Trying to watch a TV show in this day and age without having it be spoiled is about as difficult as getting meaningful financial support from the government in the midst of a pandemic.We are in a day and age where you can't just watch some shit when you want to watch it. Instead, you find yourself forced to watch it out of fear of it being spoiled, because God forbid you don't watch the damn thing within an hour of it airing.
All of this to say that I wanted to wait until every chapter of season 2 of The Mandalorian was out before watching it, just as I did season 1. But there were so many damn spoilers on my Twitter timeline that I was forced to watch it beforehand. I got close though. Chapter 13's release was when I dove in.
But I'm not here to talk about spoilers on the timeline. Or even season 2 of The Mandalorian a whole, although knowing me I'll end up getting into that. I'm here to talk about a moment in season 2 which seems to have divided the Internet, as Star Wars does.
So, Luke Skywalker turns up in the season 2 finale. This was not a surprise to me, because lo and behold, it was spoiled for me. In part by a tweet from Mark fucking Hamill himself no less. I wasn't excited by this revelation, and also wasn't blown away by Luke turning up. I was actually kinda disappointed, because I thought Star Wars was trying to move away from Luke. The burning question for me was now I know that Luke turns up, how will Disney pull it off? Luke Hamill is way past an age where you can just digitally age him down to look like he's in his twenties. And surely after the feedback from Rogue One they wouldn't CGI his entire face.And then they CGI'd his entire face.
The same shit Disney did for Rogue One with General Tarkin and Princess Leia, they did for Luke. But it somehow looked worse, because it was like a combination of bad CGI and deepfakery. Luke looked so bad that it completely took me out of the moment. Everything about this final episode was so damn good. Then Luke removed his hood and it just shattered everything. It was terrible. I don't get how somebody saw that shit and thought that it was okay and didn't need more work. I know that The Mandalorian went into post production during the industry shut down brought on by Miss Corona and her Contamination world tour. But still. The fact that somebody online has already taken the scene and made it look better. Disney should be ASHAMED.But rubbish CGI aside, once I got over how bad Luke looked, I realised that I just wasn't here for Luke being included at all, and that I'm probably in the minority of folk who feel this way.
Season 1 of The Mandalorian was amazing because it was giving me Star Wars in a way that I hadn't experienced it before. It was a perfect balance of old meets new. There was enough that was familiar that it felt like Star Wars, but it wasn't the constant re-treads that we got with some of the films. The Mandalorian seemed to get Star Wars in ways that the prequels and The Rise of Skywalker did not, and also expanded and redefined what makes Star Wars...well, Star Wars, by going back to what George Lucas set out for Star Wars to be. A space Western.The Rise of Skywalker was a complete mess, not just because it was...a mess. But because rather than forge something new, which The Last Jedi had left it open to do, it decided to just give us a shoddy greatest hits of moments from the original Star Wars trilogy. Then have a brand new character return to Tatooine and say that she's a Skywalker, because J.J. Abrams figured it was such a great and poignant moment, when it was the absolute worst thing he could have done in a film that was already doing the worst.
The Mandalorian set out to be its own thing and revelled completely in that. It wasn't about Skywalkers, Palpatines, or Jedi's, and I adored the show for this reason. It showed that Star Wars could still be Star Wars without being directly linked to the Skywalkers. But in that one moment when Luke showed up, it was absolutely about Skywalkers and Jedi's again, and I sighed. Although I should have known that this was a direction the show was going to go in as soon as baby Yoda came into the picture. Of course Luke was going to get dragged back into this shit somehow.
Luke Skywalker's inclusion in The Mandalorian left me conflicted. Because Luke is a character that I like, and Return of the Jedi Luke is a bad bitch who we never got to see do much aside from somersault and fight Darth Vader. And in the world of this story being told in The Mandalorian, him being the Jedi that turns up to answer the call of the magic Jedi stone makes absolute sense. But it's the implications of Luke turning up that that irks me more than Luke actually turning up - because it's another sign that maybe Star Wars isn't able to let this character go. Luke Skywalker is not the be all and end all of Star Wars, even though his story is what launched the franchise and has kept Star Wars relevant for over 40 years. Whilst The Last Jedi continues to be the Star Wars film everybody hates, I absolutely adored it and felt that it did an amazing job with Luke and providing closure on his story. I'm not saying that I'd never want to see Luke ever again, but did we need him here...again...this soon, after we already saw him in The Rise of Skywalker, turning up as a force ghost to pretty much look right into the camera and say 'Yeah, everything concerning me in The Last Jedi was wrong'?I'm tired of how the films and now the TV shows seem to keep orbiting around the Skywalkers in some way and refusing to let that story go, even after nine films. The Star Wars universe is vast. There are so many other stories to tell and they can each be told without featuring a Skywalker. And yet even in a show which seemed to be fine on its path separate from the films, Luke turns up at the end.
