The Mando that Goes Up Must Come Down

The third season of The Mandalorian concluded true to this year's established form--with weak writing and some nice action sequences. This time, I have a stronger feeling that the problems may not have been entirely Jon Favreau's fault, despite the fact that he has sole writing credit. There are a few instances of very obviously looped dialogue I think may well have been added by meddlers at Disney.

The previous episode ended with Din getting cut off from the other Mandalorians as well as Grogu on the secret Imperial base. This episode begins with one of the Mandalorians flying straight up into the sky. Over the comm, Bo-Katan fills him in about what we've seen and instructs him to get reinforcements from the fleet in orbit. Meanwhile, I'm wondering, why was this guy flying straight up into the sky in the first place?

I suspect an early version of this opening scene featured no dialogue at all. We saw some Mandalorians moving through corridors and another one flying towards the fleet. Explanations wouldn't have been necessary if we can remember things established in previous episodes--comms can't get through Mandalore's atmosphere and the folks planetside are in hot water. When this guy gets to the bridge of the capital ship and asks for aid, all would have made sense. Someone at Disney saw this and thought everything had to be spelled out for the two-year-olds in the audience. Since the Mandalorians are all wearing helmets, it's easy dub over dialogue so they had Bo-Katan give her instructions while the guy was in flight. But ironically, this makes things much more confusing because we're left asking--why the hell was this guy flying straight up at the sky to begin with?

This is almost immediately followed by a scene where Gideon is watching Din and Grogu rendered as dots on a schematic and he remarks from off-camera, "The Mandalorian has escaped." I laughed out loud at that one. Wouldn't the nearby Dark Trooper feel compelled to ask, "Uh, which one, Sir?" Gideon could've replied, "Who do you think? The star of this show!" That was probably the thinking of whoever dubbed that line in. I bet they were thinking, "The kids at home know him best as the Mandalorian." Again, trying to make things absurdly clear has rendered them ridiculous and confusing.

There are some other things I don't think can be blamed on looped dialogue, like Bo-Katan suddenly swooping in to fight Moff Gideon. I was really digging the grand jet pack melee and how dizzying it was. How Bo-Katan alone spotted what was going on down below I don't know. A shot establishing a connexion between the two locations would have been nice. Many of the problems could be attributable to director Rick Famuyiwa who directed three of the episodes this season despite being one of the weakest directors from previous seasons.

I did enjoy most of the fight, it was well choreographed. Though Gideon destroying the Dark Sabre after demanding that Bo-Katan relinquish it struck another blow to the clarity of Gideon's motives. Also, after establishing how cool the Dark Sabre is and how cool Bo-Katan is with it, destroying it now feels pretty lame. Maybe it'll be repaired.

Grogu was cute in the episode but once again his story made little sense. I thought Din had already adopted him so I don't know why he needed to again here. Grogu's inability to talk doesn't seem like it should be an issue if they could give him a device that speaks "Yes" and "No" when he presses corresponding buttons. I thought he would have his first words by the end of this season. So much for that. It seems Grogu may be the Maggie Simpson of the Star Wars universe, though even Maggie had that episode where Elizabeth Taylor voiced her. Who could they bring in for Grogu? I nominate Faye Dunaway.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Mighty Morphing Mandalorians

Last night's Mandalorian could've easily been better but it wasn't so bad. It sort of made good on an interesting premise though, by the end, I felt a little like I was watching Power Rangers. I also think they reused some sets from Obi-Wan Kenobi which made me realise this season of The Mandalorian is at least not as bad as that.

We get a holographic meeting among Imperials and Moff Gideon strides back onto the show. I'm not sure if I've said it before but while I think Giancarlo Esposito is a great actor I think he's totally miscast as a Star Wars villain. The reason he worked so well in Breaking Bad was that he seemed like a normal guy and you only got a hint of the malevolence underneath when his face turned to stone. He's not cut out for grandstanding, delivering deliberately cliche villain dialogue (“We shall be rid of the Mandalorians once and for all!”). He looks like a cosplayer in that armour he wears.

We do get to see the live action Pellaeon, though, surprisingly played by an American actor, Xander Berkeley. Pellaeon was Thrawn's right hand man in the old Expanded Universe, in the Timothy Zahn books beginning with Heir to the Empire in 1991. This gives some credence to the rumour that the Ahsoka series will be at least in part an adaptation of Heir to the Empire, which could explain how Dave Filoni plans to get around the fact that he can't write.

Filoni co-wrote last night's episode with Jon Favreau. After the Imperial conference scene established some Imperial officers as cartoonish villains, we go back to Nevarro where Greef Karga presents Din with some liquor all the way from Coruscant which, judging from the time tables of travel between Coruscant and the Outer Rim established in a Dave Filoni episode earlier in this season, must have endured a voyage of at least an hour to reach Nevarro.

