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January 29 2010

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Episode Guide: The Mandalore Plot

Episode Air No: 34
Production No: 213

Director: Kyle Dunlevy
Writer: Melinda Hsu

Episode Brief: While investigating rumors of conspiracy surrounding Duchess Satine of Mandalore - Obi-Wan uncovers the truth about a mysterious Mandalorian plot.

So, was Jango actually a Mandalorian or just a guy who found a Mandalorian armor?

Jango was a real Mandalorian.

There is an accusation in this episode that Jango is not. But given he speaks the language of Concordia, Mandalore's moon, and that moon was colonized by violent Mandalorians, one can assume he is from there.

This episode was incredibly well written. New characters are numerous, the environments are more detailed, the dialogue is tight. Every setting looks like it absolutely belongs in Star Wars. The subtle history between Obi-Wan and Satine plays out wonderfully. This plot should have been written into the prequels.

I agree.

This was a very nice, albeit brief episode.

A lot of the scenarios seemed very Indy like. Obi-wan's and Satine's back and forth were along the lines of Indy's exchanges with Marion and Willie. Vizsla even reminds me of a vain Indy villain. He's sort of a cross between Belloq, a Nazi, and Mola Ram.

Filoni said that the episodes in which Lucas is hands on have a district feel. I see what he means.

It's funny you say that. When I saw the rock crusher the first thing I thought of was Temple of Doom.

[download] megaupload.com

thankyou my aussie brother for the link!
awesome man!

yes i looks like they are building up to the next 2 eps with this one! and from the season 2 trailer and the END of this ep you can see that Satine will be attacked enroute to Coruscant? IS that where the ship
is headed or was it just back to Mandalore FROM Concordia?

cant wait! shame there are still no previews for the following week STILL

Good episode. George definitely meet my expectations with the Mandalorians. I'm assuming that Jango was once a part of Death Watch but went rogue and became a bounty hunter, right?

This cartoon is so much better than the prequels that it's sad. It shows that Star Wars can still be great as long as George collaborates with other talented writers and directors. No, the art department doesn't fucking count. Ah, what could have been.

Another solid episode of The Clone Wars, highly enjoyable and entertaining from start to finish.

Once again, a very kind thank you to the good people here, who share links and allow us less fortunate souls, from across the pond to watch this great show, not long after it airs each week in the US.

Cheers!

I really enjoyed having Obi-Wan as the central hero for once.



I agree that the dialogs are well written, and the environments look splendid, but as the storyline is very basic and centered around Mandalore I don't understand why would you like to see it incorporated into the prequels. Some of the clone-focused or Jedi-focused episodes are much more connected to the prequels, not to mention more interesting.

Downloading now. I think this Mandalorian Trilogy will be fucking awesome.

Thanks for the uploads!

sweet! thanks very much to the uploaders

Very strong storytelling and direction. Maybe the best overall Obi-Wan episode.

I definitely think this type of plot could have sustained an entire film. In my opinion it would have referenced Boba Fett much better.

While this episode was entertaining and I'm excited to see the Mandalorians in action yet again this episode has some SERIOUS canon issues. First and foremost Mandalore is a rural planet with no sprawling cities as is shown in the episode.

Mandalore is ruled by the Mandalore, not some duchess and from the timeline of where the episode takes place in relation to the rest of the Clone Wars Mandalore either has no ruler or Fenn Shysa is acting as Mandalore. Something that really bothered me is when they mention that Jango Fett "found" Mandalorian armor, hinting that he wasn't actually a Mandalorian.


Also these "New Mandalorians" that they created for the episode are a load of crap. Mandalorians are a culture, not a people. The Mandalorians only split into the True Mandalorians and the Deatch Watch. Both are warrior cultures and there is no pacifistic group of Mandalorians. And the fact that they say these two sects of Mandalorians died out is a slap in the face to Karen Traviss and Haden Blackman who, in my mind, created Mandalorian culture.

While I genuinely do like the show Dave Filoni needs to do his research. This wasn't the first episode where he's had slip ups like this but in my opinion this was the worst one in terms of mistakes. I don't mind the creation of new characters and new stories in the Star Wars universe but somebody can't just waltz in and make up whatever they want in an already well established story. This bothers me too because Lucas is approving all of this just on a whim. I hope he isn't losing sight of something that he created.

The only canon is what's in the films, the Force Unleashed video game and this series. Everything else are considered to be extraneous.

Everything you knew in 'Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina', 'Tales of the Bounty Hunters'...the Jaster Mareel and Concord Dawn stuff became defunct as of 1999.

That being said, I think a lot of what was created pre-PT re the Mandalorians was very interesting and I would have loved for it to carry over into the PT. In the end, it's not GL's vision and for better or for worst it was wiped clean. I'm pretty sure the only thing Lucas carried from the EU into the canon was the name Coruscant. Like many people, I wish he paid respect to some of the work done by some great writers pre-PT and avoided it instead of re-writing it (for worse in a lot of ways) but it wasn't to be.

I guess that's how I'm able to enjoy this show; It's not exactly the PT universe I envisioned and the characterizations aren't what I expected pre-1999, but in the context of what we have, they're fun, exciting and well conceived.

