Snow White And The Seven "Magical Creatures"

Last year Disney announced they were pumping out yet another entry in their seemingly endless series of dreadful live action remakes. This time it was Snow White— the film that pretty much kicked off the entire studio!

Like most of their recent remakes, this one appeared to be more concerned with diversity and inclusion than story, as it would feature a Latina actress in the titular role. I know better than to even attempt to tiptoe through that particularly deadly minefield, so let's just ignore that and move on to the bigger topic at hand— the seven dwarfs.

Apparently actor Peter Dinklage— who's apparently now the self-appointed leader of the entire dwarf community— wasn't thrilled with this news. On the Mark Maron podcast he stated: 

"Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”

Oh, trust me, Pete, you're definitely loud enough!

What the hell's he talking about here? The Snow White dwarfs didn't live in a cave. They lived in a lovely little cottage nestled deep in the woods! They marched to work every morning in a mine, which he apparently somehow mistook for a cave.

Dinklage is also confused about the nature of the dwarfs in the story. We're talking fantasy dwarfs here. They're a race of diminutive people who are all supposed to be small (think Gimli from The Lord Of The Rings). They're not humans with defective genes like him. 

As such, there's nothing the least bit offensive about the dwarfs in Snow White or other fairy tales.

Apparently Dinklage is one of the most powerful people in all of Hollywood. Immediately after his angry screed, Disney bent the knee to him and announced they were nixing the dwarfs from this new remake, and replacing them with a troupe of "magical creatures."

What the hell did that mean? Would their troupe now consist of seven unicorns? Centaurs? Dragons? A mix of them all?

Welp, this week we finally got our answer. Behold, here's our first look at Snow White with her band of magical creatures!

You have got to be shitting me here...

Jaysis, this looks like a bunch of rejects from the world's lamest Ren Faire. Or a particularly inept community theater. Seriously, I've seen comic con cosplayers with more professional looking costumes than this.

In addition to looking cheap and amateurish, none of them look particularly magical either.

And I can't help but notice that there still appears to be a dwarf on this little team. So... I guess seven dwarfs is somehow offensive, but one's perfectly OK? Does seven exceed some secret dwarf quota I don't know about? I honestly don't get it.

Also, I absolutely guarantee that Disney's gonna change ALL the names of these exciting new characters. The original dwarfs names would no doubt be far too triggering for modern audiences. Some, like Dopey and Grumpy, would be considered reductive. Others, like Sleepy and Bashful, would be offensive to people with sleep disorders or social anxiety. 

Let's take a look at 'em and figure out what new names Disney's gonna give 'em. From back to front we have Wish.com Jesus, Tokeena, Diversity Hire-O, Robert Baratheron, Discount Alan Tudyk, Dollar Store Lenny Kravitz and Not-Dinklage.

Well done, Disney! I can tell right now you've got another billion dollar blockbuster on your hands!

Pan Mishandler

Last week Disney released the trailer for the latest in their interminable series of live action remakes of their classic animated films, Peter Pan & Wendy.

At one point in the trailer, Wendy encounters a motley group of male & female urchins and realizes they're supposed to be the Lost Boys. She says, "But you're not all boys!" One of girls utters a clever comeback, hissing, "SO?"

Well, that explained the situation, and definitely put stodgy old Wendy in her place!

Clearly the filmmakers are button-bursting proud of this scene, as it appears just twenty four seconds into the trailer! It's a painfully obvious bit of virtue signaling, as they subvert everyone's expectations in order to stick it to the patriarchy or something.

I'm not gonna waste my time complaining about this nonsense, as this is just the way things are in the hellscape that passes for our current society.

I do want to point out though that Disney's transparent attempt at representation isn't quite the victory they intended. 

See, in J.M. Barrie's original story, the Lost Boys were male babies who "fell out of their prams when their nurses were looking the other way." If the babies weren't claimed in seven days, they were sent to Neverland. 

Peter Pan himself explained to Wendy that there were no "Lost Girls," because they're far to clever to ever fall out of their prams.

The book was actually an early example of female empowerment, pointing out the fact that girls are smarter and tend to mature earlier than boys. 

Disney's new film clumsily and hamfistedly undoes all that, throwing girls into the group simply for the sake of representation. In fact I'm betting the screenwriters never actually bothered to read the source material, else they'd have nixed the girl Lost Boys.

That's the problem with SJWs and the twitter mob. They're so dead set on diversity and inclusion that they don't stop to think about whether it makes any sense or not. And it often doesn't!

One more movie I can safely ignore! Thanks, Disney!

