Season 2 of The Mandalorian came out last fall on Disney+ and this second season saw it bring back a lot of characters from old Star Wars movies and TV shows. The first episode, "The Marshal" brought back Boba Fett, though he was only seen at the end without his armor because Mando had his. Later Mando goes to a planet and meets Ahsoka Tano from the animated series Clone Wars and Rebels. That also gave us "The Child"'s real name and a reference to Grand Admiral Thrawn! Which means that maybe a live action Thrawn might finally happen.
The biggest surprise was at the end of the season when an X-Wing flies into the hangar of Moff Gideon's ship. A single X-Wing? Who could that be? And then we see a cloaked figure take out a green lightsaber and start hacking through Dark Troopers (who were introduced in video games back in the 90s). It's Luke Skywalker! And not the whiny, PTSD-ed bitch from The Last Jedi, but an ass-kicking machine! Like Vader in the end of Rogue One, Luke really gets to cut loose as he takes down the Dark Troopers to make his way to the bridge.
Thanks to computer technology used in Captain America: Civil War and Rogue One, they were able to show a Luke who looks mostly like in Return of the Jedi. He takes Grogu with him, presumably to the Jedi academy with his whiny, annoying nephew.
I suppose some critics would whine about "fan service" running amok, but I think Star Wars is coming to the same conclusion as Star Trek has the last few years: maybe all that old stuff is worth something after all. Instead of trying for something shiny and new (that mostly just apes the original anyway) maybe we can actually deepen the connections between a lot of these old TV shows and video games and books. Instead of just tossing stuff on the scrap heap and declaring it non canon, why not find a way to use it in canon?
In Star Trek the reboots might have made more money but they kind of fizzled out. On the small screen they've decided to revisit the old continuity with Discovery, Picard, and even the animated Lower Decks show. I haven't really watched those much but from what I've read, they have a lot of references to stuff from the old series and in the case of Picard brought back a number of characters from TNG. There's also supposed to be a new series about Pike's Enterprise as an off-shoot of Discovery.
Part of why this works is you have a lot of fans getting older and thus nostalgic. Bringing back old characters and referencing old stuff makes them remember those good times from the 60s-90s. Especially in the scary world of 2020-2021, it's nice to think back to those less-scary times.
And it can help to right some wrongs. Like Boba Fett "dying" like a chump. Or Luke Skywalker becoming a whiny putz. Stuff that didn't really sit right with people, in the former case for almost 40 years!
I'm not sure how far they'll take this. Probably until fans stop tuning in. Along with a live action Thrawn, I'm really hoping for a live action Mara Jade and Talon Karrde. I'm sure other fans have their own wish lists. Though when it comes to sex, I doubt Disney or CBS/Paramount will be servicing fans much. That will still have to remain in the realm of fan fiction.
2 comments:
Lower Decks was a lot of fun and has so many "easter eggs" in each episode. The first episode was a bit much, but it got a lot better as it went and the season finale was simply amazing. I enjoyed Picard overall...it isn't just TNG continued or rebooted like some people thought. Discovery's most recent season had them jump ahead 900 years so they were beyond existing canon (because whiny crybabies couldn't handle another prequel show).
I couldn't care less about Boba Fett...he deserved to stay dead in the sarlaac since he was overrated even back in the day and only gotten worse since...but what I've seen of Luke's scenes in Mandalorian look awesome and Rian Johnson can lick my ass...and more Ahsoka is always welcome and I'm really hoping we see Thrawn in the future. I'm really thinking that Star Wars, like Star Trek, works best in an episodic series style of storytelling instead of the grand overblown movie format they've used in the past because people want more detail to their stories and the original trilogy had 40 years of storytelling and the prequels got the Clone Wars cartoon that added so much more to things than the films ever could. IMO that was one of the largest failures of the sequels...no decent supporting material to help fill in gaps and give us characters to care about and give us an idea of what the universe was like...I know there's a couple novels, but the casual fan isn't likely to read a novel and the one animated show they did make, Resistance, was really dumbed down and fizzled
I still haven't watched the Mandalorian but I've heard good things about it !
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