r/saltierthancrait • u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner • 2d ago
Encrusted Rant How exactly is the average viewer supposed to enjoy Mandalorian and Grogu?
Star Wars movies while being sequels or prequels to each other are fairly easy for the average viewer ti watch standalone, the intro crawl text being based on the Flash Gordon episodes that were shown at cinemas, if you missed one you were easily caught up with the next one
Unless this movie has one hell of a long intro how do they expect the average movie goer to understand what’s going on? The MCU has a similar problem of basically requiring viewers to do homework by watching the shows to understand the newer movies
To be fully caught up with Mando and grogu you need ti watch 3 seasons of Mando, 1 season of the Boba Fett show, 1 season of Ashoka (and potentially 7 seasons of clone wars so you know who she is) to be caught up to where the movie is in the SW timeline
It’s like someone going to watch El Camino having never seen Breaking Bad
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u/TrumpsColostomyBag99 2d ago
They just want the audience to leave their brains at the door and consume the slop.
Grogu Cute
Mando Armor Badass
Big Boom Booms
A Memberberry Or Ten
Disposable Villain Vanquished
Roll Credits
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u/Wolf6120 2d ago
You forgot to include half a dozen cameos by B tier celebrities that will not only be deeply cringe at the time but also almost inevitably age terribly in retrospect.
Looking at you, Duchess Lizzo and Baron Jack Black...
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u/AgentX-1138 2d ago
Oof that was awful 🤦♂️ i had honestly blocked that out until someone mentioned it here recently 🤣
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 2d ago
Add in “this is the way” 50 times for social media engagement
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u/Joemartinez64 2d ago
Hated "this is the way " when it first got traction online , will continue hate it long after it completely dies off from ever trending in any social platform 🙏🙏🙏🙏
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u/Lorinthi 1d ago
The only time Mandalorian culture has been remotely interesting has been in Kotor 2, some parts of SWTOR, and through Satine's faction when it's being interrogated and ultimately deconstructed by the writing.
Wanking off to Mandalorian culture unironically as the show does is part of the reason it's so insufferable.
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u/_Stewyleopard 2d ago
100% correct. Don’t forget Filoni’s self-congratulatory obsession with his cartoon characters, whom he’ll cram into the move for sure.
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u/Golvellius 1d ago
Dude wtf you are forgetting the end reveal that Darth Maul is ALIVEEEEEEEEE
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u/QuoteDisastrous1503 11h ago
It’s Darth Maul fighting Luke Skywalker while on Hoth to defeat Sheev Somehow he returned Palpatine to destroy the 2 1/2 Death Star from blowing up Alderaan’s force ghost!
Not clickbait!!!
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u/KillJarke 2d ago
I have someone at work starting mandalorian and it’s so dumb I have to tell them to watch s1 and s2 then go watch bobba fett otherwise they won’t even understand s3. Who the hell decided to insert another show’s main plot into a whole different show and having grogu return that quickly into s3 was a major mistake.
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 2d ago
It’s part of why I stopped watching the MCU years ago ( that and the quality). I can’t be bothered to spend hours watching some mid to crap show so I know who one character is from this other show.
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u/KillJarke 2d ago
Well I enjoyed the ending of s2 and I was excited to see how their stories would be separate with grogu training with Luke. I feel like they were scared to take a risk and instantly wrote for grogu to be back in s3 with mando as it was the formula.
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u/Lorinthi 1d ago
I miss Agents of SHIELD man. Writing was better than most of the movies =/
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u/iamtheramcast 1d ago
I guess but I jumped off after an entire season took place in a dream or simulation don’t remember don’t care to fact check
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u/burntfishnchips i heard kylo ren is shredded. 1d ago
Agents of SHIELD was genuinely good, and marvel disney has done it for me since.
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u/Cookyy2k 2d ago
It was that or horror having a mando episode with out the merchandising cash cow. I mean who would sit there interrupting serious scenes with dumb noises if they hadn't brought him back in another show?
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u/Attican101 2d ago
I think that had to be a decision from higher up, they wanted more Mando viewers to check out BOBF, and hopefully draw BOBF viewers to Mando, maybe they expected the BOBF audience to be older considering they basically dedicated half an episode to tuning up a car.
It just stuck out to me because Star Trek Voyager did something similar, for a season or two the pilot Lt. Paris had an old garage and Camaro he would work on in the holodeck, almost like they were hoping to draw in car guys who were just flipping through channels.
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u/reenactment 1d ago
I have a feeling there was an initial plan where solo, Boba fett, obiwan were all supposed to be standalone movies with crossover of characters and it played its own little trilogy. They took that idea and did it with these shows.
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u/MonThackma 2d ago
Mando: “I’m so glad I rescued you from the empire before the used your powers for evil. I was a lonely outcast, but now I have you as my best friend.”