Somebody Make It Stop!

Oh, Marvel Cinematic Universe. For eleven years you enthralled the world with your fun and action packed comic book films, introducing an entire new generation to the stable of Marvel characters.

It was a great ride, but all good things come to a close For three years now I've been saying the MCU officially, er, ended with Avengers: Endgame, and the franchise should be put to rest. And with with each subsequent Marvel movie and TV series that Disney pumps out, it looks like I'm increasingly right.

Somehow the MCU went from this...

To this.

Behold an image from Disney's latest Marvel opus, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law— in which the titular character— a prominent lawyer and strong, independent woman navigating a man's world— twerks in her office with Megan Thee Stallion, whoever the hell that is. Jesus wept.

Of course the producers of the She-Hulk series are loudly trumpeting the fact that it's written and directed solely by women, in order to properly capture the feminine perspective. Uh-huh. Take a look at that preposterous twerking shot above. What do you think would have happened if a lowly man had written that? There's no doubt in my mind he'd have been chased down by a gang of women, tarred, feathered and strung up by his balls. And then they'd have gotten mad!

She-Hulk premiered back in 1980, and was created solely by Marvel to cash in on the success of TV's The Bionic Woman. Her comic ran for two years before getting canceled. 

In 1989 artist/writer John Byrne revived the character in a new book titled The Sensational She-Hulk. I enjoyed his run quite a bit, as it was witty and irreverent, and best of all just plain fun. She-Hulk regularly broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the audience (years before Deadpool ever thought to do so), making fun of numerous comic book tropes— and even insulting her writer.

The comic would have been a perfect template for the new TV series. All Disney had to do was change the jokes about comic books to quips about the sillier aspects of superhero movies. Boom! Done and done!

Of course that was too easy for Disney. Instead they inexplicably decided to go the woke route, filling the series with rants and rails against our male-dominated culture. Wow, how stunning and brave.

If that wasn't enough, the series is incredibly schizophrenic and hypocritical, as it denounces men and male attitudes in one scene, then immediately shows us that She-Hulk has a screensaver of Captain America's ass in the next (no, really!).

I don't want my happy memories of the She-Hulk comic tainted by such nonsense, so I'll be skipping this series and won't be reviewing it. 

The MCU is officially dead, but Disney just can't stop defiling its sad and withered corpse. For the love of god, just let it rest already!

R.I.P. Marvel Cinematic Universe

2008 - 2019

Unfortunate Timing!

As regular readers of my blog (both of you) know, I've been reviewing Disney's various Star Wars TV series for a couple years now. I enjoyed The Mandalorian quite a bit, The Book Of Boba Fett less so.

For anyone out there anxiously awaiting my thoughts on the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series, eh, I have some bad news— I won't be reviewing it.

The main reason is time— lately I find that the older I get, the less hours there seem to be in a day. Plus this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but... I just don't care about the character. 

And here's an even MORE unpopular notion— I was never a fan of Ewan McGregor's portrayal of him in the Prequels. I can hear you all picking up your torches and pitchforks, but hey, it's how I feel. To me it seemed he was doing a half-hearted impression of Obi-Wan, as never once in ANY of the movies did I look at him and think I was looking at a younger version of the character. He always felt like an entirely new guy to me.

So no, I won't be reviewing the show. Heck, I don't  know if I'm gonna have time to even watch it! I did catch a few minutes of the first episode though, and I gotta admit I was kind of surprised by what I saw...

The opening features a flashback to the "Execute Order 66" scene from Revenge Of The Sith.

We're then treated to several scenes of a group of armed gunmen bursting into a school and firing on the students inside, as the teachers desperately try to save them.

Holy Crap!

That would be in questionable taste at any time, but unfortunately these scenes aired just three days after the horrific Uvalde school shooting in Texas, where nineteen children and two teachers were brutally cut down by a crazed gunman. Yikes!

So was I triggered by this incident? Did I have to take to my Patented SJW Fainting Couch®? Of course not. I'm not a fragile virtue signaler who howls when someone doesn't use the right pronouns, as I can tell the difference between deliberate intent and unfortunate coincidence. This is wayyyyyy down at the bottom of the list of Problems Plaguing Our Country, just slightly above Amber Heard's career. That said, I gotta admit it was some pretty regrettable timing.

To be fair to Disney though, this wasn't their fault. There were an astonishing SEVENTEEN more mass shootings in the week following the Uvalde tragedy. Seventeen in one week! That's over two a day! 