Luke was the culmination of what felt like a chain of throwbacks and opportunities to either provide a throwback or springboard a new show. Boba Fett coming back was cool. I guess. Ahsoka Tano showing up was genuinely amazing. I'll let the show have this, as the way she was introduced and how her character was handled, looked, and the purpose she served to the story (not seeing a Mandalorian as an enemy as Jedi always have, and filling in the blanks of what and who Baby Yoda actually is) were excellently done. Also despite being a fan favourite in The Clone Wars, Ahsoka has always felt like a fringe character, because she's never been committed to live-action before. But now we have her. Also, Chapter 13 is easily the best episode in The Mandalorian's second season. But even so, it was to create a lead-in into a separate show. I ain't mad at that. It makes more sense to me than The Book of Boba Fett. Sweetie. We already have a show about a masked bounty hunter with a female sidekick who is good with a weapon. We don't need another one. Boba don't need no book. Give Fennec a damn book. We could do with more bad bitch Star Wars characters and stories. Especially after
But back to Luke. I get that the point of The Mandalorian is to get people talking. With season 1 that thing was Baby Yoda. This time around we thought it was Ashoka. Then we thought it was Boba. Then, SURPRISE BITCH. It was really Luke. It was a moment which ultimately paid off and made a lot of fans happy, raggedy PS2 face aside. But what does this mean for the future of the character in The Mandalorian? Luke turning up didn't really add anything to his character. Not that it needed to. And not that there's much that could be added to Luke's story at this point anyway - given that The Mandalorian is set only a few years after Return of the Jedi and we know what Luke's arc is beyond it. The only real gap that's left to ponder over is what happens to Grogu. Does he die at the hand of Ben Solo or did he choose not to follow the path of the Jedi and bounce years before? Will we ever know!? Maybe that's a Disney+ series or another trilogy in another 30 years. But Luke's appearance now almost guarantees that we'll see him again at some point and opens the door to The Mandalorian featuring more characters from the films, which is one thing I didn't want The Mandalorian to do. It's a reach for me to say this after just one OG character making a re-appearance. But we know Disney, and we know Star Wars.Shout-outs to RD-D2 though, who I felt 100% happy to see again. You can't go wrong with an R2-D2 cameo. And at least he looked good.
Let me just say this. I adored this episode. Luke's arrival and the build of tension as he tears through the Dark Troopers to get to Grogu was AMAZING. Seeing Return of the Jedi Luke with his green lightsaber and his black Jedi robes did make me swoon a little, as we never really got to see all black, bad bitch Luke really show what a badass he is. His entrance also drew parallels to the Darth Vader scene in Rogue One, which I'm sure was intentional. It's just a shame the iffy CGI from Rogue One came with him. And that his mere inclusion robbed The Mandalorian a little of the work it had done as being an original story which had not a damn thing to do with Skywalkers, by becoming yet another tether to the never-ending Skywalker saga, however small that tether was.
I really hope that this is it, and season 3 of The Mandalorian does not feature an arc which includes Luke. Although the seeds are there for Luke to make additional appearances. If Boba finds out that Luke's back, Boba gon' have beef. Bo-Katan has a history with Anakin, so she'd very much take an interest in discovering that the Jedi she saw was his son. And undoubtedly Din is going to want / have to see Grogu at some point. Luke returning would have far less impact now, but the door is wide open for him to do so and for it to feel justified. I just hope this doesn't open a floodgate. And I most certainly don't want season 3 of The Mandalorian to touch on any part of Palpatine still being alive. None of it. I want season 3 to return to the roots of what made season 1 so amazing, and hone in on the great moments of season 2. Din Djarin trying to find more of his people, and also living this changed life that he has because of Grogu with Grogu no longer in it.I don't hate Luke's inclusion. Iffy face aside, the way Luke came in was bad-ass. It was great seeing this version of Luke again. And it absolutely makes sense given the timeline and the Jedi who we know are still alive. I guess I was just way past the point of having let go of this character and not having every Star Wars related show link to him, but Disney aren't quite there yet.
Still. Chapter 16 was a brilliant episode and I will obviously be renewing my Disney+ account to watch season 3 of this show.
And whilst this a tangent, I have to give a shout out to Ludwig Göransson, whose work on the score for the entire show has been impeccable. But his work in chapter 16?! Bitch. Sublime.