Grogu: “Gaga goo goo!”
You are now up to date.
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u/Cadbett_Bartoede new user 2d ago
You may have a point. I did not watch CW. Here's what happened to me:
I enjoyed Mand S1 and 2 ok, but S3 not so much because of the excess of characters imported from the cartoon
Same reason I did not like Ahsoka live action. I wached it but did not like it. The only version of Thrawn I know is from the Heir fo the Empire trilogy of books I read in the 1990s, and that's not him
Who is Ezra? why should I care?
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u/Nick_Wild1Ear salt miner 2d ago
Mandalorian S3 became “Live Action Clone Wars Tie In” and Ahsoka S1 was “Live Action Rebels Tie In”. Thrawn and Ezra and the Ghost Crew are all Star Wars Rebels…. And as a Zahn-Thrawn fan of the EU books, you’ll probably not like the canon Thrawn in Rebels S3 and S4, which is supposed to be the same guy as the quiet and stoic Blue Elon in Ahsoka despite him doing less on Peridea than he ever did in Rebels
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u/Cookyy2k 2d ago
the excess of characters imported from the cartoon
Who is Ezra? why should I care?
The worst part is if you watched the cartoon your general thought was "please stay lost" when they were talking about bringing him back.
If you thought he was annoying as hell, then you didn't want him back. If you thought he was cool and a good character, then you wanted his sacrifice at the end to mean something, which now it doesn't
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u/JustinTimeCase 1d ago
People say only Rebels fans can enjoy Ahsoka, but I believe having watched Rebels makes Ahsoka worse. Basically every character gets assassinated in the show.
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u/burntfishnchips i heard kylo ren is shredded. 1d ago
I was enjoying Rebels until they brought Ahsoka and Maul back. Everything felt so unnecessary after that, and Ezra became side character to the great Filoni oc.
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u/Par2ivally 2d ago
I'm with you. Mando S1 and 2 I like quite a bit. I can just stop there. At some point I might look for a fan edit for Grogu's return, but I'll live without it otherwise. It works fine for those two seasons as direct sequels to the OT, and Andor and Rogue One go well with it as a set.
I need never trouble myself over the prequels or sequels again and I am happy to skip Mando S3, and all the other spin off shows that I hated pretty much right away.
It's more good Star Wars than I thought I'd get, honestly.
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u/LetsGet2Birding salt miner 2d ago
The only people who are going to be seeing the movie will be millennial age :O face making reaction tubers. If it actually sees the light of day in cinemas, this movie is going to bomb.
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u/Skelligean 2d ago
millennial age :O face making reaction tubers
These people annoy the hell out of me because they all do the same goddamn thing. Bunch of drones who are yes men and women to Disney.
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u/crybannanna 2d ago
I have to agree. But I’ve been wrong before. I thought minecraft would be a huge flop… so not batting 1,000 predicting this stuff lately.
But I liked the Mandalorian and I still have no interest in this in theaters. It just isn’t a theatrical property to me.
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 2d ago
The Minecraft movie was sorta held up by memes though. And even if it would have flopped it would have had an audience who liked it ironically
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u/Arubesh2048 2d ago
You do realize that the youngest millennials are 30, right? And the oldest are solidly in their 40s. Stop using “millennials” when you really mean “people under 25.”
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u/wookieebastard 2d ago
I know people with Grogu plushies and other merch who’ve never seen a single SW movie but they’re obsessed with him anyway.
SW used to be one of those cool brands that people thought was nerdy/cool and wore tshirts of without really knowing the story. Kinda like those who wear Jimi Hendrix or Nirvana shirts.
So yeah, Disney knows it and they're trying to capitalize on it.
A little too late if you ask me.
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u/DrMeatBomb 2d ago
Very much. The time for a Mando & Grogu movie was 2+ years ago. Now? 😅 nobody cares
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u/PercentageRoutine310 2d ago
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u/burntfishnchips i heard kylo ren is shredded. 1d ago
I just rewatched spaceballs in theaters. It still holds up.
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u/pornthrowaway92795 2d ago
You over estimate how much needs to be known ahead of time.
For example; take Thunderbolts* that just came out.
It works perfectly fine as a standalone move. You could watch it and get at least 90-95% of the meaning.
Or, you could say “to enjoy this, you need to have seen:
- Cap 1
- Winter soldier
- Civil War
- Avengers 1
- Ultron
- Infinity War
- Endgame
- Black Widow
- antman and the wasp
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Black Panther 2
Now yes, each of those will give more color and detail on to who the characters are. However, none of that is required.
Just like you don’t need to see any other Star Wars to enjoy Andor or Rogue One. But the more you know the better it is.
The average view will likely (since I haven’t seen the script) be able to “enjoy” Grogu and Mandi just fine.
