean, he certainly is after this episode if he wasn't before. don't know if you know this, Rebecca, there's a series of books called From a Certain Point of View, which are short stories about the original trilogy is all they've done so far. So there's like A New Hope from a Certain Point of View, Empire from a Certain Point of View and so on. And each book has got about, don't know, quite a lot, 20 to 30 maybe, maybe more short stories written by different writers about background characters from each film. Yeah. Oh, wow. I've not heard these. Sounds amazing. In fact, going to be referring to another one in a minute. But there's one about R5 from A New Hope because he's the same droid that R2 got replaced when Uncle Owen bought the droids from the showers in the first film. This is the same R5. And the story about R5 is that R2 kind of persuaded him to purposefully blow his motivator to make sure that R2 got bought instead of him. i i think that's the story. Yeah.
00:21:57
Speaker
ah brilliant i mean it's considered canon now so this is why when they refer to r5s like work in the rebellion that's what they're referring to the fact that he willingly sabotaged himself to make sure r2 got into luke's hands to get to obi-wan and if they hadn't done that who knows where we've been yeah that's brilliant i love that have to dig those out that sounds fantastic funny oh we're so niche this week i can't believe We've also got Return of the Mouse Droids, which I'm a fan.
00:22:28
Speaker
I freaking knew it! Were right, Sia? I was right. You said before we started recording, you were like, I know what's going to be West End Geek Girls this week. It's West End Geek Girls, which is our little feature where we go back to the late role-playing game by West End Games. And we discover a little detail or feature that was mentioned in the role-playing games that has now become part of modern Star Wars. The mouse droids. The mouse droids. mean, we knew the mouse droids. We knew they were there from A New Hope. We saw Chewie roaring at them on the Death Star. But they weren't properly named, as far as I know, until a West End Games supplement adventure called Starfall, which came out in 1989. It was just like sort of a freestanding adventure.
00:23:14
Speaker
And there's not much about them, but it's on board the Star Destroyer Subjugator, which is a great Destroyer. I mean, I love Star Destroyer names generally, but that's a good one. That is a good one. It says, because of the lack of manpower, Captain Kolath has converted most of the MSE-6, which is what a mouse droid is, an MSE-6.
00:23:32
Speaker
general purpose droids or mouse droids to simple patrol duty. Basically, they've been programmed to record activity throughout the damaged ship, especially in areas no longer occupied by the crew. When these menial droids run into the PCs, which is the play of characters in the RoboLango, they have one round to react. The mouse droid does a complete stop, briefly records the disturbance,
00:23:53
Speaker
And then turns and zooms back the way it came. So it it's like in the game, in this particular adventure, if you get seen by a mouse droid, you've only got one round to deal with it yeah Otherwise, it's gone because as We often doing that They're usually rolling to shot, And that's pretty much all they tell you. They give you them some stats about them and say they're equipped with electrophotoreceptor, which is an eye, I guess, audio sensor, holorecorder, retractable heavy manipulator so they can drag things, retractable fine manipulator for doing little detailed work. So pretty functional. But even though there's not much about them in the RPG,
00:24:36
Speaker
I was also going to refer, coincidentally, to From a Certain Point of View. Because there's a short story in The New Hope From a Certain Point of View focusing on MSC66735Y, also known as G7, which this story is wild. I remember listening to the audiobook and I'm like,
00:24:53
Speaker
What is going on? Okay, so we're on the Death Star in A New Hope. yeah The mouse droid that we see, the one that Chewie scares away, this is the one we're talking about, G7 he's called. He is going on little errands and it's it's delivered in the story. It's written as like a series of like commands, which is a really cool like sci-fi way of writing. yeah And he's going to TK421, which is yeah the stormtrooper that Luke steals the armor of. Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
And then he's going back to Lieutenant Blagg, who we don't know. his And Lieutenant Blagg is grooming TK-421 in a slightly like weird way. It's like bit of a bit of a turn for a Star Wars story. And then she also involved is the interrogation droid that gets Leia.
00:25:40
Speaker
like The mouse droid carries the little needle. that then goes into the interrogated droid. It's this whole weird story that connects all these different things together. And we've got this mouse droid hero, anti-hero, I guess, in this case.
00:25:55
Speaker
That is wild. I mean, this is all went good, though, but can those mouse droids make cups of tea? Because I would see that as a very functional thing, that they can just ship tea around the ships and bring them to you. They don't have thumbs. Well, I know that's the thing. I feel it's a missed opportunity, if really honest. here right now they can carry syringes by all accounts little things but feel like if you put something that maybe they've got a little hidden drawer something on it or in it then it can carry it but i don't think they definitely have a container i feel like i've seen them somewhere else like in a computer game or another book or animated something where they do they have like a little door on the side yeah you can put things in and so it's like a carrier bot sort of thing Perfect. In which case, yeah, I don't know if it could make the tea. No, could make the tea? But it could carry it. I mean, I'm just thinking of practicals. mean, it's all well and good. Also, can they get up and down stairs? Yeah, see, that's a much more practical question than making tea. Yeah, absolutely. Can they get up and down stairs? But they don't have stairs on the Death Star, really. It's all lifts, isn't it? yeah, no, that's true. I was just thinking about my own house. Yeah, true.
00:27:02
Speaker
See, we're just thinking practically about adopting mouse droids and the practicality of having them around the house. Well, look, if R5 can have rocket packs on the side, can a mouse droid.
00:27:13
Speaker
it can rocket up and down your stairs. I love them. I do love them as well. They're rubbish, but love them. I love them too. I think the fact that they are specifically called general purpose droids suggests that you can change you can tweak them quite easily. You can custom them mod them. custom and all and And I'll tell you what, have you seen, ah there was some footage recently online, I think it was San Diego Comic Con or one of the cons in the US.
00:27:37
Speaker
where they had like a big droid makers gathering and it was like a parade of the droids and you've got like your R5s and your R2s and your BB-8s and all of this they're they're all going down like the kind of convention centre and in the midst of them is a mouse droid with a side panel taken off and an actual mouse puppet inside driving the mouse droid love that is incredible I'll try and share it on our socials if I can find it again because it made me laugh. Amazing. That is great. These ones have got alarms on them though and I love... This one, yeah.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's got the police sirens and everything. It's quite disturbing. They're really little snitches, aren't they? They are little snitches. That little alarm goes off, you're like, oh, then they're off to go and get their mates and then come back round again. Yeah. Don't they start, like, attacking our five as well? They're sort bumping him. They're just bumping into him. They're not really doing any damage.
00:28:31
Speaker
not friendly. My note was that they can't actually do much. No, they're just annoying. They're just annoying. Bless them. Bless their little wheels. Little wheels, yeah. R5 manages to avoid it and then scomps him. We were talking about scomp the other week. Yes. Okay. From Heli Motto's line where she said something about... can't remember what the line was. Smooth as power droid scomp, Jack, or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
00:28:56
Speaker
We see R5 scomping his way into the Imperial Network and sending in some information, and away we go. Okay, so we I had a little question the other day, ah time is meaningless to me, I can't remember when it was, where we were or talking about the gauntlet. Axe in this one calls all of them gauntlets. So is that a confirmation of what we decided? Or I can't remember what the conversation was, I can just remember that the conversation happened. No, you're absolutely right. And I did go on a rabbit hole about that because I started making notes and I was like, oh no, these gauntlets? And I remembered our conversation. yes Looked them up. They can be called gauntlets.
