Temuera Morrison Archives - Page 2 Of 2

December 11, 2020

“The Mandalorian” Chapter 15 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN AHEAD!**

Waking up at three o’-clock in the morning every Friday to watch a new episode of The Mandalorian was a strangely calming experience for me until today, when I already had so much that I still needed to cover from the Disney Investors Meeting last night that I simply didn’t feel the drive to fast-track a Mandalorian review and risk missing the hype train for shows like WandaVision, Loki, and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, none of which have actually released yet – but all of which somehow feel like they’re moving quicker, and at a more consistent pace, than The Mandalorian. We’re heading into the season two finale next week, and somehow we still seem to be moving at a snail’s pace in terms of plot, spending an entire episode searching for a code to track down Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito).

Thankfully, the series is picking up speed with regards to character development – particularly for protagonist Din Djarin (voiced and, today at least, played by Pedro Pascal), who removed his helmet. Such a simple action would have no consequence on pretty much any other series, but on The Mandalorian, where Djarin’s helmet (or, to be more precise, his facelessness) is an integral part of his religion and his personality, it’s a really big deal. And in the few minutes that he’s completely unmasked and vulnerable to the world, Pedro Pascal uses every single moment of screentime he’s got to convince you of why this is such a dramatic and intense milestone in his character arc. As you may recall, I spoke very highly of the episode earlier this season wherein Bo-Katan Kryze gently pointed out that Djarin’s strict rules regarding his helmet are derived from a group of religious zealots who were technically traitors to Mandalorian tradition: the exception to the rule, not the norm. And today, when Djarin took off his helmet because he had to, because his love for Grogu outweighed his commitments to his faith, it was as if we finally got payoff…something that The Mandalorian has been all too eager to tease, and far too unwilling to actually see through to the end.

I firmly believe Pedro Pascal could have handled that entire sequence on his own, and been completely fine: every subtly fearful facial expression he was wearing was clearly telling the story of a person whose entire life had been built on a set of core values that he was now being forced to break, and the anxiety rolling off him in waves was palpable. But I must say, I welcomed the addition of Migs Mayfield (Bill Burr) as a comedic and surprisingly dramatic foil to Djarin. Mayfield started out as an enemy of Djarin’s – no surprise there: Djarin locked him in a New Republic prison cell – but over the course of this single episode built a slow but powerful bond with Djarin, becoming the only living person to have seen his face. And rather than crack a joke about it, Mayfield was startlingly sincere in the aftermath, promising Djarin he would forget he ever saw anything.

Although I suspected last week that the majority of today’s episode would revolve around trying to rescue Mayfield from prison, that portion was blissfully short: turns out, Cara Dune (Gina Carano, once again doing the smirking thing) and her recent promotion to “Marshall of the New Republic” is useful for something, as she was able to fake a New Republic order freeing Mayfield from a life of slave labor. Dune, unfortunately, tags along as Mayfield and Djarin begin staging their operation to break into an ex-Imperial fortress and steal the information about Gideon’s location…though it’s really Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to strategizing, and Boba Fett’s icy stares make it very clear who’s boss on the Slave One. As a fan of The Clone Wars, it made me pretty happy to see how far Boba Fett has come from his childhood, when he used to desperately try and hold entire crews of older, more experienced pirates together under his leadership, only to inevitably have them turn on him.

Once the small crew reaches their target destination, Djarin and Mayfield don the disguises of Imperial stormtroopers (with Djarin swapping one helmet for another offscreen, before Mayfield can catch a glimpse of his face) and unwittingly get caught up in a scuffle with pirates. There’s some great comedy in this sequence, provided by an increasingly frantic Mayfield, while Djarin – and director Rick Famuyiwa – delivers on the action, staving off the pirates in a violent race against the clock. The conclusion to the fight, with Imperial TIE-fighters swooping in to save the day, is unexpected and delightfully ironic. Best of all, it’s the first display of mutual trust between Djarin and Mayfield (who is a lot more likable than he was in season one, thanks to better writing, and a much better performance by Burr).

