Thoughts on ‘The Marshal’

Since The Mandalorian is the hottest thing in the galaxy right now, and with my queue of current projects winding down and no opportunities for public interpretive events in the foreseeable future, I want to share my thoughts on each episode shortly after each airs. Because…I have thoughts! These won’t be general reviews, but I’m going to try and focus on applying the topics of this blog (character design, material culture, issues of in-universe consistency, etc). Additionally, my research tends to uncover random details which enhance our knowledge of the galactic setting, but which aren’t always meaty enough to merit their own essays; I think Mandalorian episode writeups will be the perfect place to sprinkle these in.
I’ll be discussing topics in the order they appear, so let’s get started!

Since S01E06(‘The Prisoner’), the show seems to have a problem with its male Twi’leks. The size, shape, and angle of the head-tails is all wrong—they’re female-style(ish)—and I think it’s a side effect of the show’s relatively small budget. Since the usual male Twi’lek doesn’t wear a headband to hide the transition between actor and prosthetic, the look requires much more time in the makeup chair; the show’s makeup team have apparently decided it’s simply easier to pop a pair of female-style lekku and a headband on and call it good…but it looks hella weird:

-Did anyone else think it was strange to see Gamorreans who seemed…fit? For the last 37 years we’ve only ever seen Gamorreans as chunky as the guards at Jabba’s palace, and it makes sense that prizefighters wouldn’t be so fat, but it just takes some getting used to.

Right off the bat, we’re heading back to Tatooine, which got me rolling my eyes and sighing heavily…the last time (S01E05) was full of ridiculous amounts of conspicuous callbacks and fanservice, so I was praying this wouldn’t be a similar situation.

The banthas we see in this episode look…off. Maybe because my mental image of them is based on the original appearance in Episode IV…mostly I think it’s their mouths, with lips being less hairy and therefore more prominent.

I dislike the creation of an all-new “city” for the Mando to visit. ‘Mos Pelgo’ is a great example of post-Disney Lucasfilm’s habit of  ignoring what already existed in a setting and instead making something out of whole cloth. Since first hearing the name in this episode, I’ve learned that it actually originated in a 2016 expansion to The Old Republic MMO (which is technically not Disney!Canon), so while not a post-Disney creation, it’s from ~4000 BBY and there’s little else known about the place.
In addition to the visited-onscreen cities of Mos Eisley and Espa, the EU proper already had a handful of other similarly-named cities from this period—Moses Entha, Taike, Elrey, Nytram, and Zabu (the former two glimpsed through Darth Maul’s binoculars in Episode I), any of which would’ve be great to explore and flesh out.
However, rather than deepen the existing material, the show’s creators chose to widen the scope and make up yet another settlement; I think this does the setting a disservice. We already had a dozen towns on Tatooine, and in the past, I always got the sense that the ‘Mos’-named places were the actual cities, and the smaller communities had regular names like Bestine, Anchorhead, Arnthout, Wayfar, etc., but once we get there, this ‘Mos Pelgo’ place really seems like a less-than-one-horse town. However, I really dug the way the scenes at ‘Mos Pelgo’ leaned heavily on the Western genre tropes…even my partner picked up on it.

Saloon scene: I don’t like the way ‘spotchka’ is now what everyone drinks every place Mando travels to. There are plenty of other drinks they could’ve gone with, but they use the one that didn’t exist before Season 1. Back on the krill-farming planet I got the feeling it was just the local grog, but now it’s everywhere.  Pass.

The Marshal: not being previously familiar with the actor, it took me a few minutes to realize we weren’t looking at a digitally de-aged Billy Bob Thornton! I like his design; it’s been a while since we’ve seen a solid Old West archetype transplanted into the GFFA, and with his goatee, Custer-type shirt, tall boots, scarf, and holster he could easily be an extra from Tombstone!
Putting the Boba armor on someone not wearing the whole Fett ensemble (flightsuit, cape, low boots, etc) is extremely refreshing, and reminds me how comparatively un-armored Boba was…the lower body stuff didn’t really show up until Jango in Episode II.
Timothy Oliphant and I are of similar builds (scarecrow-esque), so if I were ever to put together an armored character impression, it’d probably look a lot like ‘Cobb Vance’—chest, gauntlets, small shoulder plates, no leg pieces.

-I can’t believe I have to say this, but….Krayt dragons are NOT sandworms.

-I like that Cobb is clearly riding a former Podracer engine turned into a speeder…it speaks to the DIY/tinkering aspect of Tatooine culture. I do Not like how reminiscent it is of Anakin’s podracer. I predict some supplementary material down the line will confirm its lineage, but it just makes things feel too small.

-I love that the ‘Mining Collective’ mooks hightail it in a V35 speeder…and that we finally get to see the rangefinder/backpack missile combo in action…a satisfying payoff since the appearance of the original Boba Fett 1980 action figure.