00:29:34
Speaker
um I think Beau seems to refer to hers as the gauntlet, but I just think that's like the X-Wing whatever. Yeah, sure. They're also called Comerk Class Fighters slash Transports. Okay. Comerk, K-O-M, apostrophe, R-K. I don't know where that comes from. Got it. Yeah.
00:29:50
Speaker
Got it. But yeah, gauntlet, they're all gauntlets. They're all gauntlets. I quite liked the whole Axe talking to them over the comms and then suddenly he's in the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, get out of here. Go and do your thing. Go and do it. He's a man of action. And I know there were some doubts about him when this all first aired. Is Axe going to be secretly working for the Empire what's going on with him? But I think at this point was like, oh yeah, Axe is... He's fine. Yeah. He's all right. He's quite heroic. He does lots of heroic things. I mean, seeing him, as you say, race into the bridge straight from flying up on his jet slash rocket pack. Yes. And yeah, he's a man on a mission.
00:30:34
Speaker
He is. And again, this is where we get to see the controls of the the cruiser, which are very retro. wonderful Sure, sure, sure. And they all jump out. And it's a thing as well. We were talking about shields weeks and months ago, how some shields let...
00:30:48
Speaker
energy bolts through and some let physical stuff through and the mandos just jump through the shield so they're obviously the types of shields allow physical objects to go through. It was something about the velocity that they're going at, isn't it? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The type of material and the velocity of it is what matters to let things through the shield.
00:31:09
Speaker
yeah Yes, as we'll find out when we get to that particular arc of the Clone Wars in about again eight months time. Oh my God. That whole thing about it. Okay. Yeah. Good. Such a cool sequence though. I've seen them.
00:31:23
Speaker
They're jumping out of the cruiser to get to the gauntlet dropships. Yeah. Yeah. messing. but No messing. None at all there. And they pass the Ties. The Ties are going the opposite way because they're going to attack the cruiser, which is Beau's plan coming into action. Yeah. And they just seem to be ignoring the gauntlets, which is quite handy. Really useful. Did you spot there's like a moon in the background? Yes.
00:31:48
Speaker
Is that the mood of Concordia? Concordia, potentially. I don't know my geography because it could be Calavulla as well. I don't know. Okay, I only know one mood. Rebecca, we can have it some like geography of the Mandalore sector. I'd say this there there really has been some conversations before this one, hasn't there? Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker
Wow. I'm only really realising this episode actually how deep down the road we've gone at times. You've gone deep this series. We've gone very deep. You've gone deep. That's great. I'm learning a lot. I come here to learn as well. Good, good. We're all, we're all learning as we go along. Exactly. Yeah. Sure.
00:32:25
Speaker
I said the Bombers bomb and the Interceptor strafe. It's very messy. They're just absolutely obliterating the cruiser quite quickly. yeah But there's only one man on it and he's fine. He's he's on here he's doing his job. doing his job yeah freak So back down on ah on the surface, not on the surface, in the caves.
00:32:46
Speaker
This is one of my favourite music cues. I'm not going to say it's my favourite music cue, but it's one of my favourite music cues. It's Din and Grogu's Sneaking Away music. I didn't want to missed that one. They're having one a little sneak and the music's very sneaky and it's great. I was obsessing over the red lights reflecting off Din's armour.
00:33:08
Speaker
like those really nice I think as he gets closer to the red shield things. Yes. Which did we say last time they were sort straight out of Phantom Menace. Straight out Phantom Menace. That was exactly the note I had on that, or was the the shields of Phantom Menace, that set up. I was just like, oh, this feel we go this feels familiar. we know where we're at. We've got to wait for that next shield to come down. Then we're going again and the next shield. And and yeah and then R5 giving us a little helping hand on this one. But yeah, real, I thought really reflective of Phantom Menace. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Really good. I mean, just having seen that film and watched Obi-Wan, having to wait, you know, all the time while Qui-Gon's in there, like the tension of that, even on the rewatch, that stresses me out, that scene. So as soon as we saw this last episode and knew that we were going have it again this episode, I'm like, yeah oh no, don't do this. But he's in very much in control of these shields because R5's on it.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah. yeah he's He's learned from Obi-Wan's mistakes here.
00:34:10
Speaker
And it's great. It means he gets to take out two at a time without too much. And he's gradually gathering weapons as he goes. It's amazing. It's a good fight combination thing. So fun. And he's working really well with R5. R5 is delivering pretty much to the end of his kind of route through these shields. I mean, I feel like they're doing a different purpose. I can't remember what the purpose of them is on Naboo.
00:34:34
Speaker
There's something to do with the reactor. don't even know. Yeah, but they're all in phases, aren't they? So they're rotating on their own, whereas they're all automated, whereas R5 is in control of them and he stops the troopers being able to control them as well. And it's like a security thing to stop anyone getting to Gideon's inner sanctum kind of thing. Yeah. Which in the Bad Batch, there's a similar situation going on oh this base called Mount Tantis, where funnily enough, there's cloning technology going on. Oh, is this just how they protect clones? Yeah, just for clone shields. It's like bad clone experiments, which is what's going on in the Bad Batch. Need shielding from anybody who's going to blab about it. Yeah, that's true. I think this is taken straight from that. okay And I wouldn't mind betting...
00:35:21
Speaker
because the reason we're doing all this is because we're looking forwards to the film and what's going to happen next in the Mandoverse, because this is all still clone related. and I mean, we may not have Gideon again, but I feel like clones are still going to be a thing. and Mount Tantis is a place from the Bad Batch which got brought in from the old EU before Disney changed all the canon. Sure. And so that's one of the things that got lifted. And back in the old EU, I think it was all connected with Thrawn as well. So everything is pointing to the fact that Mount Tantis may yet reappear in part of this like long cloning story that we're in the middle of here, which is all leading to like Palpatine getting cloned in
00:36:06
Speaker
Rise Skywalker. You know, it's all just all connected. But like, there's this kind of long cloning story that's been going on since the Kaminoans in the Attack of the Clones. You know, that's like where it started. yeah But it's still been kept alive and developed by different people, Dr. Pershing and, you know, yeah the people back in the Bad Batch season, whatever that was, season three, I think it was, where we found out a lot about what was going on there. And this all feels very similar. And the fact that they put these shield things in,
00:36:33
Speaker
to me is definitely a callback to the Bad Batch, which was incidentally coming out around the same time as this when it first aired. So there's definitely, I'm sure we've still got cloning stuff to come. Yeah, yeah. More on the clones. My favourite bit of all of this is we've got the little battle that happens with multiple mouse droids. coming and attacking our five gang of mouse droids all with their sirens going little snitchy and then and then when din finally gets through does the most epic knee slide all the way yes great knee slide
00:37:14
Speaker
So good. He says good job, buddy, to R5. He does, yeah. Again. Why am I so obsessed with this R5 Mando thing? just love it. Because it is cute. It is cute. And it's his whole arc thing. He likes two droids now. He likes R5 and he likes IG. IG, yeah. IG12, specifically. Yeah. And Eleven. He liked Eleven. Eleven. He liked Eleven, yeah. So this is probably the only intrigue bit, really, in the whole episode. We had loads of intrigue last week with the Shadow Council and everything.
00:37:44
Speaker
this week's intrigue is these cloning tanks that they walk through. And Grogu, we see some of it through Grogu's perspective kind of thing, which I thought was quite interesting. Because potentially...