The vast assemblage of Mandalorians finally meet, many of them with hair sticking visibly out of their supposedly vacuum sealed helmets, including Bo-Katan's. The campaign to retake Mandalore from, they think, no-one, begins. It's more of a "rebuild" project. It'd been established before that there were no Mandalorians on Mandalore but almost immediately our heroes meet a whole bunch of them, a big group of Night Owls who ply the landscape on a big, slow moving hovership which is quickly destroyed for being too slow to escape a slow moving kaiju. The dialogue continually sounds off. One Mandalorian spots the monster "on the starboard bow" as though it's perched on the railing. Later, Moff Gideon tells his people to "activate" the TIE Interceptors and Bombers instead of "launch". I wanted to get a shot of them all powering up and then tumbling, pilotless, to the ground.

Although I do think it's better than Obi-Wan Kenobi, Din getting trapped on one side of a door really reminded me of that series. I'm looking forward to hearing Favreau's explanation for why Gideon would want to take Din alive. A trade for Grogu, perhaps? He doesn't actually seem interested in everyone's favourite green Mogwai right now, though (Gremlins creator Joe Dante accused The Mandalorian of ripping off Gizmo).

The best part of the episode once again involved Grogu being cute. Now he's piloting around an assassination droid like Krang from Ninja Turtles. It is cute but once again Grogu's actual maturity level is pretty hazy. He clearly understands "yes" and "no" but why can't he say "yes" and "no"? Well, it's cute.

Paz Vizsla's last stand against the Praetorian guards was pretty cool. A sense of him being a real badass was established when he was able to take down all the Dark Troopers, which made the Praetorians seem even more badass when they took Paz down. Retroactively enhancing the fight with Rey and Kylo in Last Jedi.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Mando in a Strange Land

With this season of The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau is doing significant damage to his reputation as a writer. To be fair, I didn't think his writing on the previous seasons was great but this season everyone seems to be taking notice. Last night's episode was especially dumb. It was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard who does seem to have good instincts for action sequences but terrible instincts for dialogue scenes, especially when it comes to closeups.

Two cringeworthy shots that stand out in my memory are when the droid coroner turns to Bo-Katan and Din and says, "It's illegal," and the shot of Katee Sackoff looking smug right after she's taken down a battle droid.

Both felt amateurish. But Dallas Howard is a new director so maybe his is good testing ground for her before she works on anything a major studio spends a lot of money on or a prominent IP . . . Well, Star Wars is still kind of a prominent IP. I mean, The Mandalorian is no worse than the Ewok movies . . . right?

There were things I liked about the episode. I liked references to the Separatists and the Clone Wars. I liked appearances from battledroids and Christopher Lloyd. I even liked the royal couple played by Jack Black and Lizzo, though people seem to be complaining about those two a lot.

Black always feels tonally out of place to me whenever he's supposed to be serious but as a potentially duplicitous politician that kind of works. It makes sense that he seems a little phony. I'd never heard of Lizzo so I had no baggage there. I didn't think she gave a particularly good performance but her role wasn't terribly crucial. I did kind of like the Alice in Wonderland vibe to the alien croquet game Grogu was helping her cheat at.

But the plot was one stupid thing after another, an especially bad thing because this episode is set up as basically a police procedural. Right of the bat, it doesn't make sense. Din and Bo-Katan come to this luxury planet run by King Jack Black and Queen Lizzo in order to meet up with Bo-Katan's Mandalorian fleet who now operate as privateers for the royal couple. Black and Lizzo won't let our heroes meet with the fleet until they've rectified a problem with droids going murderously haywire. When asked why their own Mandalorians can't take care of the problem, Black and Lizzo explain that no weapons are allowed on the planet because Black's a former Imperial. However, since Din and Bo-Katan are Mandalorians, and carrying weapons is part of their culture, they're allowed to go armed against the dangerous droids.

So the privateer Mandalorians can't carry weapons but Din and Bo-Katan can because . . . they're Mandalorians.

Din and Bo-Katan go to interrogate a community of Ugnaughts. They won't listen to Bo-Katan but then Din has a go. He mentions being friends with the Ugnaught voiced by Nick Nolte in season one and concludes with, "I have spoken," so all the Ugnaughts immediately open up to him. For a real world correlation, I imagine a white cop going to a black neighbourhood, approaching some guys playing basketball, and saying, "What up, hommies? By the way, I have a black friend."

I did enjoy a scene in a droid bar that slyly echoed the cantina scene in A New Hope where R2D2 and C3PO were prohibited from entering.

