CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOBF AND FIRST TWO EP OF MANDO SEASON 3
ALSO CONTAINS SWEARING, I HAVE STRONG OPINIONS
ALSO A LOT OF THIS IS FROM MEMORY AND I MIGHT HAVE DETAILS WRONG
I'm a star wars fan, and I used to be more active in the community back when Mando season 2 was released. People thought that Jon Favrou and Dave Filoni were like the next Kevin Feige. People were even reffering to Mando, clone wars, and rebels as the "Filoniverse". Back then, I was in support of that idea as well. I genuinly believed that Filoni had an epic plan and knew what he was doing going forward in order to make star wars incredible again. But now, two-ish years onward, I've lost faith in that dream.
Lets start out with BoBF: I didn't like the show. I remember when everyone freaking out when Mando basically hijacked the show for two episodes. "Oh, its so great that we're seeing mando! What he's doing is so cool! Aww hes with baby yoda!" But if anything, that only seemed to frustrate me more. This show was not about Mando. We did not need to see Mando meet up with Grogu in this show. From a practical standpoint, if someone wants to watch Mando in the future they're gonna have to watch BOBF inbetween season 2 and 3 for it to make any sense. Which, if you can't tell already, is a very dumb idea. But besides that, having several episodes without BOBF was stupid. This show is about Boba. I was interested in it because of boba. The advertisement at the end of season 2 was about BOBA, not MANDO. I think this comes down to the fact that it's story plot couldn't fit its 6 episode runtime. The plot is basically Boba trying to stop a group of pirates from taking over his city so he can be the ruler. Besides half of the first few episodes being focused on backstory, that was it. The first episode establishes the status quo boba has to contend with. The second one establishes not much else but I think boba gets his rancor or something. I don't really remember the whole series since it happened a year ago, but there wasn't anything else that is relevant besides boba preparing to fight the pikes. Then it just cuts back to mando, and then the last episode is deticated to the battle against the pikes. I think due to the lack of significant plot points and planning in general, they probably could've never had a good enough story in the first place unless they added more to it. The only time when things the audience views as important ARE happening in the present day is when Mando is onscreen. Because of this, the whole show is disjointed. It doesn't really focus on anything. A show shouldn't be like this. If it's a collections of stories, then it shouldn't be advertised as focusing around one character. I feel like they shoved Mando in there because they were more concerned about telling HIS story, and not boba's. Nobody cares about Boba, which brings me to my second point: they massacred his character.
Okay, fine. I might be overreacting. But remember Boba in season 2 of mando? He was a badass. He brutally murdered a bunch of stormtroopers. He was intimidating. He shot his way through all of jaba's old palace to take his throne. But the second he takes control? He becomes a benevolent king. He believes in gaining the trust of the people instead of reorganizing the hutt's control with himself at the helm. He was never a good guy. At the very least, he was more of an anti-hero. This change in character is really jarring. Sure, one could argue that he changed after the kind sand people helped him. But then how could that explain his actions in season 2, when he's terrifying and murdering people left and right without any remorse? Also, his character motivations really don't line up. Hes not benevolent. He was never established to be really kind, but strong and ruthless. In fact, in the show he's shown as weak. He gets his ass handed in the first episode and hires a bunch of weirdo mismatches to help him, like the biker gang or the two green people. Just the name 'boba fett' should be enough to intimidate others from attacking him. I understand why he might need security and people to run his operations, but he's not defenseless. He's BOBA FETT. We never see his operations. He seems to just walk around with these two green people and Fennec shand patroling the city. That is not something that any badass crimelord would do. Where's him making tough decisions? Attacking people, giving no mercy? Where's the fear that should come from the name boba fett? He should be like Mando, but without a secret heart of gold. Overall, Boba's character was decimated in his own show, which is just downright stupid. I would've loved to see crimeboss boba instead of this wishy-washy benevolent king.
Another random sidenote: Cad bane should've never been in that show. They just made him come to kill him off. I'm an avid fan of clone wars(its my favorite tv show) and cad bane is one of the best characters from it. He's intimidating, smart, and badass, like a outlaw from an old western movie. You know shits about to come down if he's there. That's why his first scene is him 'killing' that sherriff, after all. But the next episode, hes killed. One of the best characters from clone wars, killed by boba fett, who you barely see is with him in the actual show. And you know WHY? Because in the original script of clone wars (which was never made due to it being cancelled), Boba ends up killing him. Long story short, cade bane trains boba in everything he knows because he wants to duel boba, to prove whether or not he could've beaten Jango fett since he and Jango were apparently rivals. They obviously couldn't do that, so they bought Cad bane into the show here. Many fans assume that the same duel from the original script actually happened, with Cad bane living after the duel and boba having to finish the job in this show.