At this rate, it would literally be impossible for Disney to pick ANY date that didn't coincide with a real shooting in which to air their fake one!

He's Back, Baby!

Last month I reported that Disney was resurrecting fan-favorite series Futurama, which would stream on Hulu for some reason.

For those keeping score, this would be the third iteration of the series that just can't seem to die. Unfortunately there was one major snag. While the bulk of the cast and production crew were reportedly returning, actor John DiMaggio— aka the voice of Bender— declined to participate.

At the time it wasn't clear just why DiMaggio wasn't returning, but I predicted it came down to money. Sure enough, I was right. In a recent tweet, DiMaggio said, "It's about self-respect. And honestly, being tired of an industry that's become far too corporate and takes advantage of artists' time and talent."

Bender's arguably the best character on the show, and no doubt a huge part of its success. I had zero interest in a Bender-less Futurama, as there's no show without him.

Fortunately Disney finally gave in, and backed a dump truck full of money in front of DiMaggio's house. In yet another tweet, he said, "Bendergate is officially over, so put it on the back of a shelf behind Xmas decorations, or maybe in the kitchen drawer with all of the other crap you put in there like old unusable crazy glue, or maybe even put it in a jar you save farts in. Whatever floats your boat, I don’t care, you get the picture. I'm back, Baby! Bite my shiny metal ass!”

Woohoo! Bender's back! I may actually watch the new series now.

I'm taking full credit for Disney's decision, by the way. There's no doubt in my mind that my scathing blog post stung them where it hurts, and forced them to renegotiate DiMaggio's contract. Such is the might of my blog and the power of my words.

Next I'm gonna use my blog against Putin, and tell him to knock off this Ukraine jazz, or I'm gonna knock it off for him! Are you listening, Vlad?

Go Ahead And Refuse To Take My Money!

This week Disney (who've Borged Fox and now own them and all their properties) announced plans to resurrect fan-favorite series Futurama. Again.

For those keeping score, this would be the third iteration of the series, as Futurama's had a long, tortured and complicated history over the years. It originally ran on the Fox Network for four seasons, from 1999 to 2003. In 2006 Fox released four direct to video Futurama films, which were later chopped up into sixteen segments and aired as a fifth season in 2008. The series was revised in 2010, and ran for an additional two seasons on Comedy Central.

During Disney's announcement of this latest revival, they proudly crowed that they'd rounded up the entire voice cast, with one notable exception. John DiMaggio, who voices Bender, has declined to return to the show. At this time it's unclear just why, but I'm betting it's to do with money.

Sorry, Disney, but Bender's undeniably the best and most popular character on the show. In fact I'd go so far as to say he was the main reason for its success and longevity. No one wants a Futurama without Bender. Or with a Bender who sounds... "off."

No Bender, No Sale!

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, We're Canceled Dontcha Know!

This week actor Peter Dinklage went on an ill-advised rant, slamming Disney over their upcoming live-action Snow White remake. 

Unlike most rational adults, he didn't object on the grounds that the world doesn't need yet another subpar version of a beloved classic. Instead, his beef was with the subject matter— specifically the fact that it features dwarfs.

Said Dinklage:

"Take a step back and look at what you're doing there. It makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way and you're still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together (?), what the fuck are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I'm not loud enough."

Oh, trust me, Pete, you're loud enough alright. 

And what's with the "living in a cave" comment? Do you mean mines? Because the Seven Dwarfs worked in a mine, but they lived in a cottage. The same cottage Snow White found after the Huntsman left her in the woods when he didn't have the heart to kill her. Did you even watch the goddamn movie?

As for Disney, they capitulated in record time. Just a day after Dinklage's diatribe, they released this doozy of a press statement:

"To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period."

According to inside sources, Disney's now going to replace the traditional Seven Dwarfs with a group of "magical creatures."

Jesus wept.

OK, maybe this is just my "height privilege" showing through, but Dinklage is WAYYYY off base here. Snow White's a fantasy story, set in a world of witches and magic apples. The Dwarfs in it aren't humans with achondroplasia like him— they're a race of people who are all naturally small. Just like Gimli and his folk in Tolkien's stories. And in a hundred other fantasy tales. 

Why the hell is that so hard to figure out? Is he so sensitive about his height that he can't see that?

You watch— today it's the dwarfs in Snow White. Are Hobbits next? How long before Dinklage and the SJW Posse come after The Lord Of The Rings? 

Hall Of Abominations

Hey, remember DisneyWorld's Hall Of Presidents? You know, the attraction everyone visits just to get a few precious minutes of relief from the ridiculous Florida heat & humidity? 