After the investigation plot, Din and Bo-Katan finally confront the fleet, who still won't follow Bo-Katan for the sole reason that she doesn't have the Dark Sabre. Din finally realises that Bo-Katan won the sabre after rescuing him on Mandalore. I pointed this out in my review for that episode and wondered why it didn't occur to Din or Bo-Katan. I guess Favreau was saving it for a dramatic moment, banking on the idea that it wouldn't occur to anyone. Even if it didn't occur to me, it really should have occurred to Din and Bo-Katan. Like, right away. Especially Bo-Katan whose whole political career evidently hinges on possessing that weapon. It's hard to get invested in characters whose commitment to their own motives is so nebulous.

There were a lot of nice effects and aliens in the episode.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

A Long Day for Mandalorians and Pirates

Last night's Mandalorian was a mixed bag for me. There were some ideas I really liked but I think the teleplay by Jon Favreau would've been improved by more consideration given to the logistics of some of what we see. I also wish Carl Weathers had directed this episode, too, because director Peter Ramsey's action scenes are a bit lethargic and unsuspenseful. The stakes presented in the teleplay have to do all the work for the story's suspense. In a couple places, it works. Not so much in others.

The fabulous green-bearded pirate, Captain Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie), returns to lay siege to Navarro. Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) is forced to call New Republic pilot Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) for aid.

Next to Teva at some remote New Republic outpost is none other than Zeb (Steve Blum), one of the main characters from Star Wars: Rebels, a show I'm not a fan of, though Zeb was my second favourite character (after Hera). It was kind of cool seeing him, too, because his design comes from one of the early concept illustrations for Chewbacca.

This launches the episode into the "tangled bureaucracy" subplot that makes me think Favreau read the scripts for Andor and decided this is what he really wanted to be doing. He doesn't quite have the knack for conjuring the subtle mixture of personal investment and career conceptualisation that make the functionaries on Andor so fascinating.

Carrying on a tradition from season one of Mandalorian, Favreau has cast another comedian. This time Tim Meadows plays a New Republic officer called Tuttle, presumably a reference to Terry Gilliam's Brazil. A bit ironic since the black helmeted troopers in Brazil were conceived by Gilliam as a criticism of the endless supply of disposable stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies, a trope The Mandalorian has been happy to indulge in.

Meadows' Tuttle makes a valid point about New Republic resources already being stretched too thin to offer aid to worlds that aren't even members (though it didn't look like Teva's squad had a lot to do, nor did it seem Teva had anything else on his docket). I think a more interesting portrayal of the clerk would have shown him to seem truly sympathetic to the plight of Navarro but unable to overcome other concerns on the topic. Katy O'Brian was sadly reduced to broad moustache twirling, too.

As for the siege itself, I found myself thinking of a class I recently taught about pirates (I teach English at a Japanese junior high school so I try to find interesting topics to discuss in English). I told the students about Henry Morgan's capture of Panama and I think Favreau would have benefited from reading about that or something like it himself. At the very least, he may have considered how long it took Teva to get all the way to Coruscant, a core world, and then all he way to the world where the Mandalorians are keeping their base, and then for the Mandalorians to get all the way to Navarro. Favreau's idea seems to be that the pirates are still looting and the whole surviving populace of the town are just hiding in a cave somewhere. It may have put some people in mind of the last season of Game of Thrones, a memory no show wants to trigger, I should think.

The focus felt very far from Din and Grogu this episode. I felt genuinely happy for Bo-Katan that everyone was rallying around her at the end and I loved the idea of the Mandalorians, their confidence boosted by recent gains, deciding to retake Mandalore. I think we all knew the season was leading up to that but it's nice to have it here. But I do hope they fill out their ranks more with Mandos who can take their helmets off.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Everything is Safe in Star Wars!

Another week, another poorly written episode of The Mandalorian. But this time, director Carl Weathers actually made a mediocre script by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni into something at times genuinely exciting.

The recap reminds us of the kid whose head's been newly imprisoned by the the Mandalorian helmet for no reason. Really, doesn't anyone ever ask, "Why?" This week, the kid's nabbed by a cool alien pterodactyl.

Bo Katan managed to follow it to its nest. She does nothing else, returning to base so everyone can convene, draw up plans, and mount a coordinated effort to rescue the kid, and for some reason no-one seems to think the kid's been killed already. They decide not to use their jetpacks at first for fear of making too much noise and upsetting the monster. "It would kill the child," the Armourer explains as though the kid's being held for ransom.

They make camp upon reaching the nest at nightfall, apparently deciding the nightvision capabilities on their helmets grant them no advantage against the apparently diurnal monster.

And they needn't have rushed because the monster coughs up the kid for his own babies and the kid's just fine.

I know, I know. Beskar armour. But no broken limbs? No saliva? For whatever reason, the monster decided not to feed its babies right away, so the kid was just sleeping in its gullet all night? Was he even in any danger from the babies? Is anyone really in any danger from anything?

