May The 4th Be With You - The Mandalorian Series Recap

hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to movie goodness where we explore life

through cinema here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and happy star wars day may the fourth

be with you yes this is the annual celebration of everything star wars that takes place on may the 4th every single year and 2026 is no exception this year for may the

4th i decided that since we're approaching the release of the mandalorian and gogru in theaters later on this month on may the

22nd to be exact.

why not go over the three seasons of the disney plus lucas films television series the mandalorian which is a show that i just the

first season was great uh nothing compares to that first season as far as this show is concerned the other two seasons were fine but that first season was was

bananas good it was nominated for an emmy for outstanding dramatic series it is one of the only things to come out of this lucas films disney era of star wars that i thoroughly enjoy i

did like andor i did like rogue one i you know it nothing i really hate it but there are there are certain you

films or television shows that i would never go back and watch after i watched the first time i'm good you know i'll never go back and watch the trilogy you know force awakens uh the last jedi and rise of skywalker i would never go back and watch those not

because they were just that bad it just didn't hook me as far as star wars is concerned where i can watch the original trilogy over and over and over and over again

i i hey i even watched the uh sequel or the prequel trilogy more than i've watched this latest trilogy and that's saying a lot do you know but this new era of star wars since

disney acquired it i haven't is nothing that really hooked me other than the mandalorian uh coming out of this era you had as I mentioned the

the sequel trilogy you had solo a star wars story over on disney plus you had the mandalorian you also had um ahsoka which didn't really land uh obi-wan kenobi didn't

really land the less said about the acolyte the better uh skeleton crew i actually enjoyed skeleton crew but it wasn't

Star Wars,

you know?

the mandalorian for all intents and purposes i felt was real star wars i felt star warsy watching that show and for the first season definitely uh it

kind of was the law of diminishing returns after that first season but still enjoyable nonetheless so in honor of may the fourth be with you i've decided that we're gonna go just quick i'm not gonna

linger on every single episode of the mandalorian because we'll be here forever so i decided we're gonna do i i did uh uh i've gotten into the habit of doing these recaps it just doing uh

plot points throughout the seasons and what's leading us up to either the next season in this case the movie so that's what we're gonna do for the mandalorian you

and not going to give a review because this is a recap so we're just going to recap i might give my two cents on a couple of plot points that took place that i liked some that i didn't but not going to linger on too long that we'll just push on through but in case you don't know what

the mandalorian is all about uh it's it's set five years after return of the jedi and 25 years before

The Force of Reikins,

just to give you a chronological

landscape of where this story takes place and before i go into it let me give you this little plot point here i've mentioned in past star wars property reviews that this disney era of star wars have relied so

heavily on the skywalker saga we haven't ventured out in any sense of the universe and this is star wars you know we're just

stuck in this little timeline revolving around luke skywalker and darth vader and you know all that stuff and all that's good i know that's nostalgic wise it's great you know for us who can't think outside the box cool but

you want to hear new stories and granted this is new you know this is a different story in in terms of the mandalorian but it's still set in that universe

and it's still hooked up with the uh skywalker saga to the point and we're gonna get to that but in season two we actually got luke skywalker on the show and so it's it's so enriched

in that saga everything every show every movie that has come out in the last what

10 15 years since we started this little

new little run of star wars movies and shows it is all involved around skywalker and it's time to move on and if you want to uh continue on with that let's bounce and move forward now

i give the uh the sequel trilogy that at least you was moving forward with the story but you were still stuck in the past because you brought back luke you brought back alea you brought back han

you know chewy and all of the good uh r2d2 and cp uh creepio it is all all that was still linked up with it but let's move on it's time to move on and and tell some new stories now the

mandalorian for his credit did tell a new story it is is something that is very interesting what a lot of people felt

uh you know going off of what you read off social media and whatnot during the time of the release of season one of the mandalorian oh why couldn't have been bubble fat they could have just bounced off of bubble fat everybody has this obsession with bubble fat and

i never was that guy as much as i love star wars i never understood the the obsession with bubble fat now yeah i wanted to know more about them because we didn't get much of them

in the first film he barely spoke i think he had one line of dialogue maybe i can't even remember now but i was never like clamoring for a bubble fat movie or tv show which we did get and i'm sure we all regret that you know at least those of us who wanted a bubble fat show a

show that was so bad or i'm not gonna say bad so uninteresting that they had to bring in

the mandalorian to save it because the second half of that show was basically mandalorian 2.5 season 2.5 it it did nothing to tell bubba fat's story all it did was continue on the

mandalorian story going into season three but nonetheless uh yeah it does uh sit into that time frame in the star wars chronological order

And it tells the story of a lone bounty hunter who goes on the run to protect the child.

