This is a significant downgrade to the previous seasons. The production quality is perfect. A bit childish, but good. But this first episode lost it's touch from what it did so well in the first 2 seasons.
Loved the opening to this season, instantly brought me back in. It's just nice to be back in this world and with these characters. I enjoyed the setup this episode brings us and for where the story may go this season. It does seem to be falling back into the side quest thing but I don't hate that, I just hope there's enough of an overarching story.
I’m starting to wonder why I’m watching a show that is designed for children.
Daa daa daaaa da da this is the way! Yay it's finally back for another season!
This wasn't quite the beginning I waited for a whole year. It had way to much action for action's sake. Oh, and way too short for a season premiere.
Started good though. I thought at first this would be some kind of flashback to when Din got his helmet. The monster fight did absolutely nothing other then sugar coat CGI. But we find out what will be the quest for this season: Redemption.
The Navarro part was OKish. I had kind of feared one of the pirates would turn out to be Hondo. Like I expected they explain Cara away with one sentence. Shame that she's no longer there as she really was a great character with potential. Great idea bringin back IG88. We'll see how this plays out.
The space battle was again just showcasing CGI, which does look great, but really did nothing then add action. I kind of fear those pirates will be along for the ride this year.
Din's meeting with Bo Katan was interesting and I hope we see a lot of her this year.
The ONE thing that had my blood pumping were the creatures that Grogu saw in Hyperspace. Those were purgill, no ? Now that's an interesting thing to show us.
Still, the pieces are in place and I'm exited for the story to unfold.
Unwieldy, amorphous, and sort of commits a sin I was prepared for but still confused that it happened: the lack of explanation for how Grogu rejoins Mando within the series bearing his name is so ridiculously dumb and contrived. It's the Marvelification of Star Wars at its finest. It's bafflingly undermining the finale of Season 2 (and thus, Mando's entire journey up to this point) that you will need to watch a series that, frankly, stinks to even see a reunion that was rushed there.
While watching, I couldn't help but think of my dad. He and I bonded over Star Wars ever since I was a kid and he came home from work one Friday having gone to our local video rental store, Video Review, and got a copy of A New Hope on VHS (I am older than the average user on this site, FYI). He made popcorn, sat me down on the couch, and changed my life. Following that night, my dad showed me the rest of the films and he raised me on Yoda quotes. Hell, I'm typing this by light of a Yoda lamp my parents gave me for Christmas (it's tacky and I will never get rid of it) and my home office has a TIE Fighter rug in it. This franchise is absolutely my jam. It's still something my dad and I talk about. I've watched literally every one of the films for the first time with him. We even somehow watched The Mandalorian's pilot together despite me being in grad school states away at the time. But he never watched The Book of Boba Fett. He didn't have the time and I told him it wasn't great. He's not going to understand what's happening now. That's dumb.
When this episode isn't retreading its own ground it's fun, but there are like four separate episodes here and none of them are finished.
Sound and music is great. Like in previous seasons, that seems to be again the show's greatest asset. A worthy soundtrack for a space-western. Morricone would have been proud of you.
Plus, this show seems to be the only installment of the Star Wars show that creates believable and visually pleasing stages out of this giant LED wall.
The kid and all those little technicians are adorable as ever.
Otherwise not much happens really... the slow progress in the story is thinly veiled by some well executed but ultimately pointless action sequences.
@everythingafter you needed to watch the Boba Fett show. It’s basically Mando season 2.5. We see what happens with Grogu and Luke
A bit underwhelming, to say the least. Hope it gets better for the rest of the season.
[7.3/10] This is a perfectly serviceable table-setting episode for the new season, but not much more than that. This is less a complete story, or even a chapter of a story, than it is a bunch of connected but not cohesive vignettes that set the stage for the season to come.
Mando gets his quest from the Armorer (which he’d already sort of done). He gets a fetch mission from Greef Karga. He gets the current state of affairs among Bo Katan’s crew from the woman herself. None of these scenes or sequences are bad exactly, but it feels like you could chop them up and not lose anything in the process, which makes the narrative here feel more mechanical than engrossing.