I don't know what's going on there lately, but it looks like Disney's "Imagineers" have definitely lost their touch.

As proof, I present their trump robot. Or at least I think it's supposed to be trump. It looks like someone stuffed trump and Hillary into one of Jeff Goldblum's teleportation pods, flipped the switch and this unholy abomination is what issued forth from the smoke and steam.

Curiously, they seem to have absolutely nailed his artificial polyester blend hair, so I guess that's something.

The current Prez doesn't fare any better. This is allegedly the Joe Biden robot, though it looks more like Johnny Carson wearing Clint Eastwood prosthetics. And check out those black, soulless eyes! Whenever I look at them, all I hear is Quint saying, "Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes."

So what the hell happened to the Hall Or Presidents? The other robots don't look nearly as bad as these two horror shows. The Lincoln one for example looks amazing and spot on. Did all the good robot sculptors die off, so they hired some new subpar ones off of Craigslist?

Maybe it's tougher to make a robot that looks like someone we've all familiar with. After all, we've all seen trump & Biden on the news a million times. We know exactly what they look like, so maybe that makes it harder to come up with a good likeness.

Who knows, maybe the Lincoln droid is just as bad, and doesn't resemble him in the slightest either. Sure, we've all seen photos of him, but no one alive today ever saw him in person. So we have no idea just how far off his robot actually is. It could be just as big a nightmare as trump & Biden!

The Name Game

As all good Star Wars aficionados know, fan-favorite character Boba Fett's ship is called the Slave 1— and has been, ever since it first appeared in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. 

For over forty years that name's never caused so much as a ripple of controversy. Until now, of course.

This week Lego announced they were releasing a brand new, pricey (of course) Slave 1 playset. Except it's no longer called "Slave 1."

As you can see from the box art, it's now been re-christened with the incredibly imaginative non-name, "Boba Fett's Starship.™"

In an interview with Jedi News, Lego designers Jens Kronvold Frederiksen and Michael Lee Stockwell claimed that Disney (who owns the Star Wars brand) demanded the name change.

Said Stockwell, "We’re not calling it Slave I anymore. This is Boba Fett’s Starship.”

Frederiksen added, “Everybody is dropping the Slave 1 name. It’s probably not something which has been announced publicly but it is just something that Disney doesn’t want to use any more.”

Although Disney declined to comment on the matter, it's pretty clear they're distancing themselves from the name due to the negative and uncomfortable connotations surrounding the word "slave." 

Predictably, once news of the change broke, Star Wars fans pitched a huge sh*t fit. They pulled out all their old favorite arguments, crying that Disney was ruining their childhoods, destroying the brand and bending the knee to the SJW Twitter posse, so as not to offend their delicate sensibilities.

Personally I don't have a dog in this fight. 

Which is odd, because I've been a HUGE fan of all things Boba Fett since his debut. At one point I probably would have been incensed by this news along with the other fans, but that time has long passed— for multiple reasons.

First of all, the sub-par Prequels and unwatchable Sequels have pretty much killed my once all-consuming passion for Star Wars. While I've admittedly enjoyed The Mandalorian for the most part, it hasn't been enough to reignite my love for the franchise. So I honestly don't care about this whole name change business.

Secondly, the name Slave 1 has been used in the novels, comics, toys, games and publicity materials since the 1980s— but amazingly it's NEVER actually been uttered onscreen in ANY of the movies!

That means there's likely a huge swath of the population that's completely unaware that Fett's ship even HAS a name! Seriously, if it's never been said aloud, does the name even count?

Lastly, "controversial" name changes like this are nothing new.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader's massive Star Destroyer was called the Executor. Again, this name was never said aloud onscreen, but that's what it was dubbed in the script.

When it came time for Kenner to make an action figure playset of the ship, they were uncomfortable releasing a kids' toy with "executor" in its name. To that end, they simply called it "Darth Vader's Star Destroyer."

Oddly enough, no one flipped a table over this back in 1980. Either people were more reasonable and had better things to worry about in the 80s, or there was no Twitter then where they could post their mock outrage.

It's Like Poetry— It Rhymes!

Above is a new poster for The Rise Of Gorge, er, I mean The Rise Of Skywalker, Disney's latest attempt to destroy the Star Wars franchise forever.

Note the figures of Rey and Kylo Ren in a furious lightsaber battle in the foreground, with the brooding presence of another Kylo Ren looming above them in stark red and black.

This seems familiar, but I can't quite figure out where I've seen it before...