But here's the thing: NOBODY who isn't an extreme star wars fan would know about this. Heck, even most clone wars fans probably have no clue. So they just bought back Cad bane for him to be killed with a guy he barely interacts with, to finish a story line that never even existed? I don't think I need to justify why that's so stupid. Additionally, his murdering of the sherriff is useless because GUESS WHAT, the sherriff survives!!! Because everyone MUST live happily ever after in Star wars! I think its so disrespectful to the character of cad bane. He should have stakes. he should be dangerous. Hell, they could've just had him kill an extra if it was for contract reasons that the sherriff had to live.
Anyway, now to my complaints about Mando season 3. It's been very...meh. Mando's goal is pretty stupid. We should already know right now that he feels that he cares more about Grogu than the creed, otherwise he would've never taken off the helmet in the first place. But fine, we can accept that he is still looking for approval. It is explained in ep 2 why he feels that its so important to him and his mandolorian identity. The first episode is a bit boring, not much happens. My main complaint is with bo-katan: she kind of gives up on her people. I found this to be really off for her character. Even if she didn't have the darksaber, even if she had no support, then she would find support and try to reclaim mandalore. She loved her planet. She would never declare it a lost cause and mope around. But thats just ep 1.
Ep 2 I have more complaints for. First of all, that weird droid lady from tatoinne shows up and I hate her because(in my opinion) she's not funny and shes really boring.
My main complaint is that in the episode Grogu ends up saving Mando. Now, why is that weird? Because Grogu isn't supposed to do that! Why not? I hear you ask.
Well, Grogu isn't meant to be a protagonist. He's meant to be an object of the REAL protagonist, Mando. It's like in movies how children in danger are meant to be used for stakes and urgency in plots. Oh no, its an innocent child in danger! The adult hero has to rescue them! This plot was already used in Mando season 2. Grogu's inherent purpose, in his design, appeal, use in the plot, etc, is to be that object of mando that mando must care for and fight for, in order for their to be a story and a close relationship. We are not watching a story where grogu is taking care of mando, but visa versa. Now, one could argue that having the grogu save mando isn't bad just because it flips the idea of adult saving child on its head. After all, with child-led stories, children are often saving adults. But thats the thing: it's child-led. If the child doesn't have any motivations, opinions, etc, on its own and sole purpose in the plot is to be protected by the adult at all costs, then why should the child be a protagonist when it ultimately hasn't been built within the constraints of the story to be that?
Another thing about this: Grogu isn't a child, he's a BABY. His mannerisms, sounds, how people treat him, etc, reflect that of a baby, and not, say, a 10 or 8 year old child. Now, why does this matter? Because babies lack agency. They aren't self aware, like Grogu is shown to be. If a baby even does save a protagonist, it's often by accident. They aren't aware of what they're doing, they cry uncontrollably when something seems off or they're being a nice cute little baby sucking their thumb if everything seems to be going okay. Maybe a kid could save an adult, but a BABY cannot. This was inherently why I found watching grogu follow orders and be self aware(going to bo katan, etc) so...off. Sure, on the inside Grogu is self aware. But he was origanally intended to be a cute puppy dog of the protagonist, not a protagonist himself. When he is shown on screen, 99% of the time he's shown as being not-self aware but very cute in the way that he acts. And in the real world, babies aren't self aware. So the confusion between Grogu's role in the episode(helping mando and being self aware)vs his role in the show overall(being a cute, helpless baby that mando has to protect and raise) made the episode seem really off to me.
Alright, we're done with BOBF and mando. I could rant about Bad batch too but I think I've gotten my point across with these two examples: at some point or another, Filoni is failing to show his potential and genius that he seemed to have after Mando season 2. Now, this could be the disney executives telling him what to do or what to have, or maybe he genuinly has too much creative freedom and is just adding random stories or making entire episodes of shows deticatted to entirely different characters in a very confusing and very uneven way, even mimicking a bit of clone wars in this aspect(clone wars is an anthrology show) and the executives at disney are enabling him to make these poor choices since they think that no one will care if 90% of BOBF isn't that good, as long as 10% is about Mando since everyone loves Mando and won't think about the show in an overly negative way if mando is in it.
Anyway, that is my extremely long rant. I know that most of you aren't avid star wars fans so this might not mean anything to you. But I needed to get this out of my chest. Have a good day! :D
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