-It’s always nice to see Jawas and the inside of a sandcrawler. But since we’re back on Tatooine, why do these Jawas still have red eyes? I could buy the ones last season as being an offworld colony with mutation, but this seems lazy.

-I like that they brought back the Massifs from Episode II for another appearance. I don’t like that Titular Mando is able to calm them by speaking Tusken, however…
Probably my main issue with S01E05(‘The Gunslinger’) was the hamfisted way the native Tatooinians (Tusken Raiders/’Sand People’) were used to pad out that episode’s runtime for a superfluous scene. They’re used much better here. While their previous depictions showed them to be a strictly insular and isolationist culture, it’s conceivable that they would still have a sign language to communicate among different clans. However, I find it hard to believe that an outsider—let alone the Titular Mandalorian—would be fluent in it. Here in S02E01, they have taken it up another level, making him now fluent in their spoken language as well! This strains believability to me. I would much prefer subtitled signlanguage.

LOL at the Tusken poking at his bantha’s teeth with a gaderffii…I love watching background folks to spot silly gems like this. Thanks to the Parts of Star Wars’ facebook page, I learned this was a reference to the early days when fans thought the gaffi stick’s design was inspired by a toothbrush ‘gum stimulator’!
On the other hand, SMH at the Tusken looking through ‘binocs…there’s something I don’t think we would’ve ever seen in the EU.

Once we get to the scenes with a bunch of townsfolk together, you can definitely tell the citizenry got a lot of their outfits at the same shop! Between this show, ‘Rogue One’, and ‘Solo’, Disney has been making the most of their costume budget and doing a lot of double-dipping. This is Tatooine, so I would’ve liked to see way more bucket hats and fewer brown Hoth trooper hats, but it’s whatever. The civilians’ clothing definitely have that generic yet cohesive, Batuu-esque style, and any would-be costumers would do well to study their elements closely (I’ll be adding them to the Style Guide as we go along). Especially of note is the extreme…grubbiness of everybody (they’re a mining community after all), compared to the pristine cleanliness you’ll see in 99% of cosplayers or Batuu-bounders. The look onscreen is convincing because their costumes are dirty, but not distressed: they’re not wearing holey rags, but it has been awhile since laundry day. Finally, note that the whole crew wear nothing but earthtones, except for the Marshal with his reddish shirt and scarf. It makes him visually stand out, but he is the exception to the rule.

“It’s just a matter of time before [the ‘dragon’] goes after…the school” This line got a chuckle out of me. Education is one of those subjects that gets the short end of the stick in that it’s never mentioned or depicted. However, we do know how youth on Tatooine get educated, and there’s no school involved: “We didn’t have a school the way you did on Corellia, see, we all took classes via a local HoloNet and sent lessons in on datacards, you know …”
 “Gavin, are you trying to tell me you don’t know how to kiss a girl?”
The young man pulled his head up and blinked, then frowned. “Anchorhead may have been small but not that small.” (X-Wing: Rogue Squadron#2 – Wedge’s Gamble). In other words, much like COVID-quarantined students of 2020, they do distance learning on Tatooine!

Tusken ballistae…WTF?

As well as Ben Kenobi’s tusken-scattering howl, it sounds like the ‘Krayt dragon’ has a bit of acklay in its audio mix…menacing!
It’s not clear if we were meant to think the critter’s acid-burp actually dissolves its victims. If so, that’s pretty gnarly!  However, I super-dislike the way the ‘dragon’ is able to seemingly teleport from place to place (including to the top of a rocky mountain and back to the other side of the valley?!) during the final battle.

Should Cobb be able to successfully use Boba’s jetpack? Though it’s always cool to see, but I feel like he shouldn’t, or at least have a harder time maneuvering with it. Still, ya gotta love the moment when the main theme kicks in, they grab their blasters, and take off. I also really like how Mando’s jetpack sounds so slick compared to the other one (still retains the classic Jango/Boba sound, just rougher—as it should!)

Mando hitting Cobb’s jetpack to make it take off is a pretty clear callback to Boba’s demise in Episode VI, but I feel I should point out that the reason Han accidentally activated the pack was because of the vibrolance he was holding:

If the Z-6 jetpack is prone to taking off when simply hit with a rifle butt, that’s a major design flaw!

It’s great to see the appearance of a honking big ‘dragon pearl’…which first appeared in the EU back in late 1995 (Darksaber, and then a few months later in Tales from Jabba’s Palace). I know they’re prized by Tuskens as individual trophies during rites of passage, but somehow I can’t see the tribes taking such a big pearl to Mos Eisley to cash it in for credits 😉

And finally, we get a 5-second shot of Temuera Morrison made up as Boba Fett…meh. I think it would be hilarious if this is all we saw of him all season, just to piss off everyone who’s hoping for a big showdown between him and the Titular Mandalorian.

There! A bit wordy, perhaps, but this is the kind of stuff my buddies and I would normally bitch about around the campfire, and in COVIDland that ain’t happening. I would love to hear what YOU thought about this episode in the comments below. Until next time!

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