Actually EU pro-ponents say everything is "canon" now with a convuluted level system. G-Canon is Lucas-world and everything else is the letters A-F and H-Z level cannon. Fans of the books and novels tend to get pissed when Lucas retcons what has already been established by the licensed novels written by others.

Lucas himself has his own canon levels. The EU (Expanded Universe) is what Lucas calls the "Licensed World":

[spoil]
[align=left]
EXPANDED UNIVERSE & CANON


THE FATHER - LUCAS WORLD

Lucas: “I am the father of our Star Wars movie world - the filmed entertainment, the features and now the animated film and television series and I’m going to do a live-action television series." "Those are all things I am very involved in: I set them up and I train the people and I go through them all. I’m the father; that’s my work."

THE SON - EXPANDED UNIVERSE

Lucas: "Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son - and the son does pretty much what he wants.” “Once in a while, they ask a question like ‘Can we kill off Yoda?’, things like that, but it’s very loose."

THE HOLY GHOST - THE FANS

Lucas: “Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father’s world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way.” (source: timesOnline.uk)
[/align]
[/spoil]

The nice thing about SW is "retcons are your friends" - Dave Filoni.

The Essential Atlas does point out that the Mandalorians (or many of them) do follow the errant clone as he becomes a Mandalore and fights for the CIS in the war. I assume it could be a combination of ex-Death Watch/True Mandalorians and New Mandalorians ruling the sector after the wars and after throwing off the Imperial occupation. At least that's what I'd like to see, instead of rural, bush-dwelling Mandos who can't even clean their own armor (yes, that was actually added to their lore in recent years). In other words, good going, George, you civilized the Mandos.

Shadows of the Empire should be considered canon, as well as what you've mentioned above.
Everything else - the novels, the RPG books and comics are irrelevant.

But I like the comics. Del Rey can go sit and spin on their All Hardcover marketing strategy, but at least dark horse is putting out good stories.

SW canon isn't a "pick and choose;" neither the Force Unleashed game or Shadows of the Empire hold any weight above any other book or piece of media. The simple breakdown is:

Movies -> TV/CG Animated -> Media that fits in the above two levels -> Anything that doesn't "fit" anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon

I would have thought if Lucas was directly involved, in the creation of the stories for multimedia such as TFU and SOTE, then that would immediately elevate it, above things like Zahn's novels, or WEG's role play books.

Personally, I don't care if canon is this or that - I find the whole idea of establishing canons for popular franchises silly and nothing more than part of the marketing. In case of Star Wars only the stuff that Lucas is directly involved in I consider to be the core Star Wars and treat as a consistent whole (and even here I recognize some of the not that great consequences of doing so).

Wait, wasn't this sort of explained in some of the dialogue in this episode? I thought Obi-Wan said something like "You've made progress...?" Or is my imagination playing tricks on me. I'm just going from memory here, having watched it once on TCN on Friday night.

So why can't a planet, a people, or a culture evolve and plots thicken in this series?

Granted, I know nothing of the other things you mentioned, so maybe I'm full of it.




How do we know the guy who said that was telling the truth? Maybe he was being a dick, since he ultimately turns out to be a bad guy.

Kudos to the Black Lightsaber bit, i was hoping to see it soon in the series.

Note that it even has a distinctive sound, different from the normal lightsabers.

Well done!

Yes, he did.

And why should any planet have one culture, environment or climate? That's a stupid sci-fi brain bug and something SW has managed to avoid most of the time (for instance, see Gran dialects and languages in the Prequels, one different for each character).

I loved that too. Very creative look and sound!




"Sci-fi brain bug" is my new favorite expression!

And this is also one of the reasons I still love Star Wars. It grows and evolves, rather than being trapped by its own "canon."
There are always canonical variations in mythology anyway.

This reminds me of when The Phantom Menace first come out. Some asswipe on complained that it was wrong that a character described the Hutts as being gangsters. "Since when are the Hutts gangsters?!" they wrote, to which I said "Since Episode I."

Someone questioned why the Hutts were called gangsters?! The opening crawl of Jedi explicitly referred to Jabba as a "vile gangster" for crying out loud!

To be fair, that could be because the EU writers looked at Jabba and thought all Hutts should be portrayed as gangsters. With the Prequels and the CW series, Lucas stuck to that route though, so now it's forever a major part of the Hutt culture that they're mostly gangsters. I did like how the CW movie referred to Hutt Space, makes the species more intimidating when they actually control a large portion of the galaxy as an empire.

Voyage Of Temptation preview which appears to be not a double-feature as thought:

[spoil]
[flash width=560 height=340]http://www.youtube.com/v/oqzY5npLWhg[/flash]
[/spoil]


BELOW: Mandalorian Ships are reminiscent of the Sith Interceptor:



BELOW: Mandalorian version of Picasso's Guernica:





ABOVE: Duchess Satine and her royal guards were inspired by abandoned design concepts for Episode I. Satine was based on a Queen Amidala illustration by Iain McCaig, while the guards were a Sith exploration also by McCaig.

Was a good lead in episode to the Mandalorian Plot IMHO.

Liked seeing Mandalorian armour given the CW treatment,is it just me or does a Mandalorian suit in this series look similiar to how Boba Fett looked in the Holiday Special?

Not entirely the same but the angles of the style similiar to me.

I was thinking the same thing. The mando's visors are very angular and fit exactly what I remember with how Boba Fett looked when animated.