And we find out that that child is Baby Yoda.

That was the name that was given to him in the first season because he didn't have one.

We just knew him as Baby Yoda.

The cutest little thing you could ever conjure up over there at Lucasfilms.

And later on we find out that his name is Go-Groo.

And

to be completely honest with you i would have preferred to stick with baby yoda but it's cool now the one thing about this show spoiler alert maybe we'll find out in the movie we we never find out his origin on

the show where'd he come from you know what race is he from is he part of yoda's lineage or whatever uh they taking they're taking a sweet time with that explanation but uh

He's still a cool character,

a cute character,

and an interesting character that adds a different dynamic to this show.

The Mandalorian,

or Din Djarin,

is played by...

Mr.

I'm in everything Pedro Pascal.

Pedro Pascal is in every single show and or movie.

It is not even it's almost to the point where you're oversaturated with Pedro Pascal.

I think I think a lot of his

TV shows and movies lately are starting to suffer a little bit because of the overexposure.

That's my feeling.

I'm.

Me personally,

I love Pedro Pascal.

Loved him on

The Last of Us.

Loved him on this show.

I liked him as Reed Richards on

Fantastic Four.

You know,

he's a really cool actor,

a really good actor with a lot of range because he can play all of these characters.

But as far as The Mandalorian is concerned,

we don't see his face.

We hear his voice.

We don't see his face maybe once or twice.

on the show i think yeah twice no three times on the show and that's it that's because the mandalorian going by their religion they can't remove their helmets so that has led to a lot of speculation from fans

of the show fans of star wars that uh pedro pascal is virtually just a voice actor he's not really under the helmet and uh costume there

on set he's not live on set filming he's more of a voice actor now i'm more than certain that a lot of the actual dendron that we see on the show is

probably a stand-in or stunt performer i i i'm sure i'm pretty sure but i think he does get in the suit i think he is there on set more than what people think.

At least that's my feeling.

I could be wrong,

which I'm wrong a lot.

But

I really believe that he's there more often than not.

This show has a unique filming thing.

It's on the volume.

They call it the volume.

It is filmed at

Industrial Light and Magic.

It's this thing that they call stagecraft technology that they created for the show.

It's a...

360 degree wall is basically the whole room of a video wall and it creates the environments around you so what you see why it looks like these actors are in actually

in these environments because they're filming on a set is on a stage you know they're not on location of course but uh it feels really as opposed of being

in front of a green screen which at this point moviegoers have grown accustomed to and can spot it we we can spot green screen from a mile away you know the fake backgrounds but this this new technology even though you can kind of still spot it you can spot it but it's not as blatant as green screen it looks more organic and

i i do like the way it looked actually i was blown away when I found out that that's what they do.

for the show i thought they were shooting not the whole thing but a couple of places on location no it's it's all in within this studio and one of the other great things about this show is

in in a lot of other shows as well it's not just the mandalorian but they use not only this new technology but they use practical effects a lot of practical effects on the show i i

deeply appreciated for that as well i love in-camera uh effects season one premiered on november the 12th 2019 believe it or not eight episodes releasing weekly on disney plus key

moments in season one uh we start off with the mission the mission in season one uh din jar and he accepts a bounty from the client.

who we find out to be warner hogzog to retrieve this child and it comes to find out it's a 50 year old child which is weird to say it's it's strange to say 50 year old child but

that child comes to be baby yoda aka go group so we go on this adventure of mondo or den jar and he goes and search for this child.

He...

he finds the child and they create a bond and so he delivers the child he still has an oath and that's one thing about mandalorians

They stick to their oaths.

And so he goes to deliver the child as instructed,

even though he feels this bond.

He leaves the child and immediately feels guilty and breaks out.

The child returns back to the imperial facility where he's being held,

breaks him out.

Now we off on run off on a run.

He's being hunted.

He travels the galaxy,

he being Din Djarin with the child,

travels the galaxy to protect the child from other bounty hunters who have been commissioned to take down Mondo and retrieve the child.

And Moff Gillian,

who is played by the great

Gene Carlos Espistozio,

and he is seeking a child for unpacific reasons.

