I agree with you. I’ve always been frustrated by how many people really don’t seem to want to watch it, so they watch it just to complain about the flaws they see in the show. That and the number of people who compare it with the apparently holy Clone Wars series, which to my mind seems to be no better than any of the current shows.
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the entire season was all over the place…
i won’t be watching the 4th season
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I mean this in good faith and not to be confrontational, did you not have the same problem with season one and to a lesser extent season 2? Season one in particular had a middle chunk of pretty directionless episodes that loosely fed the overall narrative. I get if you didn’t like it then either, I’m just curious about your rationale
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I enjoyed it, thought it was a nice tie-up for this seasons arc. Felt a bit rushed to me, coulda been stretched into two episodes. My coworker theorizes that a lot of the non-mando plot in this season was gonna be in Rangers, but since that got cancelled, they took all the over-arching critical stuff from that one and smooshed it into Mando 3 and I’m sort of inclined to agree
It wasn’t any better than the current shows, and in a few cases, was much worse. (I’m thinking about that four episode “frogman leads silly droids across the desert” arc)
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alright can we just talk about this for a minute
for years I had been constantly told the the d-squad arc was one of the worst pieces of Star Wars media ever made, but then I actually watched it and it ended up becoming my favourite arc in the entire show
I genuinely enjoyed it a ridiculous amount and it’s one of the only arcs I’d ever feel like going back to watch again
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What I dislike about it is the tonal inconsistency. Which is something I’m cool with in general, but what really made the show great for me was the growth of characters like Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, etc. Heck, several clones had long term arcs, like Jesse and Echo.
This show dug into the politics of the senate, the religious strengths and shortcomings of the Jedi, it tackled differing views of social and moral dilemmas. It was still a kids show outwardly but at it’s heart it was working to be so much more. Then, all of a sudden, I feel like I’m dragging myself through an episode of Bubble Guppies just in case something plot-relevant occurs.
I think that arc was fine enough for what it was, but it was so off-beat from the rest of the show that it felt more like a wedge in the grain than anything else. By that point in the shows run, the more mature elements and long term plot had established themselves as the real show, with lighter stuff added in just to keep it accessible to younger audiences. Only thing that four episode arc offered for the big picture was the introduction of Gregor, who is still grossly underutilized btw.
Actually I would compare it to the Mando episodes in BOBF. Two out of seven episodes of that season had nearly nothing to do with Boba, and as much as I loved them, I didn’t love where they were placed. Now, to be clear, I very much disliked the D-Squad arc in general, but I’m accepting of the fact that tastes differ and good/bad in artistic expression is a matter of opinion. The reason I even bother to vocalize my distaste is its placement. Feels like a totally, tonally different show that only served to bog down the momentum of the main story.
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but Wekua it has possibly the best piece of dialogue in all of star wars
meebur gascon climbs up onto the centre fin of their wrecked shuttle to get a good view of the surroundings, and the pit droid just says “huh I guess he’s going to jump and put himself out of his misery”
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You’ve destroyed my argument in an instant, Monopoly
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On one hand, I get what you’re saying, but on the other, I think you’re wrong. The thing about The Clone Wars, is for starters, that it’s a complete product. There’s plenty of boring episodes in there, but nowadays you can just skip them if you want to. This can also address Wekua’s point.
The show is fundamentally different from The Mandalorian in a key way. The Mandalorian has an overall story for each season. The Clone Wars does not. It’s a series of stories that are occasionally referenced by each other, with stronger tie ins only becoming common in later seasons, where pretty much every episode is worth watching.
The Clone Wars was a much bolder step as well. It took the previously personality-less clones, and made each one a unique character. Character development in general was a huge part of the show, and done incredibly well considering the budget was presumably much lower back then as opposed to now.
There was plenty of holes in The Clone Wars, but the structuring of the show made it negligible for the most part. The way they were able to constantly show you unique aspects of Star Wars each season was what made it special.