Oh yeah, now I remember! It's a blatant swipe from the Return Of The Jedi poster from 1983!

Before anyone says anything, I get it. I know the new poster's not a swipe, but an homage to the old one. But I don't care. You have no idea how much this pisses me off.

Disney's obviously hoping if they remind the public of the Original Trilogy enough, some of its cachet will rub off on their new abomination. Nice try.

This just goes to show how desperate Disney is. They know they have another disaster on their hands, and they're doing everything in their power to generate buzz in a disinterested public. It's actually fascinating to see the depths they're willing to sink to in order to sell tickets to this fustercluck.

The Mandalorian, Season 1: Chapter One

It's finally here! Yet another attempt by Disney to drain the last drops of milk from the dried up, withered teats of the Star Wars franchise. The ONLY reason to sign up for the Disney+ streaming service, and then cancel it once it's over. It's The Mandalorian!

As long-time readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld know by now, there was a time when I was a HUGE Star Wars fan. From the moment I saw the original movie in the theater— first run, mind you!— I ate, slept and breathed the property. It had a major impact on my life and even influenced my choice in my so-called career. 

That was in the Before Time though. Things have changed.

The lame Prequel Trilogy dealt my Star Wars enthusiasm a mortal blow, and it lay on life support for many years. Then the Sequels (I guess that's what we're calling the new trilogy?) came along, and pulled the plug altogether. After the debacle that was The Last Jedi (which I've seen only once and refuse to see ever again or review), Star Wars was dead to me. It became a distant memory of something I once loved, but no longer thought or cared about.

So with all that said, I had absolutely ZERO expectations for The Mandalorian. None whatsoever. In fact I wasn't even planning to watch the thing. That's how little I cared for Star Wars anymore.

But then a funny thing happened— I started hearing good things about it. Things like, "It didn't suck," and "It feels like Star Wars again." I was intrigued by the people involved with the show as well. The series was created by writer/director/actor Jon Favreau, who helmed such films as Elf, Zathura, Iron Man and The Jungle Book. 

Plus the first episode was directed by Dave Filoni, who created the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels. I've never seen Rebels, but I did catch a few episodes of The Clone Wars and liked what I saw. In fact I thought they were miles better than the live action Prequels!

With all that talent behind the scenes, I decided to give the series a look. Boy, am I glad I did! I absolutely LOVED The Mandalorian! Loved it, I tell you! For the first time since 1999, I actually give a sh*t about Star Wars again!

As stated by others, The Mandalorian feels like proper, old school Star Wars— before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels and Sequels. It's set five years after The Return Of The Jedi, which is probably why it feels so much like the original films.

I think the thing I liked most about the show is that it's extremely simple. The entire first episode revolves around the taciturn titular character as he attempts to collect a lucrative bounty. That's it! That's all there is to it! No Jedis, not blowing up Death Stars, no galaxy-spanning wars, no senses-shattering secrets. There's not even so much as a lightsaber on display!

That definitely sold me on the show. The Star Wars franchise was starting to feel extreeeemely limited, as if it was impossible to do anything that didn't involve the Skywalker clan. It was refreshing to see another corner of the Universe that involved a completely new set of characters.

See, Disney? It's not that hard to do something good with this franchise. You CAN make decent Star Wars material if you hire the right people who understand the property and have actual talent.

Even better, the show's kind of about one of my favorite characters! I've always been a big Boba Fett fan, and although this series isn't about him per se, it's about one of his kinsmen, so it's right up my alley. 

It's only been one episode, but so far the series seems to be restraining itself when it comes to annoying fan service. Yeah, there're quite a few Easter eggs and references to the Original Trilogy, but I felt that most of them were there just as atmosphere. If you're gonna set a series in the Star Wars Universe, it's only natural to see familiar alien races and ships, right? There were a couple blatant "Hey, Remember This?" moments, but they didn't overwhelm the episode or piss me off.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
It's five years after The Return Of The Jedi. On an ice planet that absolutely isn't meant to remind us of Hoth, the Mandalorian (played by Pedro Pascal, though you never see his face) enters a cantina. Inside, two alien thugs are planning to kill a Mythrol (a blue, fishy-looking gent) and steal his credits. The thugs aren't happy to see the Mandalorian, and pick a fight with him. He easily kills them both, and the Mythrol thanks him profusely for saving his life. The Mandolorian shows him a bounty puck, and the Mythrol realizes he's there for him.

OK, I'm getting tired of writing "Mandalorian" every time, so I'm just gonna call him "Manny" from now on.