We don't know.

It's unknown.

at this point why moff gillian gillian is seeking out the child as well uh mondo isn't along though he does have allies uh he builds a team with carla doom who was a former rebel uh

stock trooper who was played by gina carano who we ain't gonna get into it here but was unceremoniously uh let go

from lucasfilms and disney due to her uh political views let's just say that but uh car don't don't she's uh uh one of the allies uh ig11 which is a reprogrammed droid is helping him out as well and

kareel who is uh repairing the razor crest who is which is the mandalorian ship

uh krill is one of my favorite characters on the show you know because he is uh voiced by uh the great nick nolte uh giving that groggily old broken down voice with uh with his catchphrase i have spoken you know it

is it is money uh gone too soon that character but he is assisted but we get to the end you

of this season and unfortunately Kurel and IG-11 they die in a battle when the

Imperial forces on

Navarro converge to take down the Mandalorian and retrieve the child then Joran he fights off Moff Gillian who reveals he has the Dark Saber and officially becomes the guardian of the child after

being tasked with finding his kind so season one wraps up with den joran leaving navarro with the child adapting a quote-unquote this is the way mentality towards the child's safety and taking responsibility for finding the

jedi and so uh a real good start to this season or to this show and it felt like at this point that star wars was back on track

man it felt like this was this was what we needed as star wars fans uh just something that we can all get behind and cheer and for the most part i think i think the fandom did you know i

i didn't i don't recall hearing any backlash towards season one people may go back now and feel i wasn't as good as i first thought or something like that i don't know

like i say i haven't heard any i think collectively everybody enjoyed that first season of the mandalorian and so did i so we move on to season two and in season two uh

din joran his quest to reunite gogu with the jedi travels through the galaxy he teams up with some new allies this season.

We get Bo-Katan.

We get

Bubble Fat.

we get ahsoka in this season uh they battle morph gideon who seeks gogru for his blood ultimately resulting in hey the biggest cameo of all time luke skywalker uh

pops up in season two and takes gogru for training after mondo wins the dark saver key points in season two

The search for the Jedi.

Din Djarin,

he seeks out other Mandalorians to find the Jedi.

And this leads him to Cobb,

who is played on the show by Timothy Alderflant,

who,

man,

I love Timothy Alderflant.

I don't know what it is about.

him i just i just like him it's not it's not one particular character that he ever played whether it was on justified or hitman or whatever it is i just i just like him you

know he's just a cool dude whatever he pops up on screen and for him to pop up on his show was pretty cool and cop has believe it or not the armor of Boba Fett and this eventually leads to

Din Djarin to Bo-Katan,

who seeks to reclaim the Darksaber from Moff Gideon.

And so his allies on this particular season,

you have

Grief Karga,

who is played by the late,

great

Carl Weathers,

who,

I mean,

you know,

you never appreciate somebody until they're gone.

Carl Weathers was amazing,

man.

He even directed.

I think one or two episodes on this show.

I don't know if it was this season or season three in particular,

but I think it was season three and it was pretty good show.

At least episode,

I should say.

Unfortunately,

he passed away a couple of years ago,

but yeah,

he plays grief.

Cara Dune,

they link up with him to destroy this Imperial lab.

They fight this dragon.

they team up with bubble fat on on this uh season as well we get a uh a long-awaited live action adaptation of ahsoka tana on this show ahsoka

tano who came to fame on the animated show clone wars and rebels to see her live action played by rosario dawson here who who looks perfect

as Ahsoka Tana which was basically a backdoor pilot to her own show on Disney Plus which

I think we're getting a second season to very soon as well but then Joran finds Ahsoka who reveals that the child's name is not Baby Yoda it is indeed

Go-Groo but she refuses to train Go-Groo because of his deep attachment to you

den jarman she's like well there's no way i can train him uh he's too linked to you but she does point him in another direction to seek the seeing stone or another planet and so while while they get to that planet um

the imperial dark troopers kidnap go group after destroying the razor crest uh bandalorian ship which which was a cool looking ship man that was that was a

that was that was that was a gut punch because i like that ship and so we get to the finale and we get to the rescue of go group we have den jarin bubble fat uh caradum uh bo katana they

infiltrate moff gideon's cruiser and so den jarin he defeats moff gideon in combat and he wins the Darksaber and becomes the rightful ruler of Mandor.

And this pretty much throws a monkey wrench in the relationship between him and Bo-Katan,

who was seeking that goal.