The episode ends with the three monster babies being adopted by the tribe. A sure sign this section of the story was written by Dave Filoni whose depictions of animals in Rebels and Tales of the Jedi make me think he was the kind of kid who'd have climbed into the tiger enclosure at the zoo expecting to be able to pet the animals after a perfunctory round of harmless rough and tumble.

Weathers deserves a lot of credit for making the sky battle truly exciting.

Meanwhile, Grogu has a flashback of his rescue and flight from the Jedi Temple with the assistance of none other than Ahmed Best.

Best isn't bad as a badass Jedi and Weathers makes him look good. Certainly better than he looks on the show where Best originated the role of Jedi Master Kelleran Beq two years ago:

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+ and Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge is available on YouTube.

Official Mando Dandyism

I really, really wish last night's Mandalorian was better than it was. The locations I loved, the action sequences I loved, some of the premise I loved, the performances I liked. But, damnit, the writing was perplexingly sloppy again. How long have they had to work on this thing? Why, why is it like this?

It started with something good, some dog fighting in which Bo Katan and Din Djarin deal with some TIE Interceptors. In my day, TIE Interceptors didn't have hyperdrives, but whatever. It was a cool scene.

And then we cut to Coruscant for a completely different plot. I'm guessing this whole section was written by inexperienced screenwriter Noah Kloor, who's credited along with Jon Favreau for writing the episode. He had a staff writing credit on Book of Boba Fett, though none of that series' scripts are actually credited to him. In 2020, he co-wrote a stop motion Christmas special with two other writers. And that brings us to the sum total of his imdb credits.

I love Coruscant. When I was a kid, before the prequels came out, I used to love the old Expanded Universe stories set on Coruscant. And I loved Coruscant in the prequels and on Clone Wars, though it never seemed quite as sinister as it did in those old books. The idea of a neverending city with a vast murky underbelly appealed to me and I liked how last night's episode gave us some little infodumps on the lore which most of us Star Wars geeks already know. It was amusing that Doctor Pershing (Omid Abtahi) seemed a little like a tourist.

The segment begins with Pershing doing a sort of TED Talk at the familiar opera house from Revenge of the Sith. I liked seeing the location again, but it made no sense for him to be giving this big speech about the potential in genetic research only for it to be followed by him sidelined by a bureaucratic policy and talking only reluctantly about the possibility of attempting such research again. Like the alligator fight in the first episode, it felt like the opera house scene was tacked on by someone who didn't actually understand the rest of the episode.

I liked the idea of former Imperials being rehabilitated and reintegrated, and it's nicely chilling how many echos we see from Andor. It looks like Pershing is even working in a cubicle similar to the one Karn worked in. It goes to show, the ideology of the regime may change but uprooting the habits of a bureaucracy may be another thing altogether. Of course, anyone who was pissed off by Luke Skywalker becoming a bitter old man in Last Jedi may not enjoy this stuff, either.

I liked Katy M. O'Brian's performance as Ella Kane, Pershing's duplicitous new friend. Though the elaborateness of her scheme to entrap him didn't make a lot of sense. She could have at least gotten tickets for the tram.

The episode is bookended by segments with the Mandalorian characters. Just last week, I mentioned how nice it was Katee Sackoff gets to act with her face. The moment I saw last night's episode was called "The Convert" I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. And sure enough, at the end, we had Bo Katan getting accepted into the tribe. Ugh. Well, maybe next week's episode will finally convince me it's interesting for these characters never to take their helmets off. But next week's is co-written by Dave Filoni so I kind of doubt it.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1678

A dappled pie delayed the party guests.
Asleep at home a foolish clerk resides.
To-night the eyes'll close on twenty tests.
A dozen bellies pulled computer tides.
A broken thought was gliding over sky.
The winter wind was all contained at home.
Removing ghosts resume a banshee's cry.
Again, the agent's forced to widely roam.
A harmless action set the party's tone.
A gentle gun deserved a heavy drink.
Abhorrence firmly banned the hollow bone.
And now the guests are past the very brink.
Returning houses hold a talk to none.
The day belongs to homes that lack a sun.

Space Monsters

The second episode of the new Mandalorian season aired last night and, again, it featured some cool new characters/creatures, intriguing locations, and weak writing.

It doesn't make sense to me that Bo Katan is quite alone. She has a throne and a castle. Maybe she doesn't have the Darksabre but she's still a princess. People ruled Mandalore without the Darksabre for an awful long time.

But on that point, why couldn't she claim the Darksabre when she rescued Din? When he was caught, the sabre was taken from him so that new bug cyborg would have a claim to it. Then she beat the bug cyborg so isn't it hers by right? Considering he didn't want it and she very much did, he could have at least floated the idea. She even has a shield to go with it.