The action is also a bit ho-hum. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but something about a bunch of warriors in suits fighting a giant CGI lizard made the opening struggle a little too Prequel-esque for my tastes. (Attack of the Clones specifically). The gunfight with the pirates on Nevarro has more tension, and the alien designs are cool, but it’s stock standard Western-influenced shtick. The scariest one is easily IG-11 coming back to life briefly and pursuing our heroes like a zombie, but it’s fairly brief. And as cool as it is to see Mando’s rebuilt Naboo fighter zipping through asteroids (again, a la Attack of the Clones), the encounter feels pretty stakesless since you just know Mando is going to blast/bail his way to safety sooner or later.
So what stands out as particularly good here? The production design for one. The renovated Nevarro full of alien culture, the puppets that occupy all corners of the episode, and the empty castle of Bo Katan all come to life with elegant and/or scrappy design and a certain character that gives them a real sense of place. I particularly love the interactions with the Babu Frik aliens, who have a real “Rizzo the Rat and friends run a business”, and include some quality laughs with Greef interpreting them and Grogu mistaking them for pets.
I also enjoyed Mando’s interactions with Bo Katan quite a bit. Her lounging on her throne, disillusioned with her clan for bailing thanks to her not having the darksaber and, seemingly, the whole Mandalorian mission, is quite a vibe. The hints we get of Mandalorian politics and culture clashes, factionalism seemingly having felled their people, are intriguing as all get out. Similarly, it’s nice to see onetime bounty hunter impresario Greef as a “Grand Magistrate” who’s gone straight and fights to preserve his prosperous and independent enclave.
And hey, for all my gripes about the mechanical feel of it, we at least have some missions and wants for Mando. He wants to return to Mandalore to cleanse himself in the living waters, however superstitious his reasons may be. He wants to find a certain memory core so that IG-11 can be repaired. He wants to be reaccepted by the Children of the Watch. Every good protagonist needs something they’re after, so video game logic or not, some basic objectives are a good structure to build this around.
All-in-all, a solid but not overwhelming start to the new season.
They had Swamp Thing in space. Hahahaha
What an opening scene! What an episode of action and visual bliss. This was Star Wars porn.
The episode was a bit chaotic, I didn't feel there was any progess in the plot at all. I watched the second season some time ago and it was hard to recognise some of the supporting characters like the guy Mando was meeting, I had difficulty remembering who he was. It is always nice to see Mando and the baby, but I didn't like the episode very much. The Mandalorian ceremony, sort of initiation, which was shown at the beginning, was quite an interesting look into the Mandalorian culture and it is a pity it was interrupted by the attack of the giant alligator. It is good that the smith lady is still alive and well, somehow she brings Tolkien's Eowyn to my mind maybe because of her helmet? Speaking of helmets, a young boy is given his helmet at the ceremony, I wonder what happens if he outgrows it since according to the Mandalorian creed he is not supposed to take it off? Mando really suffers by being considered the eponymous apostate, and will go to great lengths to be accepted into the fold, including going to the destroy home planet to bathe in the magical waters. I don't really get why he insists on fixing the old android first and finding the spare parts for him as this would undoubtely delay the whole trip to Mandalore and regaining his honour. Though in the last scene as he meets with Bo-Katan it looks like he intends to go to Mandalore next, so it seems that the whole android fixing thing was put aside. I'm also under the impression that he doesn't take Grogu's safety into consideration this time, as Mandalore is rumoured to be poisoned?
A slow start to the season, but they are mainly scene-setting for the rest of the season in this episode. The bit where Grogu saw the purgill during hyperspace was interesting; could his maybe link in slightly with Star Wars Rebels, in that we may discover what became of Ezra Bridger? The pirate captain looked shoddy, as do a few of the alien races in SW, almost like something out of a low-budget Dr Who episode. The pirates have just been thrown in because all of Mando's meaningful adversaries are now banther fodder, as of the end of BOBF
I do think some of the people reviewing these episodes are being overly judgemental and cynical, at times. I agree with some of their points, but this episode is just guiding us in softly to the rest of the season which (I hope) will be more engaging. This is, as with all the Mandalorian episodes, very finely presented, but it must be hard to develop occasional / lesser character depth in 30-minute chunks (once you cut out the recap. intro and credits). I'd be interested to know how the "critics" on here would (constructively) have done things differently, if they'd had the run of the show production?