We get the cameo of all cameos at the end of this emotional finale of season two.

When a Jedi arrives at this station,

his ship docks and we see a lightsaber light up.

And,

you know,

it's the skies,

but we know who it is.

do we all know who it was it was just gonna be how is he gonna look is it gonna be uh mark hamill of present time where he looks nothing like he did in

1977 or 1983 uh it it's the visual effects here bro the the facial

what they call it the facial replace whatever it is it's ai now but they weren't using that particular thing i forgot what deep fake i think that's what it was but anyway luke skywalker arrives and he takes gogu for training but it

was a an emotional end when um din jarman was saying goodbye to gogu as he handed him over to luke and he took off his helmet

And like I mentioned earlier before,

Mandalorians are not to take off the helmets under no circumstances for no reason and show their face to anybody else.

But he showed it to go.

And that was that was touching,

man,

because.

you can say what you want dead pedro pascal he's only a voice actor he only showed up for this one scene or whatever but he showed up and showed out because it was so emotional you could see it on his face it was powerful it was a powerful moment um a

great ending to this season unfortunately this season led into the book of bubble fat and and

it's it's it's the less said about that the better uh a little side note in the book of bubble fat uh it's revealed that gogu leaves his training to reunite with den jarman so we don't know that unless

we watch the book of bubble fat because when season three starts they're back together again and so it there's this is where they started getting too too messy

fortunately or unfortunately for me i watched book of bubble fat so i knew this was going on but there's a lot of people who didn't watch book of bubble fat or started watching it and gave up two or three episodes in understandably but

me i'm an idiot i watched it all the way through and that's how i found out that information but that's what spawned off of season two of the mandalorian so

With that being said,

let's jump into

Season 3.

In Season 3,

which premiered on Disney Plus on March 1st of

2023, this season they focus mainly on Din Djarin trying to redeem himself by bathing in the living waters of Mandalore,

also helping Bo-Katan reunite the fractured...

factions in Mandalorian lore and fighting to retake their homeworld from

Moff Gideon.

This was clearly the weaker of the two seasons,

or three seasons,

I should say.

It was an alright season,

but it dragged,

man.

It just felt so draggy,

this particular season of The Mandalorian.

First off,

our...

little highlights that we had this season.

Din Djorin,

he restores his honor by visiting the ruined planet of Mandalore by bathing in the living waters beneath the mines.

But there was a fight to even get to Mandalore which was devastated by the

First Order.

You have

Bo-Katan is tasked with uniting the various

mandalorian factions eventually wielding the dark saver to lead them back to their home planet of mandalore uh you have the return of mark gideon um the season reveals mark gillian escaped custody uh

has been experimenting with cloning to create force sensitive clones of himself and is working with the imperial shadow council um

like i mentioned the battle for mandalore the mandalorians they met uh they launched a combined assault to reclaim their home planet during the final battle the darksaber is destroyed by morph gideon but the mandalorians prevail nonetheless with axe wolves uh

crassing a ship into the base to defeat morph gideon uh go group uses the ig12 uh

merc unit which is rebuilt from the remains of ig11 to move and to speak uh while his backstory shows he is he was rescued from the jedi temple during order 66 and then we get to the finale of

season three where the mandalorians officially reclaim their planet then joran formally officially adopts gogu and he becomes din you

GroGro,

which was pretty cool.

And they settle into their new home on Navarro with Din Djarin doing independent contract work for the New

Republic.

This season shifts from a lone wolf and cub story to a larger narrative about rebuilding culture and uniting for a common cause and it features heavy

Mandalorian focused lore and action throughout this season.

I think the problem we have here,

which it isn't a problem,

but it is a problem nonetheless,

if that makes any sense.

We've...

we started off on this journey all the way back in season one that this was a uh lone wolf and cub story and when we finally get to season three it became something bigger they kind of abandoned their mission mission statement and went

in a completely different direction which is nothing wrong with that but it didn't feel organic in a sense at least to me it felt like it was forced to kind of set up a

bigger universe instead of just being disciplined and focused on telling a story that involves the mandalorian and baby yoda or the mandalorian and gogu and follow them on their many adventures but

it turned into a soft launch into other star wars properties we got soft launches to

Ahsoka soft launches into the book of Bubba

fat soft launches into i guess in a way um a alleged boca ton series that they're developing so there's a possibility that too it was just a lot going on instead of this

singular focus now i'm all for telling the story in a bigger universe not to sound i don't want to be accused of being a hypocrite like i was saying earlier yes you want to tell a story of a wider universe but

in this particular sense,

I'm watching the Mandalorian.