Manny leads the Mythrol out of the cantina, where he charters a landspeeder to take him across the ice back to his ship. So I guess that's how he got there the first time, right? The speeder drops them off at Manny's ship. As if drives off, it's attacked by some creature living under the ice. Manny takes off, but the creature grabs one of the landing gear and threatens to pull the ship under the ice. He leans out the hatch and blasts it, causing it to let go. The ship heads for open space.

The Mythrol tries making small talk with the sullen Manny, but is met with icy silence. The Mythrol excuses himself and goes to the cargo hold, on the pretense of using the facilities. There he discovers several other bounties in a storage unit, all encased in carbonite. He backs up in surprise and bumps into Manny. He throws the Mythrol into a carbon chamber and freezes him like the others.

Manny lands on a planet and enters yet another cantina, where he meets with his "agent" Greef Carga (played by Carl Weathers). Carga pays him with Imperial credits, but Manny refuses them, saying they're no good now that the Empire's fallen. Carga says fine, pays him in Calamari "flan"and offers him a lucrative bounty job that's off the books. Manny accepts.

He goes to the address Carga gave him, where he meets The Client (played by Werner Herzog). The Client, who may have once been an Imperial Regional Governor, still has a squad of Stormtroopers hanging around, and is working with a Dr. Pershing. They want Manny to locate a fifty year old asset and bring it back alive. As payment, The Client offers Manny a bar of rare and precious Beskar steel. Again, Manny accepts.

Manny then pays a visit to a Mandalorian base or temple or something, which is populated by others of his clan. He hands the Beskar bar to a Blacksmith, who says it'll be enough to make him a new shoulder pauldron to replace the mismatched one he now wears. She says the excess metal can be used to support the many "foundlings" in their base. As she forges the new armor piece, Manny has flashbacks to his childhood, in which his parents were attacked by someone and seemingly sacrificed themselves to protect him.

The Blacksmith attaches the new pauldron to Manny's shoulder. He then flies to a desert planet that absolutely isn't meant to look like Tattooine, looking for his next target. As he walks along, he's attacked by a couple of blurrgs— dinosaur-like creatures that can be ridden like horses. One grabs his arm and pins him to the ground as the second charges toward him.

Suddenly the blurggs are hit by a couple of tranq darts and fall to the ground. Manny turns and sees he was rescued by an Ugnaught named Kuiil. He asks why he helped him, and Kuiil replies that his planet was once peaceful, until various bounty hunters arrived to attempt to take the asset from its heavily-fortified compound. He says Manny looks like he could succeed where all the others failed. He figures if he helps him obtain the asset, then everyone will get the hell off his planet and it'll be peaceful again.

Kuiil tells Manny the compound's too far to reach on foot, and says he'll have to learn how to ride a blurgg. He tries and is thrown off several times, before relaxing and calming the beast. Manny and Kuiil ride through the barren landscape, and eventually arrive at the compound. Kuiil takes his leave, refusing to accept any of Manny's credits for his help.

Manny hides behind a ridge and observes the compound, which is crawling with alien guards. Suddenly an IG-11 Bounty Hunter Droid storms into the compound, apparently on the same mission. Many intercepts IG and suggests they work together and split the bounty. IG agrees. Between the two of them, they manage to take out the dozens of guards. The two of them then stare at the compound's impenetrable door.

Manny jumps on a mobile cannon and blasts open the door. Inside they locate the asset— a tiny green baby of the same species as Yoda. Manny wonders how a baby can be fifty years old, and IG reminds him that all species age differently. IG wants to kill the asset, but Manny's reluctant to do so. He shoots IG in the head, and stares down at the baby. He holds out his finger, and the baby reaches up and grabs it.

Thoughts:
• Let's start with a disclaimer— I only know Star Wars from the movies. I'm not well-versed in the Expanded Universe, and know little or nothing about the novels, videogames and various animated series like Star Wars Rebels. So a lot of the questions I have about this episode may very well have answers in those other properties.

• As I said in the intro, Disney FINALLY pumped out a series that feels like real, proper Star Wars. The Mandalorian uses the same sound effects as heard in the Original Trilogy, the planets are populated with familiar alien races, and they even use the traditional Star Wars "wipes" during scene transitions! Well done!

• The original Star Wars was always sort of an old school Western— just set in outer space. The good guys wore white, the bad ones black (OK, with the exception of the Stormtroopers), there were shootouts and bar fights, people used animals for transportation and it was good versus evil.

The Mandalorian continues this theme, although this time it's more of a Spaghetti Western— grittier and more realistic, with morally ambiguous antiheroes.