Grogu and the Cloning Tanks

00:37:55
Speaker
these clones may have some of Grogu's DNA in them. Yes. Yes. Shivers. Really grim. And I've only just realised that because I did write down that Grogu's very curious and he's looking at the one which wink, you know, it not winks, opens its eyes. Yeah, yeah. It's just really interesting that we sort of see that through Grogu's perspective rather than Din. Yeah. And I've only just put that together, yeah, that...
00:38:20
Speaker
Grogu is whether he's conscious of what's happened to him and that Pershing has taken take blood from him and all of that I I don't know because Din just goes it's not Gideon yeah that's it's not Gideon so I just kind of took that as a kind of the reaction from Grogu being like, oh, it's him. Oh, it's him. Yeah. You're right there, Bramwinn. Maybe there's also a thing, like if they have managed to master some of this force cloning, which is what they were trying to do in the Bad Batch, spoiler alert, but there's this whole scenario of this is how we get Palpatine back in Rise of Skywalker because they've figured out how to clone...
00:39:01
Speaker
they They already knew how to clone bodies. you know Cloning Palpatine as a human is no problem. But cloning him with force powers is another matter. And that's what yeah this is all about. That's why the client was after Grogu in the first place and why Gideon wanted Grogu, as we're kind of discovering. course, yeah.
00:39:18
Speaker
So are these clones of Gideon's, do they have some aspect of the force about them? And can Grogu sense that as well? There's that added yeah layer. yeah course i suppose he would be able to if they did. And like we never see any proof of that, but then Gideon seems pretty sure that it has worked. That's a very good point.
00:39:39
Speaker
But we never see any proof of it. He talks about it, but he doesn't actually demonstrate it. No, never. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was confusing me in my memory of this before re-watching it, is that i remembered him talking about the fact that he was going to combine the Mandalorian armor, Beskar, with cloning and with the Jedi. Yeah. And making a big fuss about it, I couldn't remember if he actually did demonstrate any Force powers and he clearly hasn't. No, he doesn't. have And that's because we did have a ah slight thing last week about, is this Gideon a clone?
00:40:09
Speaker
But then this Gideon doesn't have any Force powers either. no. So maybe the Gideons that were in the tanks would maybe or some of them or experiment different layers of experimentation of don't know we'll never find out because we'll never find out because Jim drowns them he turns off the power and yeah and that's that pulled the plug yeah literally pull the flag
00:40:38
Speaker
ah so gideon has a whole hissy fit about this obviously and my note around then he's not happy yeah was this is just so dramatic and i'm kind of over this guy at this point i'm done yeah i don't really is such a drama queen it's not even funny His whole speech to Din is ridiculous. like almost It's almost as bad as Bo-Katan's teenage brooding.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a similar vibe. Fair, very similar vibe, very similar. It fits, it definitely fits, yeah. um I mean, I'm here for it, I'm saying it's terrible, but like it's also brilliant in that way. Yeah, it's brilliantly terrible. I hadn't had my coffee yet and I was like, get over it. LAUGHTER think he's like posturing, this is what he does. Like he did it last week in the Shadow Council. This is the episode where he has that Shadow Council with the ring of holograms with all the other Imperial remnant.
00:41:34
Speaker
He's playing games with them all ah clearly and trying to outmaneuver. They're all trying to outmaneuver each other. That's how the Imperial remnant is at this point. But at the end, he walks into the middle of the circle to try and take like leadership. And he's just constantly posturing and trying to be the boss. Yeah. And not actually succeeding. no he's got a lot of talk he's got a lot yeah to because that was one of the other things like this uh episode there's a lot of confidence now in this episode and he was just like i'll go and get mundo myself and off you go you know it's like it's kind of yeah oh i'll just do it myself now i'm all good and off i go and it's like oh someone's got all the words yeah you think you can it's like i'm feeling very confident says moth and it's like You always know, though, don't you? If someone's going to say that line, I'll go and do it myself, it's going to end very badly for that person. Yes. yeah Always. i don't he will have been able to to meet Vader or know Vader. He's clearly oh he's emulating influenced by Vader, like his armour, the way he's designed it and everything. And when he puts the helmet on, the voice is a little bit Vader-ish. And that line, leave him to me, i will deal with him myself, is yeah yeah it's not the same line, but it's influenced by him. Yeah, absolutely.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think maybe he has got these delusions of grandeur, like, I'm going to get the Force, and... then I'll be unstoppable. He's like the other Vader kind of, because we've got Kylo, who's like the inner terminal Vader. my gosh. yeah And this is like the outer pompous Vader.
00:43:06
Speaker
ah So nobody better clone Gideon and Kylo together as might end up with another Vader. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Yeah, terrible, terrible stuff. Meanwhile, Beau's in some pretty caves. Yeah. With her It turns out life finds a way. Yeah. the survivors have been doing it. They've they've been sort of like intentionally fostering. Cultivating, farming. Indigenous plants, which is beautiful.
00:43:31
Speaker
but There's hope for Mandalore. And not only is it hope Mandalore, it's hope from before the Mandalore we saw in the Clone Wars, yeah which even way back then, 25 years before this or whatever it is, there was no life on Mandalore outside of the domed cities because yeah yeah the Mandalorians have been fighting each other so hard for so long.
00:43:51
Speaker