I didn't want to watch,

you know,

everybody else's story.

I want to know the Mandalorian story.

I want to know Din Djarin story or Go-Groo story.

And that's it.

That's it.

But that's where it kind of,

kind of started to fall off.

It was setting up so much instead of just staying singular focus.

But with all that being said,

all three seasons were.

pretty good the first season was great the second season was good and the third season was decent and that's the best i can describe the mandalorian in its totality but the big question will be how

would this movie play out will this be a just continuation of the tv show and i mean that in the sense of the look because if you're going to make that jump to the big screen

i want to feel the epicness of watching this on the big screen you know i don't want to go to the movie spend my hard-earned 15 or however much it is these days i i mean because it feels like it goes up every week every time i go to go

to the theater uh if i'm gonna spend my hard-earned money i don't want to sit there and and pay 30 for a popcorn and a cold drink i don't want to sit there.

And watch something that

I'm midway through.

I'm like,

I could have watched this on Disney Plus.

I don't want to.

I don't want to make that statement.

I want it to be bigger.

I want the stakes to be higher.

I want I want it to be just scale wise.

Some of the most gorgeous cinematography I've ever seen.

We'll see.

I mean,

judging off the trailer.

it looks promising to a sense but that's only a two and a half minute trailer so i i'm not i'm not ready to say oh man this is gonna be great no i'm not to that point yet but i am excited in the sense that we are getting a star wars film in theater something we haven't gotten in a long time and

you never miss something till it's gone you know he

you complain we complained i ain't gonna say you but we complain about the content that lucas films and disney was putting out uh with these star wars films uh in this last few outings and now we're not getting any and it's like wait man i

need to see star wars on the big screen and i'm I'm excited to see it.

And it's a good,

it's a good re-entry into the.

theatrical experience with star wars with the mandalorian i get i think the most celebrated

uh property they've put out in the last 15 years is so it's smart in that sense if we want to kind of not reboot but you know revitalize

the fandom and i'm i'm all for it i can't wait i i'm i'm just ready to get back in the theater i've grown to love the theater's a theory theatrical experience

uh if i could talk uh over the last few months it came back because after covid it kind of left and it just didn't have that feel and then for about three years three or four years after covid you

know people just been staying away from theaters and you know you go to the theater now to watch a movie you might get five six people in the screen at least for me you know around me

I know theaters,

theaters got to be packed,

you know,

because there are movies that are making billions of dollars in the theater.

So it's not like this is a common thing across the world.

But I know in my area,

a lot of people sparingly go to the theaters because it's so expensive for one.

It's expensive to go.

And then the quality hasn't been that good.

The movies haven't been great.

nothing event wise where

you can run out and go you know everybody wants to go see it you know other than barbie that's that's the last thing i remember people going in droves you know in groups to go see sinners sinners too because i remember going to see sinners and

people were dressed up in old timey uh attire and that was cool man i felt left out i wanted to go find some old uh

1930s

gar to put on but uh nothing event wise like it used to be you know and star wars is the most event movie going experience you can think of man it started it all it started fandom it started nerd nerd them you know geek them uh it is it

is the birth of pop culture star wars and so welcome back in the theaters the mandalorian and gogu will be in

theaters on may the 22nd i'll be there uh with bells on baby i can't wait and hopefully this little rundown of the last three seasons of the mandalorian will get you all caught up for the movie you won't go and be lost like what's going on here why

are we here and we probably still and i've re-watched it for this show and i probably still will have that same statement when we go Oh,

see.

movie i don't know where they're going to pick up at in that movie but i will be there to find out i want to know how are you celebrating may the fourth uh are you going to re-watch the original trilogy or are you going to watch some disney shows or whatever or are you just going to wait till the 22nd to go see the mandalorian go group i

would love to know email the show kb radio

podcast at gmail.com you can search for the show on all social media platforms just search for the kb radio network also don't forget about youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video if you don't mind don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness

here on the kb radio net

Network.

Everybody,

thank you for joining me for this recap of the Mandalorian seasons one,

two,

and three.

I want you all to know that I love you.

Continue to love one another until we speak again.

May the force be with you.

May The 4th Be With You - The Mandalorian Series Recap

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