Inside the Imperial fortress, that bond of trust is tested again as Mayfield comes face to face with his old commanding officer, a cold-hearted elitist by the almost-purposefully-German-sounding name of Valin Hess (Richard Brake). Mayfield still suffers from PTSD due to having witnessed Hess’ intentional slaughter of his own men during Operation: Cinder, a slash-and-burn policy carried out by radical Imperials in an attempt to destabilize the galaxy in the wake of their defeat. Panicking, Mayfield tells Djarin that he has to carry out the rest of the mission – which involves a facial scan at a network terminal. And that’s when it finally happens: Djarin removes his helmet. It’s the emotional and thematic conclusion of the episode, though the story isn’t over.

After recovering the necessary data, Djarin and Mayfield are ambushed by Hess, who insists on buying them both drinks as a reward for their bravery against the pirates. A few minutes and one bone-chilling conversation about “the greater good” later, Mayfield shoots Hess point-blank in the chest and chaos erupts at the fortress. There’s an escape sequence, Fennec Shand and Cara Dune pick off stormtroopers, and the Slave One tears through TIE-fighters like butterflies. All in a day’s work for the Mandalorian.

The episode concludes with a slightly anticlimactic resolution for Mayfield (who just…walks off into the jungle, as if he’s not a wanted man on this specific planet for killing an Imperial officer), and a suspenseful interaction between Djarin and Gideon, where the Mandalorian calls up his old nemesis via hologram and proceeds to repeat back the same threatening speech that Gideon gave him in the season one finale. Gideon is stunned silent by the offensive gesture, but I doubt it’ll be long before he’s readying his defenses and preparing his elite shadow-troopers for battle. Djarin currently only has the help of Fett, Shand, and maybe Dune if she doesn’t decide to bail on him at the last moment because she’s still technically working for the New Republic. We haven’t heard anything about Bo-Katan or Ahsoka coming back, so for now…Djarin is seriously outnumbered.

Heading into the finale, I’ll admit I’ve had a fun time watching these characters grow more and more messy and complex over the past several episodes. In large part, that’s been due to the incredible performances from Pedro Pascal, Giancarlo Esposito, Temuera Morrison, and Ming-Na Wen, which have kept The Mandalorian lively and entertaining even as it’s ground to a halt in places. With many more seasons sure to come in the next few years, I’m excited to see where the series can go from here, and how it can continue to build on the characters at its core; since its actual story is fairly hit-or-miss.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

December 4, 2020

“The Mandalorian” Chapter 14 Review! SPOILERS!

**SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN AHEAD!**

Well, in case you were wondering, I don’t regret writing an entire, extensive, blog post detailing the geography, history, and ecosystem of the Jedi planet of Tython, because it was extremely fun to write. That this is the first episode of The Mandalorian that doesn’t really do a whole lot of worldbuilding is both surprising (considering the setting which, as you know from my post, is rich with Star Wars lore) and saddening (for the same reasons). There are fans who are currently annoyed because Tython is no longer in the Deep Core of the galaxy, and has instead been moved to the Outer Rim – contradicting even the new, official, canon – but I’m just disappointed that the set design was so small-scale this week. There’s one ring of standing stones, a measly excuse for a mountain (I mean, maybe it was just a very crumbled Tho Yor? It’s open for interpretation), and a severe lack of wild beasts. And don’t even get me started on how there were no Force-storms.

But hey, I begrudgingly respect Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) again, so there’s that!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that Boba Fett has never been one of my favorite Star Wars characters, and I didn’t squeal with excitement when he was teased in The Mandalorian‘s season two premiere because…I just didn’t find him all that interesting. He was the first Mandalorian introduced to the galaxy far, far away, so I suppose he deserves some kind of recognition for that – but he’s become outdated by other, far cooler Mandalorians, who have graced our screens since: even by his own father, Jango Fett, whom we saw in Attack Of The Clones. And no matter where Boba Fett showed up, whether it was in Return Of The Jedi or several excruciating episodes of Clone Wars, he always came off as stubborn and stuck-up to me. In fact, seeing his childhood in Clone Wars made it obvious that he had always been an arrogant, entitled, bully. He never changed or developed, and that made him boring.

So, unsurprisingly, the reason why he finally worked for me in this chapter of The Mandalorian is because Temuera Morrison (who previously played Jango Fett) brings a regal, commanding screen presence to this role that the character has never had before, as well as a maturity and sense of growth. Boba Fett was once little more than a banged-up suit of armor, but now he actually feels like a character: and an interesting one, too. He’s been humiliated countless times in the past – in fact, it’s become something of a running joke – but it feels like the writing has allowed him to learn from those mistakes at last, rather than simply erasing them from existence so he can be “cool”. It’s far cooler, in my opinion, for him to have undergone some serious character development during his time as a desert rogue.