the Although the Night a Thousand Tears and the Imperial Purge of Mandalore is what caused their cities to c collapse, like for weres the ruins of Sandaria at the moment, but before that they had by themselves managed to destroy the life on the planet and were living in domes to shelter from, as we see in our Clone Wars rewatch coming up soon on Star Wars. Stay tuned. But yeah, it's great to see the green back. I think it's the thing that gives Bo the last push that she needed yeah become Mandalore. Yeah, yeah mandala gorgeous. Yeah.
00:44:27
Speaker
Because she she turns a corner at this point. and She's like on a mission from this point onwards in the episode, which I love. yeah And then we're into a battle. There is an improvement. Impressive amount of Mandalorians. Yes. And oppressive amount of jetpacks. So there's no fuel crisis going on there. No. Cost of fuel is just not an issue during that particular battle. Those jetpacks everywhere on every single thing flying at each other. It was brilliant though. I did love that swarm of carefree fuel use. Yeah. happening throughout that moment. What a dream. But how they shot, this is the, I think, visually standout bit of the episode. Yes. Like watching Bo's lot flying up, the armourer's lot flying down, they kind of come into sync together. I'm demonstrating with my hands, which of course, listening at home, you can't see. You see. It looks great. It looks amazing. It looks great. She's moving her hand, one from the top to the bottom. Bo coming alongside the armourer. They're just like perfectly in sync together. And then the camera sort tilts slightly towards Bo as she reaches across and draws the dark saber. And I've never seen anything more epic, apart from perhaps Boba Fett on the back of her ankle, riding through Moss Esprit. Oh yeah, that's a definite up there. Yeah. Favreau knows how to do his finales. That is for sure. He does, yeah. They just get more outrageous every time, which leaves me to really hope the film is going to be spectacle.
00:46:01
Speaker
Got to keep our hope in check. Got to keep our expectations in check, but it's going to be good. Anyway, the scale of it's all very widescreen, very, very wide shots with just tiny dots of them flying, as well as these sort like handheld, like who's shooting it, who's filming. yeah, yeah. What's going on? Who's got the GoPro the back the jetpack? We get one of point of views of a jetpack again, don't we? We get one of those like little shots. Was there one of those? missed that thing. Yeah. Yeah, there's a shot. I think that might have been Axe going up, actually. We might have got that from there. I can't remember. But there's definitely a jetpack shot. Oh, yeah. Definitely one Axe going up at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. One at the beginning. Yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's a great, great sequence. this The whole combat, like how did they choreograph it, shoot it? Yeah. um My mind was blown because we've so far a lot of the Mandalorian TV series has been stuff in the volume, which is very grounded. It's brilliant and it looks great, but it's got its limitations because of the size of the room and how you build um like a partial set and all of that. You know, it's got its limitations. Occasionally they've gone out on location, but mostly it's been done there. yeah Whereas this is sort of striking out from that. They probably are using it, but they're using it in such a mind-boggling way. Different way, yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
To get all that prepared footage of flying at speed through caves with a load of people on jetpacks, fighting each other. i Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
There's a lot going on. It's just a lot. It's not happening. Shout out to everybody involved in this. Yeah, yeah. However they manage to do it. It's Rick Famiglia again, isn't it? he Yeah. He's directing. I keep meaning to note that dp because whoever it is, great it's got to be somebody who knows the volume really well. Yeah. But it's, you know, it's one of those things that really jumps out in this episode. And I mean, so much of across the whole Star Wars, let's be honest, across all a Star Wars. But it's just that fact that, you know, in this episode, again, you're just reminded of all the shiny surfaces that exist when filming and how they have managed to avoid...
00:48:08
Speaker
camera or lights that shouldn't be their reflections because then you hit a room and you've got the shiny uniforms you've got the shiny rigs you've got shiny floor and i'm just like how they do that that bit for me is like yeah who's idea is brilliant like you know and obviously trying to use the lighting in the set to light the characters rather than adding extra you know it was just like oh you know i have a meltdown filming near a window one window and one reflection All of those surfaces. And I know we see that lot across. you know, the Star Wars world, as it were. But it just, again, that jumped out me at this episode, was just watching those shiny surfaces thinking how those filmmakers do that. It's just brilliant. Do you think put the shining in post? Well, it's just, you know, there's just not... I mean, I know that they could mask stuff out, so I think that's probably maybe what will happen if they get... But it just is so smooth. You just, you know, you watch it and go, wow, there's not an imperfection there in the light or movement at all across any of that. So...
00:49:10
Speaker
you know It's an impressive feat as always. yeah it is yeah It feels like they don't compromise anything. Whereas back in the day, if you were doing this, you would have to compromise on the lighting and you wouldn't have such freedom to be as stylistic and storytelling-y as they are with the lighting. like I was just referring back to that the red light on Mando's suit you know when he's trying to get to the...
00:49:33
Speaker
