S01.E01: Chapter One - Stranger In A Strange Land

[Uncle JUICE]

On 12/31/2021 at 1:08 PM, tennisgurl said:

You can definitely tell this is a Mandalorian spin-off, its still got that very space western sort of vibe, dusty frontier towns with aliens and ray guns and such. It didn't grab me as much as The Mandalorian, and I have in general never been a huge Boba fan, but I always like spending time exploring the Star Wars universe, especially its outskirts. Exploring Tattooine has promise, and I really like the cast, so I will be sticking around. 

This might be my main problem with the show right now, one episode deep. I'm going to give it time, not for Fett's sake (agree: totally overrated character whose appeal was basically non-canonical for decades, and disagree with @paigow on his clone wars arc, I didn't find it so, but YMMV), but because there are always cool little characters hanging around to discover. Anyway, back to my bolded part there: this can't be another western in space, that lane is taken. This should develop into something closer to Space Sopranos if you want to distinguish your properties. And Obi Wan / Ahsoka better be more classical samurai films. 

[WatchrTina]

Once upon a time I spent six weeks touring New Zealand and one of the highlights was attending a Maori cultural performance that included a demonstration of ritual spear/staff fighting.  I can't help but think that the Sand-people's fighting style, as depicted in this episode, was informed by the Maori style, in homage to Temuera Morrison's Maori heritage.  The fact that Sandpeople used staffs as weapons was established in the original movie but we never really saw them in use.  We only saw one waved menacingly (and briefly) overhead at Luke before its "easily startled" owner was  scared off by Obi Wan.  So -- if I'm correct -- I enjoyed seeing the homage to Temuera's Maori heritage in the now-more-developed Sandpeople fighting style.

[pezgirl7]

I was a little underwhelmed by this episode. I am one of the few Boba Fett fans here apparently. He's always been one of my fav characters, simply because he was mysterious and had a really cool outfit and jet pack. When I was little, I would sometimes play with my brothers action figures, and he was always one of my favorites. I thought his helmet and jetpack were like a spacesuit, and allowed him to fly around in space like an astronaut. lol I'm not a big fan of Star Wars episodes 1, 2 and 3, and because I had my own head canon about who Boba Fett was and what he looked like, seeing him being fleshed out now is a little strange.

I would have liked to have seen more of Boba getting out of the Sarlacc pit. Fans have been waiting 40 years to see if and how he escaped, so I think they could have spent a little more time on that scene. It seems like he just used his flame thrower to make a hole that he was able to climb out of? I never thought that C3PO's speech meant that someone would stay alive for 1,000 of years, simply that their body would take that long to be digested, which really isn't any worse than a body decomposing in the ground. But even a week of being digested alive is still horrific.

I think it's only been 5 years since ROTJ, but at that time, Boba was a lot thinner, so it was a little strange seeing him with so much more weight on him. I guess they didn't want to CGI him too much.

4 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

I can't help but think that the Sand-people's fighting style, as depicted in this episode, was informed by the Maori style, in homage to Temuera Morrison's Maori heritage.

I think it was! They mentioned it a bit in the Disney Gallery: Mandalorian season 2 show. Here's an interview where Tem talks about it.

[arc]

1 hour ago, pezgirl7 said:

I think it's only been 5 years since ROTJ, but at that time, Boba was a lot thinner, so it was a little strange seeing him with so much more weight on him. I guess they didn't want to CGI him too much.

They say bacta adds 40 pounds.

[Camera One]

I knew there was some negative buzz around this series, so maybe it was the low expectations, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Boba Fett is not as interesting as Mando (it was a super smart idea to have him in multiple episodes of "The Mandalorian", where he and Fennec did grow on me as part of Mando's story), so a nice short episode was welcomed. 

But overall, I wasn't unengaged (and I'm not usually much of a Star Wars fan, though I suppose this is changing a bit after binging "Obi-Wan" and then the original trilogy and then Mandalorian and now this).  It sort of felt like a subplot from the Mandalorian. 

I didn't mind seeing a bit of backstory about how he survived his "death" in the first movie trilogy, and after seeing Sand People on the Mandalorian, it was somewhat interesting to spend a bit of time with them here.  I don't think I would mind seeing how he establishes himself as the crime boss, but why?  Crime boss with a heart of gold?  Hopefully this provides a chance to tell us a bit more about Fennec.  I'm glad there is still something Mando-related to watch until Season 3 comes out, which is still a ways off.   

On 1/5/2022 at 10:27 AM, Uncle JUICE said:

Anyway, back to my bolded part there: this can't be another western in space, that lane is taken. This should develop into something closer to Space Sopranos if you want to distinguish your properties. And Obi Wan / Ahsoka better be more classical samurai films. 

This is a really good point, if they plan to do spinoff after spinoff in the Star Wars universe.  If they were smart, they would do what you suggested and make each of these spinoffs more unique.  Maybe it's Jon Favreau's involvement, but this spinoff was still better than "Obi-Wan" (sadly).