When the droid dropped the statue on IG-11's head, and Mando said, "That's using your head," that was severely disappointing. It sounded like a line out of an '80s/'90s action-adventure film, which is not a good thing. I hope that it doesn't portend things to come this season.
I watched Ep. 5 and 6 of Boba Fett and those two episodes were great. This one less so.
Disney have long ending credits don't they?
Bo Katan seeing a spaceship heading towards the palace/fortress, running to change her food-stained clothes and just arriving in time to the throne to strike a pose -Yeah, I'm just casually chilling here like this all day, problem?
A big fat meh. The whole episode felt like a video game side quest, forced combat encounter and all. The writing was whatever and none of the scenes were very interesting or unique, it was all either mindless action or really dull talking. I really miss season 1, this show has been steadily declining since last season started and I'm afraid this will be the worst season yet. The characterization and writing in this show continues to suck, all of the Mandalorians are such idiots and never seem to make good decisions, Bo Katan was woefully out of character, and Din Djarin's character is still hampered by the presence of Baby Yoda, who was fun in the first two seasons, but really should have been left behind for the third.
Also hated seeing the space whales, this show is bad enough without reminding me of Rebels. Please don't throw Thrawn into this, he's already been irreparably damaged by his last on-screen appearances.
One of, if not the weakest episode this show has put out thus far. Not a great start. I also feel I should take a moment to say how much I dislike what they did by putting the most interesting plot of this show into an entirely different one instead. They didn't make it very clear, but The Book of Boba Fett is required viewing before starting season 3 of The Mandalorian. The Grogu/Luke plotline, which was the most interesting part of this entire show, was explored and resolved in the second half of the season during the Boba Fett show. It's one thing to have crossovers and includes characters, locations, and other aspects from one show in another, but it's downright annoying and inconvenient to resolve an entire main plotline in a totally different show, only to then just gently brush over the entire thing in the returning season of the original show. Mando/Grogu appearing in Book of Boba Fett should have been for some side content/something that simply wasn't super important to the main Mandalorian show. The way they handled this was awful.
Space cowboys vs. space pirates, space dogfight and space Swamp Thing! Now, that's how you kick-off a season!
Daddy Mando is back in search of forgiveness. As thin as the story may be, it takes us to wonderful worlds and creatures that Star Wars last had to offer in its best days. It's the details, the settings, the relationship between Mando and Grogu, all of that, that revive this wonderful atmosphere already with the opening episode of season 3.
More infantile content with caricature baddies from Disney.
A fun and action packed return, though the end is just sudden.
Way too short for a series premiere , really needed a bit more
Great to finally have the dhow back with another season. Still this premiere episode left me a bit underwhelmed.
Pretty solid season premise, consider me officially hyped. I just hope it won't take them 8 episodes to get there and end on a cliffhanger.
It feels like these episodes are rather short at only 30 minutes.
Maybe I don't get something in that Star Wars universe, but can somebody explain me what's the point behind that ridiculous "never take off your helmet" rule? How does he eat and drink? How does he sleep? Does he seat on a toilet in it too? Hump in it as well? How does he washes his face and hairs from sweat and all in order to avoid lice and bedsores? I don't even start that it's obviously unhealthy for your eyes to see the world through the helmet 24/7 and other things like that.
And some plot details just making me roll my eyes.. like when he comes to that totally empty planet to some totally empty Mandalorian castle and there is just one girl lying on the throne - doing nothing at all. He talks to her and leaves and she just keeps lying there, keeps doing nothing. Such an unrealistic empty world..
But.... nothing happens. The music was phenomenal though.
8/10
Great start to the season
very exciting and nice
to see some old faces
and places.
Very interested to see
what this season has
to offer.
Nice seeing the
Star whales from
Ahsoka, we all
know what an
important part they
played in finding
Ezra.
10 minutes of plot advancement plus a bunch of ADHD filler...
Leaning heavily into the Kaiju from the beginning with added cute gnomes. Can we really blame Grogu?
Typical modern Disney. They have a great thing going, Star Wars show that stands on its own with just loose references to main saga movies. Great, now let's have a whole another show whose title doesn't reference the main show in any way, just a character which is ubiquitous in the universe. Now, let's progress the story of this first show in that other show, so that people who didn't know or didn't want to watch this other show be totally bewildered after tuning in to the new season of their favorite show and wondering what and how they've missed since there is no warning you might want to watch Book of Boba Fett before they spoil it for you here. After all, this is chapter 17, and ending of last season was chapter 16... So how come a season worth of Mandalorians story is somehow missing between them?