thing it's just they can just do whatever they want to do the visual storytelling without having to worry about any of those things that like i can tell the anxiety that you're giving off as a filmmaker like it's just so stressful sweaty yeah yeah fair play to them yeah yeah so simultaneous to the air battle is the moff gideon dramatics Yes. And the Red Imperial Guards. Yes, the Praetorians. The Praetorians, yeah. I've just realised you're back from We Did Last Jedi. Exactly. We did. We did. We did. And I was like, when they popped back on the screen, I was reminded that we'd covered that again earlier, but it's literally, it was just the entrance again. It's like, da-da, all shiny and glossy and red. Here we go. This is what they do. It's just, there's that level of wonderful camp again when they sort of just, three of them just arrived. It's like, ah, yes, great. And it felt very familiar. So that is the return. The return for me was these three. It's the Praetorian guards. Yeah, absolutely. Praetorian guards again. You know, they don't fail, do they? They have an entrance about them that is delivered every time we see them. They are a visual spectacle, yeah. I remember us talking about that in The Last Jedi of how... over the top visually. It was so good. Did I go off on my burlesque troop Imperial Guard tangent last time? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Good. Great. Good. Don't have to do that again. We love a burlesque Victorian guard. Well, it was the Return of the Jedi ones, which I think must be... Yes. I feel like in the kind of canon, when they're referred to in that era, they're not called Praetorian Guards. No, they're Imperial Guards. No, the Imperial Guards. But the Praetorian Guards in this, aren't they? They are like an evolution, which is... We'll ask Jessica, she knows all this. Still fabulous. Jessica! They are fabulous, and they've got these incredible purple double-ended pike things.
00:51:43
Speaker
they They reminded me of in Revenge of the Sith when we're on Grievous' ship at the beginning, and... they make it to the cockpit and there's those droids that fight with those kind of purple things. They're designed to fight lightsabers. I think they are like Beskar slash lightsaber level of, you know. Level of damage dealing. Well, they kill Paz with it, so. Yeah, yeah. They just plough through his armour, don't they? Yeah, they do.
00:52:09
Speaker
And that's why they used to fight the Jedi with those. That's why the Separatists used to use them to fight the Jedi, because they could actually fight lightsabers. So is that like incredibly impervious, but also very sharp? Whatever it is. Very expensive. That's why no one's got them. Quite pricey. I don't know if we know what that is. I'm sure it must be somewhere. I'll need to get on Wikipedia and find out what those things are called. Sure. was just going say, is this the moment we can talk about...
00:52:36
Speaker
Grogu's little dance around them during the fight. Yes. I just, again, you know, that was, it was just laughing at them and he's jumping up in the rig and it was like Yoda in Attack of the Clones. Yeah. And he did a kind of, Yoda did a kind of dancing around and then Grogu was like, yay. And it's just the laughing and just the childishness, but the brilliance of it. I was just like, again, you've kind of this battle scene and then he's just like, Grogu's like, yay, here I come. Catch me if you can. It just takes away this kind of menace. At the same time, you're like going, ooh.
00:53:12
Speaker
ah But yeah, it was just, i again, I just chuckled. It's that nice bit of comedy that pops in there, which you needed that light and light and shade in the episode. And that just... Tickled me. We're watching it again as well. Like joyful puppeteering. I mean, puppeteering generally yeah brings joy.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yes. But when it's like puppeteering in this style. And I feel like in season three of Mando, we've seen a lot more of Grogu on the move. Yes. A little bit in in the second half of Book of Oba when he went and trained with Luke. We saw him learning to jump and all that kind of thing. Yeah. Because in the first two seasons of Mando, he didn't really do much apart from possibly walk a bit.
00:53:48
Speaker
But this time we've seen him do lots of different things, different speeds. And he used to be CGI when he walked and he's not anymore. He's a puppet now. I feel like they've got the puppet thing on the go, yeah. Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
Definitely. Because he's definitely a puppet at the end of this episode. He's going to some fancy stuff in the film, I think. I can't wait. I'm kind of intrigued to see what he does. I'm still and speculating a lightsaber. still think... yeah Potential. One can dream. still think there's going to be a lightsaber involved somehow, but we'll see. Maybe not.
00:54:18
Speaker
According to the trailer, there's like a swimming bit. So I don't think we've seen Grogu swim yet. He's a swamp creature. He'll be fine. He should be fine. out im Absolutely fine. No no worries about that.
00:54:30
Speaker
So Bo comes in, locks in and just sends Din off to go and rescue his kid who clearly doesn't need saving because he's just laughing. He's literally running rings around the Praetorians.
00:54:44
Speaker
But i love how Grogu and Din connect together. During the fight Grogu's using the force to like obstruct the guards, which I feel like is again something we're see in the movie is like the two of them working together using their own skills in tandem, which I think yeah is yeah really, really cool to see. Yeah. You did good, kid. Yes. yeah Yes, he did.
00:55:07
Speaker
he definitely did. This is another potentially favourite music cue where we're getting bits of the overhead battle, bits of the sky battle, and it's like a really, really cinematic orchestral score, but with EDM rolling hi-hats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good to describe Wait, what's going on with those hi-hats? But I liked that as a score. That was fun.
00:55:35
Speaker
And back to Gideon's widdly, widdly, woo things again as well. Yeah, I put something about that. Like he's got these, his main theme, which is the boom, boom, boom thing. Yeah. Which is often going along underneath. And then there's the widdly, wee, widdly, wee, widdly, wee. Yeah, high street, It some little staccates and then the little, yeah, the like semitones or something. Widdly, wee, widdly, wee, widdly, wee.
00:56:00
Speaker
That's exactly right. drama. It totally ceases drama. There's a load choral stuff goes on as well, which I think is like... I'm a sucker for a choir. Let's save that for the finale. tells you we're in a finale when the choir comes in. definitely Yeah, always sucker. Yeah, this whole sequence, I mean, it's difficult to kind of break it down logically. it It's very Return the Jedi in that you've got a space battle or or an outside battle thing going on and you've got the the kind of micro battle as well.
00:56:27
Speaker
