The Mandalorian: Star Wars Goes Spaghetti

The Mandalorian: Star Wars Goes Spaghetti

The Mandalorian

Disney's made-for-tv venture into the world of Star Wars is a quick-fire, sure-fire, winner because it at once hooks into a myriad of cult classics. The plot centres on a bounty hunter operating at the fringes of the known universe.
   Firstly, there's his identity to be intrigued by. He's presented by his race--The Mandalorian--not by a personal name; ie this is tribal. He's an outsider, recognised by his armour, not by his face; and that armour! I don't know about you, but the helmet reminds me at once of both the ancient Spartans and the very modern Robocop.
   Character-wise, he's a high-plains drifter, cool, calm and collected with a smoking gun and very few words. He's good at what he does, which so far is mostly smoking bad guys and big monsters; but this is a series, not a film, and it's set in the Star Wars universe, where anything can be encountered and surprises are expected.
   Perhaps the biggest surprise so far is the appearance of a baby Yoda (we don't know yet if this is a baby from Yoda's species or even Yoda reborn). This is a possible masterstroke, since not only is the Yoda character much-loved, but everyone gurgles over adorable babies like this one--remember how adorable baby Groot was in Guardians of the Universe?

baby Groot

But there's more: baby Yoda has already saved the Mandalorian's butt, apparently through mind-control, but the baby overtaxed its strength and had to sleep for a while afterwards, thus revealing its weakness despite its strength.
   Of course it's a shoot-'em-up series and there have been a few pretty impressive shoot-'em-up scenes already. The very spaghetti-western showdown between nasty kidnappers on the one hand and the Mandalorian teamed up with a bounty-droid, is fun.

a bounty droid

The fact that the Mandalorian wastes the droid is interesting as well because he agreed on a 50-50 deal with the droid and then reneged on the agreement.

a baby Yoda

Is that because he has no morals or because by not killing the mark he's going to get a bigger reward? Or does he perhaps have feelings for this baby or curiosity about its nature? We don't know yet but it will be fun to see how it plays out.
   We can only hope that the series builds on this strong beginning. There is every reason why it should.

Mr Robot: Gnome or KDE? A review.

Mr Robot: the new TV series

There's a moment in the pilot of the upcoming Mr Robot TV series when the protagonist and his future supporter/ antagonist/ nemesis (we don't as yet know exactly how this relationship might pan out) look at each other and have a brief conversation that includes something like "I see you use Gnome. I'm a KDE man myself."

It made me smile (I'm a Gnome man here) and I assumed it was in the show to give Mr Robot some tech credibility, but really I'm not so sure. Later, there's a lot of quick linux scripting to block malicious code, and that's obviously more tech-cred. Yet the more I think about it, "Gnome or KDE?" really is something that we linux guys say to each other. I realise I've had that conversation quite a few times over the years.

The pilot is engaging and full of promise. Elliot is a young programmer by day and hacker by night. He's also deceitful, distrustful and a social misfit; in his isolation his mind is apocalyptic-sharp and he sees through the world system's fronting in a way similar to the premise of the successful Matrix films of yesteryear. It seems he has an overarching desire to destroy what he sees as the facade of the normal, so early on we see how he hacks the overlord of a child porn group and passes on the information to bring the man and his business down, rather than use the info to extort blackmail money. In this, Elliot is a modern-day Robin Hood or Batman, seeking to right wrongs when he can.

But porn sites are small change compared to what the mysterious Mr Robot offers him. This gives the show much potential. Elliot's dysfunctional personality also offers plenty of plot direction and character development.

The pilot is a good start. I'm already hoping part two will be just as good.