• The Mandalorian is played by actor Pedro Pascal, who's probably best known as Oberyn Martell on Game Of Thrones. Note that at no time does Pascal ever show his face in this episode. I'm assuming at some point in the season he'll give us a look under his helmet, else why bother casting a reasonably well-known actor?

Rounding out the cast is Carl Weathers as Greef Carga, and actor/director Werner Herzog as The Client. Actor/director Taika Waititi voices IG-11.

According to the official cast list, Nick Nolte stars as Kuiil. I'm pretty sure someone else physically played him though, while Nolte just voiced the character. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine Nolte agreeing to sit in a makeup chair for four hours to transform him into an Ugnaught. Plus, Kuiil looked to be well under five feet tall, and I'm pretty sure Nolte's taller than that.

SNL alum Horatio Sanz plays the Mythrol. Despite the fact that I know it's him, I just can't see any trace of Sanz under all those prosthetics.

All in all, it's a pretty impressive cast for a TV show!

• For some reason, none of the planets visited in the episode are ever identified. Two of them look suspiciously like Hoth and Tattooine, although I don't think they're supposed to be. Who knows, though? 

Would it have killed them to have added some onscreen location captions?

• The second I saw that irising door in the cantina, I knew someone was gonna get cut in half by it! Sorry about the black bars, by the way. I can't get rid of 'em.

• The Mandalorian features a ton of aliens from the original series, which all self-respecting Star Wars fans will instantly recognize. I spotted Rodians, Quarren, Trandoshans, Off-World Jawas, Niktos, the aforementioned Ugnaught and of course a Kubaz (pictured above).

By the way, I laughed when I saw the Kubaz play a flute to summon a landspeeder taxi. His elongated snout is already basically a flute! Why didn't he just play his nose?

• Brian Posehn makes a brief appearance as a landspeeder taxi driver, who drives Manny and his catch back to his ship. Meh. I'm not a fan of these celebrity cameos. Whenever I see a star make an appearance like this, it takes me right out of the episode as I try to figure out who I'm looking at.

Hey, Brian Posehn, just because you've been a Star Wars fan since childhood and are probably friends with Jon Favreau, that doesn't mean you should make a distracting appearance here.

Some might point out that Horatio Sanz's appearance amounted to a cameo as well. Eh, I disagree. His role was much larger, and he actually helped further the plot. Posehn's inclusion was unnecessary and superfluous.

• I liked Manny's ship— the Razor Crest— quite a bit. It's high time we got some more cool-looking ships in the Star Wars Universe! I'm especially glad he has a NEW looking vessel, and not another variation of the Slave-1!

• In the hold of the Mandalorian's ship, the Mythrol discovers several previous bounties encased in carbonite for easy transport. Whoops!

In The Empire Strikes Back, carbonite was used in Cloud City as a way to preserve and transport Tibanna Gas to other worlds. It was never meant to be used on lifeforms. In fact when Vader announced he wanted to freeze Luke in carbonite to safely ship him to the Emperor, Lando warned him of the danger:

Lando: "Lord Vader, we only use this facility for carbon freezing. It might kill him."
Vader: "I do not want the Emperor's prize damaged. We will test it on Captain Solo."

Apparently after Han survived the process, the news spread among the bounty hunting community, and the carbon-freezing of perps became SOP. Maybe a lot of bounty hunters passed through Jabba's palace, saw Han displayed on his wall and decided to use the method themselves.

• In this episode we learn that Mandalorians never remove their helmets— at least around others. That was a surprise to me, as it seems to contradict what we saw in the Prequels. Hell, Jango Fett could barely keep his helmet on for more than a few minutes at a time.

This is one of those seeming plot holes that may have an answer in the cartoons, which I know heavily features the Mandalorian race.

• By far the best thing about The Mandalorian is the fact that it retroactively makes the Star Wars Holiday Special part of the official canon! For example:

Early in the episode, the Mythrol says he hopes to make it home in time for Life Day (!). That particular holiday drove the plot of the Special, as Han Solo was trying to get Chewie back to Kashyyyk (when one "Y" just isn't enough) to celebrate it with his previously-unseen family.

Additionally, all through the episode, Manny carries a blaster rifle with a forked end.

Which is nearly identical to the one Boba Fett had in the animated segment of the Special (which was his official Star Wars debut, by the way!).

Also, when Manny attempts and fails to ride the blurgg, Kuiil says, "You are Mandalorian! Your ancestors rode the great Mythosaur! Surely you can ride this young foal."