It was a good fight scene against a cool new monster. I also liked the troll-like creatures they had to fight. It almost feels like the Mandalorian of the title is being reoriented to mean Bo Katan. Frankly, I don't think that's a bad idea. Her motives are much more firmly established than Din's and Katee Sackoff gets to perform with her face. As a character, she's far better suited to lead a series.

I guess Grogu really isn't a baby at all. He clearly understands language, can intelligently assess threat, understands space flight and planets, and can make complicated plans. Maybe he just chooses not to talk.

I suppose Andor set a really high bar for writing. But I still feel like Favreau could do better.

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

Back by Popular Demandalorian

The Mandalorian returned last night for the start of a third season. It brought some great action sequences, intriguing new characters, cute moments, and weak writing.

We catch up with Din's (Pedro Pascal) cult baptising a new member when a giant reptile attacks. He seems to be invulnerable to handcannons so it's lucky Din shows up in his refitted Naboo starfighter to blast the thing. And what thanks does he get?

None at all. Not even a mention. It felt strange, like the big, impressive action sequence was added in post. At the very least, someone could've said, "Your deed will not earn you a place back among us." There is not even the tiniest part of me that wants Din to get back in with these people. I'm going to be frustrated if this season doesn't have an arc in which Din learns he doesn't need them.

This has been a consistent problem with Favreau's writing on both Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett. He can't seem to establish believable motives for philosophically driven people. You might not agree with the Jedi philosophy about not forming personal attachments, but you can see the logic in it as it's explained. With the Mandalorians, the only explanation really is, "Because they're aliens!" The same goes for the people who abandoned Bo Katan (Katee Sackoff) because she doesn't have the Darksabre. It's really odd, especially since many of them knew perfectly well why she doesn't have it. The beliefs and practices of other cultures can seem strange and illogical, but they do have underlying reasons, and if you write a fictional cultural without such reasons, it feels insubstantial.

It was nice seeing Carl Weathers again. I don't agree with the circumstances of Gina Carano's firing but I was never particularly invested in her character so I don't miss her. And frankly, it makes the galaxy feel bigger when it's not the same characters constantly turning up over and over.

Grogu with the mechanic rodents was cute and Carl Weathers' constantly trying to interpret them was funny. I also liked the pirates, especially the captain who looks like Swamp Thing.

And kudos to Favreau for actually having one of them say, "Avast!"

The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.

JK Rowling, Joss Whedon, and Gina Carano: Controversy Roundup

A lot of kids have been calling me "Harry Potter" since the weather became cold enough for me to wear my big Inverness coat. I guess the Harry Potter movies are generally where most kids in Japan see Victorian clothes. Harry Potter is very popular at the schools where I've worked and it's easy to guess why; it's about children in a school with uniforms. There are plenty of Japanese films, TV shows, and manga that do the same thing, placing their stories of magic, romance, or horror in the context of junior high or high school. I don't mind being called Harry Potter though I've never read the books and haven't seen all the movies. I am thankful for the one kid who called me Sherlock Holmes.

Often when I hear Harry Potter mentioned, I think of the recent transphobia scandals around J.K. Rowling. I wonder when or if that'll ever filter down to Japan. I've been reading articles and watching YouTube videos discussing the issue from both sides, one side hailing Rowling as a sudden heroine for free speech and the battle against social engineering and the other side lambasting her for propagating transphobic conceptions. I suppose it's long been a problem for the Left--to qualify as progressive, one must have all the right opinions. She is, for many now, irredeemably tainted and anything she might have to say about feminism or human nature generally is either somehow bigoted or totally worthless. I heard there's already a shift in how she's discussed in classrooms.

Recently, the YouTuber ContraPoints released a video essay on J.K. Rowling and, like a lot of ContraPoints' videos, I find myself wanting to like it more than I actually do. Natalie Wynn--ContraPoints--has great style and humour. I like the shot of her typing on a keyboard with a xylophone mallet. And I think she's right in pointing out some of the many problems with Rowlings' argument, particularly the strikingly vitriolic, transphobic public posts from some people Rowling lists among her allies. Wynn doesn't mention any of Rowling's transgender allies. Which is not to say I think, "She has trans-friends" is a valid argument to prove Rowling isn't transphobic though, on the same token, having transphobic friends doesn't make one a transphobe. Still, Wynn successfully shows how Rowling's fixation on false transwomen invading female spaces is irrational.