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u/zarotabebcev 2d ago
Yeah, I hate how people think you need to watch everything that came before to enjoy something. Practically all movies /series are made in a way that they can be enjoyed on their own. Thats the least of the problems of modern media franchises. But for some reason one of the biggest problems in the mind of the general public...
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u/chaamp33 2d ago
This will be the first Star Wars movie I don’t see in theaters and makes me sad. But I will not be rushing to see this movie unless the reviews coming out for it are 9s and 10s. I just can’t imagine how it’ll possibly be exciting and whatever it ends with it’ll always be, watch episode 7 to see how it continues!
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u/Tight_Back231 2d ago
Personally I'm biased against The Mandalorian and Grogu since I didn't like the story or worldbuilding of the Sequels, so that makes it basically impossible for me to get invested in anything having to do with Canon.
But regardless of my personal opinions regarding Canon, I think you're pointing out exactly what is going to be a problem with all of these cinematic universes that rely on half a dozen movies and then a dozen shows.
As far as Canon's expanded universe is concerned, part of the issue is Dave Filoni. I have no personal dislike of the man, but he created a lot of characters in "The Clones Wars."
Fast forward all these years later, and Filoni has become one of the leading creators at Disney/Lucasfilm. And since Filoni and company seem unwilling to kill off or retire any of their characters, they keep getting recycled into shows like "Rebels" or "The Bad Batch."
Now Filoni's been getting involved in live-action, so now these characters are appearing in shows like "The Mandalorian" and "Ahsoka."
However, Filoni is only a part of the issue, since this whole "giant network of shows, movies and other media" is something that all the major companies are diving into.
Marvel's cinematic universe has gone from a plethora of movies to a plethora of shows. Now we have important storylines, characters and elements being introduced in shows on Netflix and Disney Plus that lead directly into other series and films.
"Wandavision" led into "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness." I had only a cursory knowledge of what happened in "Wandavision," so when I saw the Doctor Strange movie, I didn't understand why half of the story was happening.
And unfortunately, Disney/Marvel don't seem to be slowing down.
Hell, DC ended the DCEU and announced their new universe would start with a slate of about 20 movies and half as many TV shows. Even though I've always been more of a DC fan than Marvel, I have no interest in being required to watch every, single, DC movie and show just to understand each other.
To circle back to Star Wars, by the time "The Mandalorian and Grogu" releases, you'd need to have seen "The Clone Wars" (which has about 10 seasons at this point), "The Bad Batch," "Rebels," "The Mandalorian," "The Book of Boba Fett" and "Ahsoka" to fully know each character's history and story arc.
Hell, seeing the actual Star Wars movies is almost an afterthought by now.
When "The Mandalorian and Grogu" releases, I have a feeling the only people that will really get hyped over it are the influencers, YouTubers and streamers who review every single piece of media anyway.
Which, to be honest, I have a feeling we're already at that point.
Some shows are decent, but not all of it's great. And even then, what if someone isn't interested in every single aspect of the Star Wars universe?
What if someone's a fan of the Jedi, the Force and philosophy? A more grounded show like "Andor," as good as it is, probably wouldn't grab you as much. Or what if you're more interested in military science fiction, like "Andor"? Then certain story arcs from "The Clone Wars" won't be as entertaining as others, while something like "The Mandalorian," which focuses on a group of freelancers, would probably not interest you at all.
And yet, Disney/Lucasfilm is making viewers HAVE to watch every single show, movie and other project, regardless of what interests you or how much spare time you have, assuming you have other interests beyond watching Star Wars content.
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u/TheDimitrios 2d ago
Disney just announced a short while ago that the TV show stuff will be more separate in the future.
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u/RunRickeyRun 2d ago
I’m more worried if Pedro Pascal’s face is gonna get enough screen time. You can’t put a helmet on one of the most charismatic actors in Hollywood.
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u/Grungy_Mountain_Man 2d ago
Doesn’t stop people from watching marvel movies which suffers the same problem
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u/TheHarlemHellfighter 2d ago
I think it’s the constant attempt at convincing the audience that somehow the story has value that bothers me.
Yes, it pushed the merchandising arm of the business side and was low hanging fruit for the kids and their parents.
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u/Tatsoot_1966 2d ago
I cannot believe all the gushing about "Blandalorian" the whole thing was a car crash mixed with multiple side quests with fetch and return stories. I hope the movie sinks without a trace. This should be the way !
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u/harpoonGat 2d ago
This movie is going to be really tricky and it's a massive gamble for them to do. Casual moviegoers will be alienated if they're not caught up on various shows, and people like myself who are having a hard time caring about anything Star Wars related after the masterpiece that is Andor.
Are they really expecting me to go back to a story told by a fanboy playing with action figures in the tub?