But of course, that doesn’t mean the old banged-up suit of armor can’t still be important. In fact, it plays a major part in the awkward interactions between Din Djarin (our Mandalorian, voiced and sometimes played by Pedro Pascal) and Boba Fett, as it turns out Fett has been tracking the Razor Crest all the way from Tatooine (side-note: Temuera Morrison’s pronunciation of Tatooine as “TATween” is an extremely soothing vocal experience), hunting the armor that belongs to him…though why he didn’t take it from the far less experienced Cobb Vanth is a mystery to me. Tython was as good a place as any to finally corner Djarin, and better yet, this episode wasn’t already staked out for the live-action debut of a Clone Wars character, and/or a back-door pilot for an eventual spinoff (though Boba Fett is getting a spinoff, for which I am now a little bit more excited). Fett is initially disinterested in bargaining for the armor, and even threatens the Child as an intimidation tactic, telling Djarin that he has an accomplice with a sniper’s rifle trained on the baby.

It doesn’t take long for Djarin to figure out that accomplice’s name and identity: Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), the same sniper he encountered on the sands of Tatooine back in season one. But she was far too awesome to bleed out at the hands of a wannabe gangster like Toro Calican, and it seems that Boba Fett patched her back up again with some new metallic upgrades. And while her debut episode in season one was so dark that you couldn’t see her amazing orange-and-black costume, this episode takes place in broad daylight and allows us a much better look at the character.

But anyway, back to the armor. Din Djarin is once again clueless, and completely makes a fool out of himself in front of one of the most revered Mandalorians in the galaxy, demanding evidence that Boba Fett is actually Mandalorian before he can give him the armor. And despite how awkward it all is, and how badly it reflects on Djarin, I kind of love that Djarin never shuts up about history and tradition, yet seems to know extremely little about his own culture’s history, and is constantly being called out on it. He’s definitely bold: I’ll give him that. Meanwhile, Boba Fett has an entire genealogy and Fett family history embedded in the chain code of his armor. Remember when I said after Chapter 11 that Din Djarin and his clan being revealed as the odd ones out in Mandalorian society made him a lot more interesting? This is the perfect payoff to that setup.

Just as the situation is cooling down and Din Djarin has finally struck a deal with Boba Fett to give him the armor in exchange for help protecting Grogu (who by this point has already reached the seeing stone and is seated there, encased in a protective Force bubble), Imperial stormtroopers arrive. Director Robert Rodriguez, whose previous credits include Alita: Battle Angel, delivers on brutal, fast-paced, action, and stunning visuals. He gives us the Din Djarin/Fennec Shand team-up I knew we needed the moment I first saw her character, though Shand gets plenty of solo moments to shine – and Ming-Na Wen, who played a Marvel superhero on seven seasons of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., gets to show off her extensive fighting skills and agility. Rodriguez’ inventive use of Boba Fett’s legendary armor also deserves praise: especially since, last time we saw Fett using his jetpack, he was careening into a sarlacc pit (too soon?). Fett reclaims the old suit a bit prematurely, sneaking into the Razor Crest during the chaos and stealing it from among Djarin’s possessions – dangerous, but still easier than trying to educate Djarin about Mandalorian history. Like Djarin, his suit also comes equipped with a version of the “whistling birds”, and in his time on Tatooine he’s also picked up a Tusken Raider staff, which he uses viciously. There’s something so refreshing about watching Mandalorians smash large, heavy objects against stormtrooper armor.

Fett also owns a gunship, none other than the Slave One itself, and…well, I don’t know how he got his hands on it again, but I’m willing to go along with it because the Empire blows up the Razor Crest after the first wave of stormtroopers is unsuccessful, and Din Djarin is now in need of a ship. We all made fun of the Razor Crest, and how it needed to be repaired every ten minutes: but I do feel bad that it’s now just a heap of burning scrap metal, far beyond repair. The episode is aptly subtitled The Tragedy.