It's not quite as three-way as the pirate episode a few weeks ago, which was very much... that three-way thing. yeah Different sort of scenarios. It's mainly sort of two scenarios, but it does all culminate together.
00:56:40
Speaker
They all end up in the Gideon room, the three of them, Bo and Grogu and Din. We've got Axe coming in hot. Greatest understatement. Great choice. Well, I'm coming on slightly tepid. Here I am. It's like... You're literally on fire. Yeah.
00:57:00
Speaker
I love how casually he just blows a hole in the window and leaves himself and he's just like, this is chill. I'm taking out the base. Bye. This is what we've waited for. This is the Mando action that we've waited Axe has given us all of the Mando action. Definitely. And all the mandos leaving as well. They're all flying out to get the way.
00:57:20
Speaker
Just as it's coming down. Great. And so we're left with just these left in there and you're kind of thinking, oh my gosh, is is this really the end? You know, are they going to go down in a blaze of glory? Absolutely not. with gideon We know Gideon's going to get it. Never.
00:57:35
Speaker
Gideon's been far too dramatic to be allowed to live at this point. Yeah, he can't come back from those lines. No. But he crushes the Darksaber. I'd forgotten that. He does. He does, yeah.
00:57:47
Speaker
Darksaber's gone. No longer exists. That is still a controversial thing. What, that he's crushed it? although i mean, on one hand, it had to go because it's too much of a you know, ball of chain. It's too OP. The DM would not allow... such a weapon Yeah. It was also a bit sort hissy fit, wasn't it? It was a bit like, give me it. one won't. Damn. No one has it then. All right. I feel like he has done them a favor. He's lifted this.
00:58:16
Speaker
I can't think what the word is. Something that drags you down that had become like something that was just holding Mandalore back. They were just obsessed with it and it was causing... division between the factions because some thought this and some thought that and yeah the whole ridiculousness of Bo getting it back by, you know, because you killed this thing that killed the, you know, like who defeated who in combat and all of that.
00:58:40
Speaker
It was like, it's time for us to get rid of it. Yeah. and Get it and gone. had to be the one to do it. But it was hard because the Darksaber has a long history in the Star Wars canon. sure And at this point, we've been through lots of major story arcs with characters that we love and ah feel strongly about. And so it's quite a tough one to lose an artifact like that at the same time as knowing you've got to lose it because it's just... Well, it's in the line. Gideon says that the Mandalorians are nothing without their trinkets.
00:59:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And the retort is we're stronger together. 100%. Just as Din appears. Yes. Yes.
00:59:23
Speaker
I love that she gets out a tiny, tiny little shield like that's going to do anything. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's not going to do is it? No. But they're using all of the things. She's got that. Din's using blasters. Grogu's using the Force. but Collectively, they're kind of doing not entirely what he said, but they're like using his own weapons against him, if you know mean. Because he was saying about how want to combine the Mandalorians and the Force.
00:59:50
Speaker
And like, well, they've already got that. And if they can unite it, Mandalorians are stronger together, especially if they've got a force user with them. Yes. Thank you very much to save the day at the end. Done. but Yeah, they use all of that stuff against him. They just beat him to it and they've destroyed his clones. So yeah this could be the end of this little clone side arc. He suffocated them before they could draw breath. Yeah. But yeah, pretty much Grogu saves the day and I love that for him. I love the fact that he builds this little shield which we saw in the end of season one, something similar. Yeah, we know that he can do it. But this is a much bigger scale of it. Yeah. I love that he just needs a little sit down as soon as he does. just has little sit down. Yeah, just he'll sit down.
01:00:32
Speaker
And then we have a very unusual thing which is a fade to black. Yeah. Which we don't remember. I don't remember us having any of those, which is very much a finale type thing. Thing, yeah. Yeah, like absolutely. This is the end. We need a little breath and then it fades back in. We're in Sindari. Yeah. In the the mines again. Yeah. And this is, I think this whole bit is my like overall favourite music cue. It starts with drums drums and drones and it's this kind of diegetic, are they playing the drums? Is this soundtrack? Do we even care at this point? They're definitely playing the drums. They're definitely playing drums, but there's like string stuff comes over the top with the drones and there's like these sort soft bells. And yes I've been working on some music for a friend of mine who's making a podcast that involves bells. And so for the last few weeks, I've been making very soft bell sounds and playing with them. And as soon as I heard that in this, I was like, oh no. Oh no, more than following you. Stop with the bells. Stop with the bells.
01:01:31
Speaker
But they were very much of that vibe. It's like, what is it called? Granular synthesis, where you take yeah bits of a sound and then you loop different bits of it. And sometimes it's backwards and sometimes it's forwards. And make new textures out of something. That's one of my favourite kinds of synthesis is granular synthesis. It's mind-boggling. I love It's so fun. It's like you become a quantum wizard yeah with a keyboard for a little while. You're like playing with time in such an unfathomable way. Yeah.
01:02:00
Speaker
by starting the sample from all different places at different times in random order. Some of them are going forward, some of them are going backwards, some of them in the right ear, some of them are in the left ear. It's wild. It doesn't take long before you have no idea what's going on, but it sounds great. but I'm not saying that that's what Joseph Shirley was using at this point, but it could have been.
01:02:19
Speaker
Could have been. yeah Highly likely, yeah. And we've got this like very emotional baptism thing going on. we've Yeah, we're full circle back to this confirmation slash baptism

