The Mandalorian

SO good!

This encompassed in forty minutes what Star Wars books spent HUNDREDS of pages talking about. We don't need Karen Traviss writing about Mando honor, or Mando parenting ethic, or Mando culturalism, or Mando history, or Mando diaspora, or Mando reps - they just chose to SHOW it. That forge scene was like five of those topics all done in one scene. It's the macho skill of acknowledging a life-changing subject while still being cool about it

I like how they've turned the most iconic prop in Episode 5 into a delivery worker lifehack - it sounds stupid but makes perfect sense. After that opening where we see all the frozen-in-carbonite bounties, I realize Boba didn't freeze Han Solo because he was a jerk, he did it because it's much easier to transport bounties safely if they're not talking your ear off every five minutes. They're safely stored, you don't have to feed them, they can't get away from you, you get peace and quiet - is there a way to do this with kids on car rides? It's genius

They're writing this like it's a modern epic videogame - like God of War or Uncharted 4. THAT'S how they're gonna write eight forty-minute episodes and NOT have them become filler while having a minimum of dialogue! They're Master Chief'ing it

I was expecting this to be like A Fistful of Dollars, since that's a guy with a cape and a gun wandering around the desert, fighting, and saying little. When he rode up to the settlement with all the sand-colored buildings I was like, "Look! It's San Miguel!" But it also captured the bit I forgot about AFoD - the coolness in the hero's silence. They fit whole arcs of understanding and action into him just looking at things and reacting to things. It's a lost art. The closest thing to it is Breaking Bad, and that's usually about people doing some task slowly, so the mystery is figuring out what they're doing, not how they're feeling. They've resurrected a lost art! I don't know how many modern Westerns even do this! Or anything

And now the music is so uplifting! This is straight Spielbergian! Wonder and adventure in a brand new setting! These peeps are geniuses

They're really gonna do it. They're gonna make this, and The Falcon and Winter Soldier and WandaVision and Loki and it's all gonna be great. Because they're pouring feature film's worth of work into the episodes AND using videogame-style storytelling to make a step-by-step adventure that people care about, and they have the resources and fanbase to keep doing it. Well done. Well done, Disney and co. You pulled it off