Same shit they are doing with Marvel, interconnecting tv shows and movies so if you accidentally skip something it will be spoiled for you in the next thing that comes along, and you will still be kind of lost. Not to mention that this kind of makes sense in MCU where stories mostly follow each other chronologically as they are released, but it makes zero sense in SW universe where stories are scattered all over the timeline.
That said, this is underwhelming either way. Love the Bo-Katan just spending her days apparently all alone on a planet, sitting in her throne gazing through the windows.
I'm guessing I'll find out how mandalorian came into possession of a Naboo ship if I ever watch the Book of Boba Fett. That design dates back to at least Episode 1, or some 50 years before Mandalorian. Curious choice. I thought we are watching a flashback scene.
I really enjoy this. But I agree way too short. Seems like they had plenty of material. Also, one of the episodes goes in a totally different direction. Really best to always have the Mandalorian and Groguu in all!
without grogu"s help I can"t see a thing. this had better improve double quick. mind you. i should be 15.
too damn dark I can't see half what's going on:weary:
I liked the interaction between Din and Grogu, otherwise this episode didn't do much for me.
this was a good season opener and does well to establish the season mission: revisiting mandalore. Kinda too dark looking, could have used some popping up.
“Now that’s using your head” is the kind of punchline only Arnold Schwarzenegger could get away with in an 80s action movie. Also, can we please go back to the production techniques that were used on Andor? This looks like shit.
Disney is starting to become a adult-kindergarten streaming service
The last time we saw Grogu, he was being carried off by Luke Skywalker to undergo training in the powers of the Force, and at the start of Season 3, he's just back with Mando again out of the blue. The only explanation we're given was, to paraphrase Mando: "He was away, but he returned to me." Huh? A weak explanation like that undermines and nullifies the entire premise of the last season, as @filmboicole pointed out (https://trakt.tv/users/filmoicole), and I can't believe more people here haven't mentioned that giant problem. I know Mando is the star of this particular show, not Luke, but Jesus, give us more than that - at least a few minutes of training and getting stronger with Luke and then a better explanation of how he got back to Mando since, as a baby, Grogu can't pilot a ship or do much of anything beyond use the force briefly, look cute and take naps. Needless to say, after finishing season two and anticipating where they would take the show after Luke appeared, this episode was disappointing in that regard. Otherwise, the action was good, but not much else happened. Mando is now on a mission to find the mines of Mandalore, bathe in the waters of such and such and get his honor back after taking his mask off several times the last two seasons. Again, there was no update on Moff and Pershing's experimentation on Grogu's blood, other than to learn that Moff has been sent to a war tribunal. So for people who just want to see the Mando, the baby and action sequences, this show was a win, but for people who care about the overarching plot and episodes, you know, serving some purpose toward that end, this was a letdown.
The trailer was the entire first episode.
THIS IS THE WAY. Yeah this is still the greatest Star Wars to ever Star War!!
"Hellooo, I am Babu Frik's cousin, Jeremy Friiik."
There is no way that was only 35 minutes long! So much content to dig through. I need to get more info on that zebra-striped ship. It looked Separatist.
All Star Wars recently has been knocking it out of the park, but it's especially good to have this one back. This is the series that started Star Wars on its road to recovery after the Sequel Trilogy. It will be interesting to see what parts of the post-Return of the Jedi world get preserved going forward.
Uncertain about this episode. The opening scene felt clumsy, as did some of the dialogue.
Are Mandalorians loyal? Is that why he’ll go to such lengths to fix a droid?
The battle scene amongst the ‘space rocks’ was typical Star Wars fare I suppose.
Shout by jakeniebuhrBlockedParent2023-03-02T04:53:22Z
It pains me because I love this show… but this was just not good. Nothing happened, we didn’t learn anything new that we couldn’t have been told in the first 5 minutes, and there was no real overarching plot for this episode.
I haven’t lost hope for the season, I think it set up a lot of plot it can hopefully pay off in fun ways, but this episode was a miss for me.