Din Adopts Grogu and Mythosaur Speculations

01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I've just realised that Ragnar was being baptised without his father being there. He's being baptised without his father because he he wasn't baptised the first time because he got nicked by a giant bird.
01:02:44
Speaker
Which is unfortunate at the best of times. But um I hadn't twigged that Paz wasn't there. well Oh, my gosh, I've never watched this episode again. No, that's it. Brutal. is it.
01:02:56
Speaker
But he's now ah proper apprentice. Yeah. And I don't know who's taking him on, but yeah. Yeah, he needs a new a new leader. But then Din brings up Grogu and says, Grogu's my apprentice. He's no longer a foundling. Add him to the song. And the armourer doesn't want to do it because Grogu can't speak.
01:03:17
Speaker
But Din says, if we had a parent's permission slip... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you let it happen? And so Din, yeah, on the spur of the moment, decides to adopt him.
01:03:29
Speaker
yeah And Emily does the best line reading of... This is the way. Yay! That's my favourite line reading ever of this is the way. Her paws.
01:03:40
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't work quite so well without seeing her helmet, like even though we can't see her face, like something that she does physically there really helps that. This... is the way. Nice. She's so good. She is. But she instantly basically says, okay, fine, you can do that, but now bugger off and show him the galaxy. Yeah, now go and sort it out. I love how the armourer, like you feel like she's so...
01:04:10
Speaker
specific and conscious about what she's doing and intentional about everything she says and does very measured she never like raises her voice or or gets fast or anything like that she's very but if you put something new to her she doesn't freak out as people who are like that often do speaking as someone who is somewhere the spectrum of Please don't change the plans. You know, like i'm I'm not a great person with that, but I feel like I am quite like the armour in some other ways. But she's just very quick to go, yeah, okay, that's logical. Let's do that.
01:04:43
Speaker
That's fine. I love her. Yeah. She's not looking for ways to deny people stuff. Yeah, absolutely. She's just looking for the best way, for look for the way. Yeah. For the way. She'd make a good political leader, can't we have, in the world? Yeah, that'd be great.
01:04:59
Speaker
If we could get Emily Swallow to be, like, a world leader somewhere, and we'll have Favreau as her script writer. Sure. Job done. Great. This is the way. This is the way.
01:05:15
Speaker
We get this lovely panning down through the water. He's agreed on the adventure and now we're panning down through the water just to check that the mythosaur's still there doing his thing. Did Grogu sense it? Grogu did something. I can't remember what does just before. Grogu looked down and there was a little bit of something there, wasn't i there? was um There was some sort of sense of it.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yeah. Because I feel like he would. I mean, Mythosaurs are yeah big creatures. And it's obviously aware of something in its own way. It's like almost awoken in a way. It's super interesting. We've definitely not seen The Last of the Mythsaur. My prediction is we're not going to see the Mythsaur in the film.
01:05:55
Speaker
don't think. Well, we're not Mandalore, are we? No. No. no I feel like... If we get a season four, which there are mutterings that there might be a season four coming oh at some point.
01:06:08
Speaker
Cheeky. That's, I feel like, where we would get that. get I'm not going to say it's definitely not going to be in the film, but we've got a lot of creatures in the film from the trailer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of creatures, a lot of puppets, a lot models. We've seen all sorts of amazing stuff. I feel like is there room for for a mythosaur?

Ceremonial Lighting of the Forge

01:06:26
Speaker
What purpose would the mythosaur serve in that context? When we've already got a giant snake thing and all the Jajaric pieces. Yeah. Exactly.
01:06:38
Speaker
And then we get another crossfade. This is a crossfade rather than a fade to black and fade back up, but it's just like crossfade to the Mythosaur banner or the Sigil in the forge. Yeah. And the forge looks utterly incredible.
01:06:52
Speaker
This is the many the many, many epilogues. Yeah, there was quite a few, wasn't there? Yeah. We got the lighting of the forge. Love the way that the armourer gives the flame to bow.
01:07:03
Speaker
She doesn't need the dark saber. She is going to light the forge, which is all we need. That's the same. They're doing the arm clapping thing, which we saw early on in the season.

Relaxing at Adelphi and Movie Teasers

01:07:12
Speaker
Yeah. and all of the tribes are together, all the different families and stuff. Mm-hmm.
01:07:18
Speaker
We get Axe for Mandalore. great. Rohan. It's exactly the same, isn't it? Today is not that... that's another one again, isn't it? That's a different one, yeah. But yeah, same vibes. Very, very, yeah. But yeah, then this is the third and... No, it's not even the third and final, is it? No, there's more. This is the M1 going to Adelphi.
01:07:42
Speaker
So we're still not back to Navarro. So we go to Adelphi Bates. In the bar. They're all still in the bar. They're all still there. don't do anything. Do they ever do anything? just stay in the bar all day. They just hang out this bar, listening to space country. Great. Yeah.
01:07:58
Speaker
But it's good because you can easily find them if you need them. Yeah, you know where they are. You know what you're going to get. you know yeah Sometimes you need some simple things in a galaxy. Space country. They're all limbering up in there saying, look, are we going to get a movie or what kind? Now we know, yes, you are. And we're going to see it in six weeks' time or five weeks' time. Or a listener. One week's time.
01:08:18
Speaker
One week's time. What? Dun, dun, This is why. This is a pre-record, by

Din's Arrangement with Carson

01:08:24
Speaker
the way. Anyway. So he makes this deal with Carson, which is a lush little conversation, which basically is the perfect setup for the film. Yes. That he is going to be an independent contractor.
01:08:39
Speaker
Carson Tava says they wouldn't approve. Din says you're not going to tell them. Don't tell them. I love that he says, let me think about it. And Din says you already did. Yeah, that's a great line. Din Sass is back. He's super confident about this.
01:08:52
Speaker
It's a good deal and you know it. forgot that he wants the IG head off the top of the bar. Yeah. to rebuild IG, which kind of does Grogu out of a little vehicle, doesn't it, really? Well, Grogu's vehicle kind of got a bit mashed. Yeah.
01:09:07
Speaker
Wasn't a lot left of it, was there? I'm assuming it's a different IG unit altogether because the one that Grogu was in was very much, like, pulled apart. Was it unusable? Well, Axe blew the base up, didn't he? So I don't think it's... Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. yeah wasn I think it's a different one. It wasn't.
01:09:26
Speaker
Grogu was well out of it by then. Fair enough. So we got a new IG who is lush. yeah Yeah, the new Marshal. He's got red stripes