ContraPoints has a reputation for considering the conservative perspective which is what makes it all the more frustrating when she does not. Her discussion of Rowling's judgement being affected by trauma is a useful bit of perspective. At the same time, she pretends that there is absolutely no validity to any of Rowling's concerns. What about the issue of children being given treatment that permanently alters their development? Is it more important to honour a child's current self-perception or is it irresponsible to trust the notoriously fickle and changeable goals of a young teenager? To pretend there's no debate to be had here is intellectually dishonest at the least. The issue of whether or not children should be given the right to choose to undergo life changing procedures seems separate from the issue of whether or not you consider gender dysphoria a valid experience.

Also unfortunate is how ContraPoints addresses the issue of whether or not the word "bigot" is a slur. She attacks the issue in a thoroughly pedantic way, essentially arguing that "bigot" can't be a slur because it's a verifiable aspect of personality--you can prove someone really is a bigot whereas a slur is generally a rude, alternate term for race or sexual orientation. She might successfully have shown bigot can't be a slur but she misses the point by even making this argument. The word "fat" isn't a slur but it's usually insulting to call someone fat. The point isn't whether "bigot" is a slur, it's that it's being used to dismiss people or arguments wholesale, much as insults are generally intended to, on the basis of feeling rather than contemplation.

Yesterday came word that Disney fired Gina Carano from her role as Cara Dune on The Mandalorian, essentially on the grounds that she's a bigot. A Lucasfilm spokesperson released this statement:

"Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."

The irony here is that the tweets that landed Carano in hot water were tweets that decried the current political climate and what seemed to her an exhibition of bigotry from the Left.

“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”

I'm an old fashioned internet denizen who still thinks we should avoid comparing our opponents to Nazis (though it's as natural as breathing to many on the Left now). But here we have a clear case of a charge of bigotry being treated as an insult--the idea that the Left can be bigoted is so beyond the conception of the people at Disney that their response is to call Carano a bigot for calling the Left bigots. So much for everyone coexisting.

I didn't think Carano gave a very good performance--though I thought she was a little better in the second season, I don't mind the prospect of her absence. But I find the reason given for her firing a little disturbing. It occurs to me that Disney probably couldn't fire her for giving a bad performance, a thing which, unlike her political views, does directly affect the job they'd hired her for.

Yesterday also came the news a few Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast members have come forward with allegations of "toxic" behaviour from Joss Whedon. At the head of these allegations are those from Charisma Carpenter who played Cordelia on Buffy and Angel. Her two anecdotes to establish Whedon's toxicity were an incident where he became angry at her for getting a tattoo of a rosary and an incident where he asked her if she was going to allow her pregnancy to come to full term. Frankly, I can see his point of view in both cases--both are things that drastically altered the actress' appearance and therefore affected the project Whedon was in charge of. For various reasons, he'd be powerless to fire her over them. He was out of line asking Carpenter if she was considering an abortion, especially since he likely knew she was Catholic. But both cases show she had chosen her personal life ahead of her art without any apparent qualms. I don't think Whedon is an especially good director and his talents as a writer are somewhat uneven and don't age well--Xander's jokes are particularly annoying and lead me to suspect they're the kind of caustic things Whedon would say in real life. But I do respect a commitment to one's art. Getting a tattoo seems a particularly selfish action on Carpenter's part and makes me wonder what else she may have done.

Really, though, I don't know Whedon or Carpenter and can't truly judge their characters. But Carpenter has said she voiced her support for Whedon in the past and even said she'd work with him again. Now she says she's changing her stance because of Ray Fisher and the Time's Up movement. Who's to say three years from now she won't say something similar about her current stance? If she firmly believed something a few years ago she considers false now, who's to say she won't make a complete 180 again when the influence of different political winds are in the air? Which, of course, is the fundamental problem with so many of the allegations that come years after the fact. Sarah Michelle Gellar, who also released a statement yesterday, has a little more cred because her hatred for Whedon is well known and has been for decades, though I've only heard of it as being related to creative differences.

Again, I don't know Whedon and can't really judge him but my impression is he's a bit of a dick. That said, I've yet to hear anything that makes me think his life and career should be ruined.

I've seen people wonder how Whedon can be such an ardent feminist publicly and abusive to women privately. Whedon himself wrote the response to this in the second season Buffy episode "Ted" in which guest star Jon Ritter plays a perfect father figure until he's alone with Buffy, at which point he turns abusive. That Whedon wrote such an episode, and that he so vociferously expressed feminist views publicly, suggests to me that he genuinely considered himself a feminist.

What if his feminism was the kind that believed he should be as tough on women as he is on men? His fantasy is, after all, about a super strong woman who turns on her attacker in the blind alley. Now that I work in junior high schools and see how differently boys and girls typically behave, I'm shown evidence on a daily basis that girls really do need to be treated more gently than boys. There are exceptions and I believe in the validity of the transgender experience but I'm inclined now to believe gender is not merely a construct.