If that were the only tragedy, I’d probably manage. But it’s not. As many had guessed online given the short amount of episodes left in season two, Grogu is captured by dark troopers (the giant, hulking droid troopers teased at the end of Chapter 12), moments before Djarin and Shand reach the seeing stone to intercept them. As they fly back to the Imperial star-cruiser hovering in Tython’s atmosphere, we can just see the itty-bitty baby staring down at Din Djarin with wide eyes. This is the kind of tragedy that hurts. But of course, it gives us a clear direction for the remaining two episodes: and direction is something The Mandalorian has sorely lacked up until this point.

Collecting what little he can from the wreckage of his old ship, including the beskar steel spear given to him by Ahsoka Tano last week and the strangely significant metal ball that has been Grogu’s favorite toy for ages, Djarin determines to rescue the baby: and both Fett and Shand swear to help him since technically they never fulfilled their end of the deal, to protect the child. For some reason, they immediately pack up and head back to the planet Nevarro, where Djarin enlists the help of Cara Dune (Gina Carano, whose permanent smirk is growing extremely tiresome), now an official New Republic marshal, to locate a currently incarcerated individual whom Djarin hopes will be able to track down Gideon: Miggs Mayfield (Bill Burr), Imperial sharpshooter turned deadly mercenary. Djarin turned him in to the New Republic back in season one, and it appears Mayfield has been stuck doing heavy labor ever since, so I’m not sure what bond of friendship exists between the two that Djarin thinks he can exploit. Mayfield, you may recall, thought that Grogu was either Djarin’s pet or illegitimate child, so I don’t think the promise of being able to help the baby will be quite enough in this case.

And speaking of Grogu, he’s stuck in a holding cell on the Imperial starship; but his subplot is far from over. Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) arrives to interrogate the baby, only to find that Grogu is using his re-awakened Force powers to violently bash in the heads of his stormtrooper guards. Gideon is quickly able to subdue the exhausted infant, but doesn’t reveal any ulterior motive beyond what we already knew – he wants Dr. Pershing alerted immediately that the Empire has recovered its “donor”: for more on that, see my post regarding midi-chlorians. He does reveal the ancient Darksaber to Grogu, marking its first appearance since the season one finale. It takes this show a long time to pay off its various hints and teases.

The big question now is whether or not Grogu was able to contact anyone through the Force while seated on the seeing stone. Tython may have been a big disappointment, but if Grogu was able to summon a Jedi (or even better, a whole bunch of Jedi), the side-mission there might not have been in vain.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

October 30, 2020

“The Mandalorian” Season 2 Premiere! Spoiler Review!

**SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN SEASON TWO PREMIERE AHEAD!**

For me, one of the biggest questions coming out of The Mandalorian‘s season two premiere is how to label it in my title headings: because, technically, you’d think it should be season two, episode one…right? But Disney+ lists it simply as “Chapter 9” of the total series, based on the assertion that the entire series is one continuous story. I’ve settled on the more neutral term “Premiere” for now, but I can’t say I fully agree with the terminology used by Disney+. Honestly, the premiere doesn’t feel very much like an immediate continuation of the story so far: under the direction of Jon Favreau, it jumps right back to the style of episodic, slow-burn storytelling that was so controversial (but ultimately successful) during The Mandalorian‘s first six episodes. I imagine that, unless things take a turn quickly, that’s how season two is also going to unfold – but this time at least I’m aware that’s what’s going on, and prepared to wait it out.

Favreau’s premiere episode has all the hallmarks we now expect of a typical episode of The Mandalorian: an entertaining side-quest on a backwater planet, and an uneasy alliance between our protagonist, Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (voiced and sometimes played by Pedro Pascal), and one or two new characters. This time, however, the side-quest is big, elaborate and prolonged – going on for almost an hour – and the episode even includes some flashback sequences to help us become attached to our new characters. Both quest and characters are also slightly more interwoven with our main plotline. Din Djarin and his tiny, adorable companion Baby Yoda find themselves on the planet Tatooine, following the trail of other Mandalorians who can help Djarin track down the whereabouts of Baby Yoda’s people. But that plotline gets put on the back-burner while Djarin tries to unite the bandits of Mos Elgo and the desert-dwelling Tusken Raiders against a ravenous Krayt dragon that has been terrorizing both groups – in exchange for a marvelous suit of Mandalorian armor possessed by Mos Elgo’s charismatic marshal.