Now I do think the opinion of The Mandalorian will evolve overtime. Once the show is done, or at least people have had more time to let it sit, people will forget about all the filler, and just rate it based on the good parts. That definitely happens with Clone Wars. Still though, to me it won’t match the writing of The Clone Wars, and its way of giving individuality to literal clones. Hence why Umbara is the best arc
P.S. I’d way rather watch the D-squad arc than that stupid episode with Dr. Pershing and girl.
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Honestly, I agree. That story would have worked better if it had been more spread out during the season, not one giant, rather dull, episode.
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I’ll agree there. It was necessary but a bit slow all together
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Or if it was just much shorter. All we really needed to know was what happened to the doctor. The girl could’ve been replaced by a single line from Gideon.
“My intelligence has informed me that the Mandalorian tribes plan to retake their home world.”
She’s completely unnecessary.
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The problem with season 3 is not just that it has filler, it’s that it has pointless filler and then a rushed main plot. Every part of the finale was hastily thrown together:
Mando just conveniently finds the parts he needs for IG-11, which are supposed to be nearly impossible to find, in a random New Republic base. He doesn’t even need to go on any sort of quest for them, he just walks in and finds what he needs like he’s grocery shopping. This is so easy to fix, too: replace the pointless droid sub-plot of episode six with Mando having to deal with a rogue IG droid. BAM.
Mando finds Ghideon’s clones in a hallway. He finds these top-secret clones that Ghideon has denied the existence of in a main hallway that literally everyone in this base would use, as it goes to the main control room. Again, there’s no quest, he doesn’t even know they’re a thing until he finds them by accident.
Then there’s the way that he deals with the clones. He goes to a control panel, presses some buttons, and the tubes start shattering? There’s no explanation as to what he did, it just happens. It’s so poorly written I legitimately thought that Ghideon was setting them loose on Mando, and didn’t realize that he somehow killed them until Ghideon said so.
Even the fight with Ghideon just ends abruptly. One moment, he’s fighting Din and Boca Raton, and then he just suddenly dies. It feels like there’s a climax that is just missing.
Two of the episodes didn’t contribute anything to the overall story, episodes 3 and 6. This was fine in season 1 and 2, when the story was wrapped up nicely at the end. It was, as you put it, a charming blend of side-quests and main plot. But here, the main plot needed more room, and so did some of the side-quests – that droid sub-plot in episode 6 was also super rushed
The Ithquil know where the next droid malfunction will be, somehow.
This never gets explained. Bo-Katan easily finds the location of the droid bar on a random item on the malfunctioning droid, and instantly knows that’s where they need to go. Bo claims that the droid malfunctions all point to this bar even though it’s actually just that one. The bad guy’s motives for doing all this are never given (“he’s a separatist” isn’t a motive; why did he decide to make these droids attack random people? What was he hoping to achieve?), and he just apologizes and leaves.
Clone wars also had 22 episodes per season. Mandalorian has eight. CW has a lot more room for filler and to tell multiple stories than Mandor does. Like I said, the first two seasons of the series found a good balance. Season 3 did not.
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Just saying, they had the same equipment in their base in Nevarro, which is what Grogu was kept in briefly. Then, they had more at the Remnant base where they found Pershing’s video chat, so all he knew was that he just needed to break the equipment to kill the clones. All he did was overpressurize the tanks, causing them to explode.
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Ah, thank you, I didn’t even remember that
And that is the problem. Those scenes were in the last two seasons. If Mando had said that he needed to overpressurize the tanks in this episode, that would have helped. It would still be rushed, but at least it would make sense.
I just realized I never really said what I thought of the finale besides it being super rushed. Plot-wise, I actually quite liked it. It was nice seeing Mandalore come together, and Din and Grogu’s storyline reach a conclusion (though the conclusion at the end of season 2 was better). This season is like the Stranger Things set without minifigures: a good set, but it’s missing something that makes it feel incomplete.
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