Anthony Stewart Head says he doesn't remember any bad behaviour from Whedon but that he's willing to believe his female costars. For me, the last thing any of this makes me want to do is take a leap of faith.

Togrutas, Towers, and Bears

Greetings from Osaka, where the faceless green bears bathe with impunity. This fellow guards Osaka Station, part of Japan's rail system I'm starting to get the hang of. All places seem to be pretty crowded and everything's still open. I don't know how much less crowded the city may be now than usual but the cafe I wanted to eat lunch at yesterday was packed to capacity, I decided to avoid such a dense grouping of people. To what cafe am I referring?

Tower Records! Tower Records is still going strong in Japan, very strong, stronger than it ever was in the U.S.--I don't remember it ever having a cafe. I miss this store so much--it's been, what, over twelve, thirteen years since they all closed in the U.S.? They closed in 2006, according to Wikipedia. Meanwhile, in Japan, people apparently still love to buy CDs. Someone told me there's an even bigger location in Tokyo.

But the world of Sci-Fi/Fantasy continues and yesterday came news that Rosario Dawson has finally been cast as Ahsoka Tano. Just what I wanted, except it's in a supporting role on The Mandalorian. Maybe under Bob Iger's stewardship of Disney+ the writers will be able to work more creatively on the show. Hopefully she won't be simply the boring sideline mom she was in Rebels, hopefully it won't be an episode where she and the Mandalorion size each other up in a fight before learning to respect each other grudgingly in a shared endeavour. My expectations may be too high. I wish they'd bring in George Lucas on this.

Twitter Sonnet #1339

The glacial lightning claimed a distant hill.
Extensive seas combine to make a soup.
In power stews and masks we kept a bill.
A team of duckish faces jump the loop.
An extra tea required nothing bagged.
A tiny wave was never plugged for light.
Reception near the belly often sagged.
In metal shapes the people flew a kite.
Astounding toilets wait in brilliant stalls.
Another flight concludes with water points.
Instead of roofs the fungi lift the walls.
Amusing threads construct the yarny joints.
In sorted bins the building rose to work.
In morning air the beans began to perk.

IG-11 and His Sidekick Din

The Mandalorian concluded its first season last night on what was undeniably its highest note, director Taika Waititi demonstrating competence and experience do make a difference. He both directed the episode and starred in it as the scene stealing IG-11.

Spoilers after the screenshot

The episode is titled "Redemption" and I can only assume this is in reference to the former assassin droid voiced by Taika Waititi, now reprogrammed to be a nanny and general protector. And sure he does his job well as Waititi behind the camera insures the IG unit pulls an amusing ambush on two chatty scout troopers before having an exciting speed through town, finishing up by executing a noble sacrifice.

I've noticed one of the primary themes from George Lucas era Star Wars absent from Disney era is the wariness of technology. We don't have the evil droid army and Anakin's transformation from good to evil being symbolised by becoming "more machine now than man." R2D2's injury in the climax of A New Hope was meant to show that even the friendliest technology can't be relied on when it matters most and Luke was compelled even to turn off his targetting computer. Now, in Mandalorian and Rise of Skywalker, we have portrayals of droids being self-sacrificing heroes, IG-11 in one and C-3PO in the other. One of the arcs for the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) was even learning to trust and value droids after being terrorised by battle droids in the Clone Wars.

There are two possible reasons I see for this shift: 1. Disney decided droids too much resembled a servant class denoted by race. The droid subplot in Solo would certainly support that. And/or 2. Disney is partly in the business of selling technology in a world in which technology is becoming an increasingly dominant part of our lives. How dare we tell the little girl who spends two thirds of the day texting that technology may not be all it's cracked up to be? That may be a good and valuable lesson but not a profitable one. It's possible both motives play a part, that one helps to justify the other. It's kind of a shame, though, because the warning against becoming too reliant on technology would be a particularly useful message right now.

I'd say it's even kind of sinister that redemption is portrayed as the product of reprogramming.

My old fogey complaints aside, this was a great episode, mainly for the direction. I loved little bits of character like Greef (Carl Weathers) downing shots of liquor and baby Yoda doing the little hand wave. And we have official mention of the Mandalorian's name, something I didn't even know was a spoiler the first time I read about it. The spelling, Din Djarin, seemingly being another reference to the Spaghetti Western hero, Django, like Jango Fett, though the unsatisfying lack of the previously promised moral ambiguity in Djarin makes him very different from the character originated by Franco Nero.

We also see Pedro Pascal's face which I didn't really need. If Favreau had asked my advice, I'd have said; never reveal the Mandalorian's face and never give a reason as to why his face is never revealed. Maybe hint he has some kind of terrible injury but don't make it part of the Mandalorian creed. That's how you make a character truly mysterious.