Tatooine has been explored to death in the Star Wars universe, but The Mandalorian keeps coming back to it because it’s the planet that best exemplifies the series’ general sci-fi/Western vibe. And to its credit, The Mandalorian has at least made it feel fresh again by exploring some new corners of the desert planet besides just Mos Eisley – in this particular episode, the small frontier town of Mos Elgo. The town is run by a motley assortment of bandits, bounty hunters and low-level criminals, but is far from being a hive of scum and villainy. In fact, Mos Elgo seems pretty well-organized and well-governed, and even has a schoolhouse for the kids. It’s also a treasure trove of cool Easter eggs and Star Wars artifacts, such as a speeder bike made from one of the engines of Anakin Skywalker’s podracer in The Phantom Menace.

An alliance with the elusive Tusken Raiders means more opportunities to see just how much the portrayal of the Raiders has changed over the decades: once minor antagonists to Luke Skywalker’s journey, they’re now mostly depicted as sympathetic characters, no different from anyone else trying to aggressively carve out territory on Tatooine’s inhospitable surface in order to survive – and that shift is largely thanks to The Mandalorian, which showed Din Djarin peacefully interacting with them in season one and again in this season’s premiere, both times using sign language communication to strike up bargains with the Raiders. In this case, the Raiders are interested in helping the people of Mos Elgo defeat a Krayt dragon – a huge, carnivorous creature which technically made its first onscreen appearance back in the very first Star Wars movie; as a skeleton buried in the planet’s sand dunes. Now, over forty years later, we’ve finally gotten the chance to see one alive and in action, and it’s spectacularly fearsome (though eventually defeated by a poor, unsuspecting Bantha beast outfitted with explosives).

The season two premiere simultaneously finds room to include surprise appearances from characters we met on Tatooine in The Mandalorian‘s first season, like the human mechanic Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) and her small fleet of pit droids. The unexpected Motto/Baby Yoda reunion plays out just as one would hope, with Motto only half-joking when she asks Din Djarin if she can keep the child. For those wondering, Baby Yoda himself is still as adorable as ever (shocker, I know), and it’s a great relief to have him back after such a long, wearisome year. I just hope he finds an opportunity to exercise his growing Force powers sometime soon, because I’d hate to see him get upstaged by anybody else – and a newcomer has already come very close to doing just that.

Said newcomer is none other than the Mos Pelgo marshal Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant, currently still trending on Twitter), a character from the Star Wars: Aftermath novels. Olyphant shines in the role, and not just because he gets to wear Boba Fett’s famous suit of armor, bought from Jawas who recovered it somehow from the sarlacc pit where Fett went down. He’s a lot of fun, with a braggadocio and swagger that comes from being able to pass for a Mandalorian, and a disarming, warm attitude. Can he be trusted? I think so, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up again later in the series: especially since he’s unintentionally gotten himself involved in something much bigger than he probably imagined. Vanth is, however, lucky to have been able to give Din Djarin his armor after the success of their dragon hunt, a generous action that will probably save him in the long run – because somebody else, somebody with a personal, irrefutable claim to that armor, is also on the hunt for it…and judging by the assortment of large, nasty-looking weapons this somebody has on their person, I’m guessing they’re prepared to fight for it.

This somebody is Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) himself, of course; a character I’ve always personally found to be quite overrated, now returning for a chance at redemption after his humiliating “death” in Return Of The Jedi. Although the Boba Fett reveal comes at the very end of the premiere, it’s not exactly a big surprise to anybody who’s been following the production of the series closely, having been reported on some time ago. Nonetheless, it’s still exciting for several reasons: firstly, because it’s finally canon confirmation that Fett escaped the sarlacc pit, something that’s been debated in the fandom for decades; it’s likely confirmation that it was Fett whose shadowy figure we saw in season one, investigating Fennec Shand’s dead body; and it bodes well for what’s to come, as the series begins to dive into the history and lore of the Mandalorian people.

Whether or not Din Djarin stays on Tatooine any longer, I have a feeling that him and Boba Fett will meet up soon: the older Mandalorian warrior seems to have adapted to his new life as a desert nomad, but I’m sure he won’t pass up an opportunity to reclaim his old armor and his dignity – though, if it’s dignity he’s after, he might want to consider fixing or simply discarding his famously faulty jetpack, which malfunctions again while Cobb Vanth is using it. Just a suggestion.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10