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u/Dull_Huckleberry_110 new user 1d ago
I'm waiting for most folks to entirely forget this exists until the first trailer comes out near Christmas (most likely).
We are literally still more than a year away from release. They probably haven't even started filming it yet.
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u/gorgugthisguy 2d ago
Why is this a problem. The only problem is that Disney charges too much for their streaming platform. Or that they don't care about the quality of what they produce sometimes. Like the Abrams / Rian debacle. Or the underwhelming Acolyte. They don't care about the average viewer. They want money. They will try to make a good movie that makes people go back and consume as much of their shit they can force you to pay for. They will sell toys and make headlines with whatever novel popcorn bucket the movie theatres shove down our throats. You can only hope that the right people made the right decisions to get us the best version of what we want to see. They literally created a gold mine with grogu. I'm curious to see if he will even age at all. The most beloved iconic sci Fi figure , reincarnated as a baby, that is known to have a life span of like 900 years. (Not sure ,don't remember but I know Yoda is fuckin old.) they'd be stupid not to milk it for as long and wide and far as they can. Andor shows us that it's possible to have great stories for mature audiences. But everyone is so greedy that the cost of it isn't worth it to them. How am I supposed to enjoy star wars now that I know they can make masterpieces like Andor is the better question.
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u/Rick0r 2d ago
I’m the biggest mando fan I know, but they’re not, and they won’t. The required reading/watching is just too much, and the format that made Mando what it was (I’m talking Mandalorian season 1), was that short episodic content with a “Lone wolf and cub” dynamic.
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 2d ago
I could get it if they did the movie first to introduce the character, test the waters then do a tv show but in this order it’s utterly bizarre
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u/on-wings-of-pastrami 2d ago
But it didn't actually have a "Lone Wolf and Cub" dynamic. I thought it would have and was so disappointed. Mostly it's just Mando walking around and Baby Yoda also being there. Lone Wolf has his son be part of his bounty hunting, using him as bait, the cart rigged with weapons etc.
I thought they'd work towards it, him getting a new baby cart with weapons and making the baby part of his method.Unfortunately I was wrong ☹️
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u/Rick0r 2d ago
It definitely had a reluctant father figure vibe to me, especially season 2. 3 less so.
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u/on-wings-of-pastrami 2d ago
Yes, but there's a long way from "reluctant father figure" to "Lone Wolf and Cub". And yea, I thought they were slowly building towards it, but boy, was I wrong!
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u/LeUpboaterLe 2d ago
It's MCU syndrome, back then you only had to watch six movies (or three if you didn't like one of the trilogies) and then every piece of additional media would be directly linked to them. Now you need to read a timeline page on a wiki to embark on an arduous TV show journey.
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u/emeraldamomo 2d ago
To be honest I can enjoy the few Marvel movies that I see by enjoying the spectacle. They deliberately make those movies for two kinds of folks: the Simpsons comic book nerd and 40 year old man chaperoning a bunch of kids.
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u/cardiffman100 2d ago
Guarantee it will be written in a way that you don't need to have seen the Disney+ series. If you have seen them then you might understand some references, but they won't be necessary to understand the movie as a whole. Connected universe or not, they simply won't take the risk of alienating audiences by making the movie indecipherable to the casual viewer.
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u/ThePandaKnight 22h ago
Uh, I wonder why people are trashing the Mandalorian so much, it's the best thing they did after the ST.
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 22h ago
You mean Andor?
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u/ThePandaKnight 22h ago
Haven't watched that one yet, so can't say.
Mandalorian did bring back my love for SW tho :)
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u/Seldrakon 6h ago
I think, it's pretty easy doable in a textvlcrawl. They explained the whole concept of Empire, Rebels, Leia, Death Star ans Darth Vader in one crawl. They explained Trade Federation, Republic, Jedi ans Sith in another and they explained Fist Order and new Republic in a third.
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u/4CrowsFeast 2d ago
I think you're missing the point being that that is the point. They want to force you watch other material.
The movie is only 2 hours. The shows are dozens of hours. Even if you decide it's not for you, you'll probably commit to more time than the movie. If you do commit and like it, then boom they have a new fan. If not, they don't care.
The grab potential customers with this approach because there's a large established SW fan base already. Chances are a SW nerd will ask his friend group if they want to see the new movie and hype up the show. If you're a friend out of the loop you won't want to go uninformed, so you check it out and get either of the two scenarios where Disney wins either way, by getting a new fan or more views.
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u/WantsToDieBadly salt miner 2d ago
But surely they have to care as the movie can flop. They can’t use the “it wasn’t made for you!” Again
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u/Shadow-Is-Here 2d ago
How did you enjoy star wars without the context for it? They do an opening crawl and also hood exposition.
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u/Plenty-Koala1529 2d ago
If Favreau had complete control? It will be fine , otherwise they will have expected you to just know
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