On the subject of creeds, it's a little odd "Mandalorian" is called a creed here which makes me wonder what you call someone from Mandalore who isn't part of the creed. But maybe no-one's from Mandalore anymore.

Apparently the Mandalorians who rescued Djarin are part of Death Watch (something I didn't spot last night but read about this morning), the group of radical Mandalorians introduced in Clone Wars. Of course, the more obvious reference to that series is the Dark Sabre wielded by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito).

I don't have much to say about this except to hope it's a harbinger of an eventual live action Ahsoka Tano series. I still think Rosario Dawson would be dynamite casting.

There's Some Life in that Beskar Armour After All

Once again, Deborah Chow delivers a superior episode of The Mandalorian. Last night's new episode, "The Reckoning", stands with "The Sin", the season's third episode, also directed by Chow, as one of the two best episodes of the series so far. Easily. No contest.

Favreau's writing isn't much better but it's decent enough, pulling the various threads together. The best moment is given to Werner Herzog as the sadly departing mysterious Imperial client. He asks Carl Weathers if he really thinks things have improved since the Empire was overthrown, effectively making the point that, generally speaking, things seem to be worse. I mean, we really haven't seen enough of the galaxy at this point to know if it's true but it would make sense for there to be chaos in the wake of the collapse of an Empire. The Roman Empire was followed by the Dark Ages, after all.

Wouldn't it be great if someone in the Star Wars planning team said, "Hey, let's make this the Dark Ages of the Star Wars universe." But then of course the Disney minders would say, "But with cute babies and simplistic morality." Oh, well.

Above all it's pacing that elevates "The Reckoning". Chow effectively builds tension as the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) desperately comms Nick Nolte, racing on a big lizard against speeders. There's a sense of real, precarious danger you don't get from the other directors on this show.

Herzog's departure is an effective surprise (though I never thought Herzog would stick around for another season) and then in strolls Deborah Chow's friend from Better Call Saul, Gus Fring himself, Giancarlo Esposito as an Imperial Moff whose stormtroopers still have nice clean armour. I genuinely want to know what happens next and hopefully we're in good hands next week with Taika Waititi.

Beneath the Mandalorian's Helmet is Batman's Cowl

What a squandered opportunity. Last night's new Mandalorian featured an amazing guest cast with the standout being comedian Bill Burr as a mercenary named Mayfeld. I like Jon Favreau's decision to cast comedians in dramatically straight supporting roles though I understand why it's been controversial. But I think few could deny Bill Burr was the highlight of this episode. Working against a wretched script from Christopher Yost (sadly, showrunner on the upcoming Cowboy Bebop live action series), Burr's down-to-earth performance made his character one of the few that didn't go down like cardboard.

A Dirty Dozen style plot about a group of misfits working together to rescue a prisoner from a New Republic transport ship, the chance here for the show to indulge in morally grey characters and situations is eschewed in favour of establishing the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) as essentially the Batman of the Star Wars universe. The silly business about trying to get his mask off is worthy of the Adam West series.

Aside from Burr's character, the team consists of a Twi'lek played with a little charm and too much inexplicable hostility by Natalia Tena and a Devaronian played with impressive physicality by Clancy Brown. There's also a droid (Richard Ayoade). Instead of participating in his comrades' ball-busting, or even giving as good as he gets, the Mandalorian stays quiet as a monk, never seeming like he has any kind of interest in or connexion to these people. Which would be nice and mysterious if there were any mystery about his guy's motives which have so far been as consistent as sunrise. When the others betray him for vague, contrived plot purposes, he beats them all up without killing any of them and locks them up.

Disney, I know how well your superhero movies are doing, but, come on, play another note. At least it's not as bad as the Three Stooges style Imperials from Rebels' first season but it almost is.

The conclusion of the episode brings in X-Wings, disappointingly lacking any John Williams' fanfare because I think Disney's taking this opportunity to avoid paying Williams all the time. Dave Filoni makes a cameo as one of the X-Wing pilots who decide to blow up a station for reasons the show really needed to elaborate on. If he thought the second Death Star was too ambiguous, Randall from Clerks would have a field day with this one. Which is funny--the Mandalorian isn't allowed to show any moral ambiguity himself but the New Republic is because of lazy or hasty writing?

Twitter Sonnet #1307

A gummy blizzard dropped the bears and worms.
A flying hell obscures the dusty skies.
A hist'ry thunders on in weather terms.
The rails connect in loosely fitting ties.
A second source amends important facts.
Perspective changed a malt to milky shake.
In open rooms the fellows published pacts.
A row of cups were offered out to take.
A frozen pie divided built the cliff.
The ice dispersed from off the mountain's veins.
Discordant beats provoke another "if".
The hunter dragged a goose for all his pains.
A knowing pony took the trav'ler home.
A bigger horse observes a sunless dome.