Din and Grogu's New Home

01:09:35
Speaker
painted on him. Very fancy. So yeah, back to Navarro then for that to get the new droid on the go. And to be given a house. Yeah, yeah. He's his house. I love there's a line where Grief says, and that goes for you too, Dean Grogu. And Grogu goes, well.
01:09:49
Speaker
so
01:09:54
Speaker
It was amazing. It was just a great Grogu response of like, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Carry on. Yeah, there's this thing of like Din Grogu. So Din Jarin, is Jarin his first name? Is it like Japanese style naming? Yeah. Where is the other way around? I was wondering that because we've just been calling him Din the entire time. Yeah, that's his second name, which is fine. Yeah, yeah. But then you've got Bo-Katan Krize, who is from Clan Krize. Yes. And Satine Krize. So their surnames are surnames as we understand them. Yeah.
01:10:25
Speaker
And Paz Vizsla. Yeah. And pre-Vizsla. Post-Vizsla. So they're using the surname. But maybe maybe Din's family comes from a different... do it the other round. Yeah.
01:10:37
Speaker
Or maybe something to do with his origins, like before he was a foundling, his family back then... on whatever planet that is, which I feel like we know, but i can't remember what it is

Podcast Reflection and Future Content Plans

01:10:49
Speaker
off the top of my head. We've only seen in those flashbacks, the one that's overrun by battle droids in flashbacks.
01:10:55
Speaker
His family, maybe their race does backwards naming or the other way round naming. It's not yeah backwards if you live there. yeah It's just interesting. Interesting. No, the armorer always refers to him as Din Djarin, so she never... Picks one or the other. She never picks one or the other. And do we hear many of the others refer to him as anything else? I feel like Bo-Katana has in this season.
01:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. I reckon if we watched the Lizzo Jack Black episode again. Yeah. Oh, I will be. Watch them all again. yeah For us, we're still six weeks out. i still got time to watch. all My dad would be like, please, God, no. Make it stop. Not again. Make it stop. Make it stop. My mum, to be fair, would be like, yeah, go on then, let's do it. Because my mum loves Star Wars. As we know, she's the sister of the Force. She is.
01:11:44
Speaker
Coming. So he's kicking back on his porch. Got cute little cabin. a cute little cabin. Yeah. Very cute. And we got a classic, almost cartoon, radial wipe. Yes. Right down to center. Yeah.
01:11:58
Speaker
Before blinking out. And we've got the original theme over the credits, which thought was really nice because we've had all these different remixes of it. It's a really nice touch. It was nice to have that one back. Yeah. There we are. we've We've done it.

Plans for Future Episodes and Series

01:12:12
Speaker
but yeah What a journey this has been. Excellent work, CEO and Bramwin, as always. I feel like I'm on an amazing ride with the pair of you. It's like a knowledge roller coaster and a thrill of going, oh, yeah. And actually, I do think that, I mean, I don't want to encourage anybody drink. So this could be done with like eating crisps or fruit. if there it bit yeah I think I've said the word brilliant about 100 times. It could be a drinking game and eating game throughout this podcast. From from editing this podcast, I know what the waveform looks like when Branwen says the word like. Yeah. I can look at the waveform and I can be like there it is I'm trying not to do it and I'm doing a lot of editing as well and I feel your pain and I'm cutting out all of the likes as well and listening you're still hearing me say like a lot if you multiply what you hear by about five yes you'll know how annoying I am to hear if we do some live streaming ever you'll get to know how annoying I've got a very specific laugh waveform that happens quite a lot I know what that one looks like have, know it incredibly well too. Okay, Rebecca, I'm goingnna i'm going to do a reel of your brilliant audio only, obviously, because we're not recording the video, unfortunately. But we'll have a little... Great.
01:13:32
Speaker
ah but In fact, they might end up on the soundboard. Put them on the soundboard.
01:13:39
Speaker
The thing is, every time I said brilliant, I've generally meant brilliant. I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. That's brilliant. Brilliant. That's cool. Brilliant. We're happy with that. Yeah. That's all good. But thank you for coming and yeah enjoying this last episode with us. It was great to have you back. feels like it's been so long. We've nearly been recording for six months.
01:13:58
Speaker
ah Next week will be our six months of recording this podcast. ohsh Congratulations. What? It's amazing. If we just step outside of our weird schedule the way that we've been doing this, if you're listening to this, next week you're going to get an extra episode of Sisters of the Force Mandalorian coverage.

Year-Long Star Wars Season Announcement

01:14:18
Speaker
It's possibly going to be half a day later than it usually is, but it's still going to be on the Monday at some point. And it's going to be us doing a very quick initial response to the Mandalorian and Grogu movie. Potentially in the car. And there may be some Sisters of the Force guests. Oh my Including somebody who's in the room with his right on top.
01:14:39
Speaker
Excited. We're going to try and grab some of our sisters on the fly and get some live reactions to the film. So what better way to wrap up our like Mandalorian journey by doing that, think. Indeed. Hopefully, listeners, you'll have all have seen the film at that point because it'll be you know three or four days after it's come out, so you've had a chance to watch it. and If not, don't listen to it. Yes. We can't wait to talk about it and, yeah, revel in The Mandalorian and Grogu. And after that, if you want to know what's happening, we do have bands. We've kind of hinted at them a bit.
01:15:17
Speaker
I think we've explicitly said them. Yeah, we have specifically said we are doing a massive Clone Wars rewatch, but yeah it's not going to be just Clone Wars week in, week out. No. We are interspersing it. So each season is going to about have about five episodes, possibly six episodes of like chunks of the Clone Wars. So like ah an arc and a couple of extra episodes or whatever. So we're going to get through the season in about five or six episodes. And then we're going to have two completely different episodes which going called journeys into wild space which is where we go around the star wars galaxy in seemingly random fashion wherever we want we're going to be digging into all sorts of different things associated films we're going to be looking at specific things in the star wars galaxy like costumes and fashion which while rebecca's here she may have roped into that already at some point count me in count me in we're going to be doing some music episodes we're going be doing episodes about specific characters and things like that in between so it's exciting times all very exciting it's going to be whole new sisters the force season three it's going to be huge it's going last a year it's going to be a really long season the best i'm so here for it
01:16:34
Speaker
But yeah, in the meantime, i hope you all enjoy and Grogu when you watch it at the cinema. I hope you enjoy as much as we will. um Yes. We'll be back next week with our reaction to that.
01:16:45
Speaker
Ah, no way. And thanks for having me again. It's been a joy. Yay. Amazing. Thank you so much. coming back. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.