I'm assuming the Mythosaur may be the dinosaur-like creature that Boba Fett rode in the Special?

Hilariously, this episode also just made Gormaanda (the four-armed alien Julia Child knockoff played by Harvey Korman in drag) part of the official canon as well! That means she could have theoretically been Grand Moff Tarkin's personal chef!

And this touching scene of Ackmena (as played by Bea Arthur) singing to a giant alien rat in her Cantina on Tattooine is also now an official part of the Star Wars Universe. Oh, Jon Favreau... what have you done?

• If you look closely, The Client is wearing a medallion featuring the spoked symbol of the Empire around his neck. He's also got his own personal squad of Stormtroopers, whose armor looks like it's seen better days.

I'm betting The Client was one of the Regional Governors that Grand Moff Tarkin spoke of in A New Hope— one who's still tenuously clinging to power on this backwater world, despite the fact that the Empire's fallen. 

My theories are usually hilariously wrong, so future episodes will prove if I'm right this time or not.

• The Mandalorian features a ton of Easter eggs and callbacks to the Original Trilogy. I'm not gonna list 'em all here, as I'd have to type an additional 50,000 words. There are numerous comprehensive lists on other sites. I will point out a couple that jumped out at me though:

As Manny walks through a street market on the second planet he visits, we see a vendor selling roasted Kowakian Monkey-Lizard on a spit! Jabba the Hutt's pal Salacious Crumb was a Monkey-Lizard, and one of the most annoying-ass characters in the entire franchise. That made it extra sweet to see his species is apparently considered a foodstuff in the Star Wars Universe!

Also, when Manny visits The Client, he's confronted by a gatekeeper droid. Note that this droid is IDENTICAL to the one seen in Jabba's Palace in The Return Of The Jedi. It even says the exact same lines!

• I appreciated all the world building in the episode, especially the bits relating to Mandalorian er, lore. This week we learn that the Mandalorians are a secretive race that constantly hides their faces, there was some sort of Great Purge of their planet and Beskar steel is the most valuable substance in the galaxy to them. According to Star Wars lore, Beskar steel can block even a lightsaber blade! No wonder they love the stuff so much!

I didn't understand a lot of it yet, but I'm assuming they'll fill in the gaps in upcoming episodes.

I liked the Blacksmith's cool Spartan-looking helmet, proving that Mandalorians don't all look like clones (heh) of Boba Fett.

Speaking of Beskar steel, this week Manny gets a new shoulder pauldron made of the stuff, to replace his old one. Note that Manny's current look consists of lots of mismatched pieces scavenged from various other armors.

I would not be surprised if he gets more Beskar pieces over the course of the season, until he's fully outfitted in the stuff in the series finale.

• This week we get a couple of VERY brief glimpses of Manny's past, as he flashes back inside the Blacksmith's foundry. It's impossible to tell what exactly's happening here, other than it appears his parents sacrificed themselves to save him. I'm sure we'll eventually find out what's going on in a future episode.

Note that Young Manny looks Hispanic, just like Pedro Pascal (who's of Chilean descent). That reinforces my theory that we'll eventually see Manny unmasked at some point in the series. Else why match the ethnicity of the young and old versions of the character?

• I thought the blurggs were fun, even though I can't imagine how their bodies would work in real life. 

I'm trying to figure out just how much of them was CGI and how much, if any, was practical. Obviously when they're walking around or being ridden they're CGI. But I'm betting they build at least a partial blurgg for the scenes in which Manny's wrestling with one. If not, then that was some damned fine CGI!

By the way, the blurggs reminded me a lot of the pig lizard from Galaxy Quest.

• After more than three decades, we FINALLY got to see an IG unit in action! Awesome! 

We saw IG-88 back in Empire of course, but he never actually did anything, and stood motionless for his entire scene. I don't think he even moved his head! This IG unit is VERY animated, as his various sections can swivel 360 degrees to take potshots at perps all around him!

• So it turns out that the asset Manny's after is a baby of Yoda's species. GASP! A couple things here:

Manny seems puzzled by the baby, since The Client said his quarry was fifty years old. IG-11 reminds him that different species age at different rates.

Yeah, that may be, but do they really expect us to believe that this baby's half a century old? What kind of a life cycle is that? Can you imagine the poor parents of this thing having to change its sh*tty diapers for fifty goddamned years? I don't think so.

Secondly, it's been almost forty years, Lucasfilm. it's high time you stopped playing coy and gave Yoda's species a freakin' name. Why the secrecy?