I cannot express how much I love havjng something like Episodic Medium, where I can read detailed reviews of a show I'm mildly interested in before I take the plunge. Thank you for your service.
Yes - I have read the first few paragraphs and now considering taking the plunge (having not watched any Star Wars media since Rise of Skywalker). This sounds like a fun time!
Is it crazy to jump in without having watched Andor/Mandalorian/Acolyte?
You definitely can avoid The Acolyte. (Even if it was better, it takes place long before the prequels, let alone the original trilogy.) And agreed with Myles re: Andor.
Based on these first two episodes, you'll probably be able to follow along and enjoy this show even if you had never seen any Star Wars before. You'll miss the occasional easter egg, but nothing plot-relevant, it seems.
Wim pressing buttons didn't bother me so much -- it's a character flaw like any other, and an acceptable one for his age and how we see him handle other instructions from would-be authority figures. Plus it helps get the plot in motion, so I'm on board from that angle as well. Really I like how both he and Fern, our most developed characters so far, are both endearing and occasionally ruled by their emotions.
I thought these first two episodes were super cute! The initial pirate attack feels a little out of place to me, since I then spent the rest of that episode and the next waiting for it to tie back in. And while it's definitely obvious that Jude Law was the deposed pirate captain from the beginning, I'm not convinced that we needed to see the mutiny to understand his eventual role in events. That feels like a late studio note asking for a punchy action sequence with their big-name star to preempt the more grounded kids stuff.
(With that being said, I'm with you that the homage to Vader at the beginning of A New Hope was surely intentional. There's even a similar beat of dialogue to his "If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" when the captain asks, "If this is a bulk freighter, why is your vault magnetically sealed?" Which is another mystery we don't have an immediate answer to that might theoretically come back later, I suppose.)
But yeah, the space opera / suburban 80s Amblin mashup is working really well for me so far, children's entertainment or not. Other fun details I spotted:
-The droid with the stereotypical pirate accent and peg-leg is named SM-33, aka "Smee" from Peter Pan
-The holographic display that Neel's siblings are watching looks a lot like the one from the Star Wars Holiday Special, which.... bless this production team for pulling into the proper canon. No notes.
Just watched episode 1 again, and a couple additional thoughts:
-Their home planet behind its Barrier definitely seems stuck in the past The Village style, as somebody else commented. When they talk about the Republic, they're probably referring to the High Republic of The Acolyte times, with no knowledge of how the rest of the galaxy has changed in the meantime.
-I don't think Jude Law is connected to SM-33 / the derelict ship at all. Barrier issues aside, that ship was buried too completely to be a recent arrival on the planet, and Law's character seems like a regular-aged human as far as we can tell so far.
-I didn't catch before that the pirate captain at the beginning (aka Law, but we're pretending we don't know that yet) was called Captain Silvo. That's presumably a reference to Long John Silver from Treasure Island, who starts that story as a seeming ally to the young hero before revealing that he's actually a pirate knave himself. It's not hard to imagine 'Jod Na Nawood' having a similar arc ahead with the kids on this show.
Yeah the protagonist kid is hard to take, and it's unfortunate that so many shows put that same impulsive, selfish idiot character in the focus like that—Star Trek: Prodigy, which was at least at first a very overt attempt at making a Star Trek show that would appeal to the Star Wars kids of the current generations, has essentially the same lead.
In fact, Prodigy also has a group of kids end up in possession of a buried starship and con the digital intelligence left on board into believing they're its rightful crew. Serpent, meet tail...
I've only seen the first of the two episodes but I'm really surprised at how charmed I was by it. I've never seen Star Wars do exactly this tone and this style before and it's an interesting change of pace from the dour wanna-be-epic tone it usually defaults to.
I cannot express how much I love havjng something like Episodic Medium, where I can read detailed reviews of a show I'm mildly interested in before I take the plunge. Thank you for your service.
Yes - I have read the first few paragraphs and now considering taking the plunge (having not watched any Star Wars media since Rise of Skywalker). This sounds like a fun time!
Is it crazy to jump in without having watched Andor/Mandalorian/Acolyte?
…I mean you SHOULD watch Andor, but it is in no way required to watch this.
You definitely can avoid The Acolyte. (Even if it was better, it takes place long before the prequels, let alone the original trilogy.) And agreed with Myles re: Andor.
Based on these first two episodes, you'll probably be able to follow along and enjoy this show even if you had never seen any Star Wars before. You'll miss the occasional easter egg, but nothing plot-relevant, it seems.
I love the Mandalorian, so I highly recommend it.
Wim pressing buttons didn't bother me so much -- it's a character flaw like any other, and an acceptable one for his age and how we see him handle other instructions from would-be authority figures. Plus it helps get the plot in motion, so I'm on board from that angle as well. Really I like how both he and Fern, our most developed characters so far, are both endearing and occasionally ruled by their emotions.
I thought these first two episodes were super cute! The initial pirate attack feels a little out of place to me, since I then spent the rest of that episode and the next waiting for it to tie back in. And while it's definitely obvious that Jude Law was the deposed pirate captain from the beginning, I'm not convinced that we needed to see the mutiny to understand his eventual role in events. That feels like a late studio note asking for a punchy action sequence with their big-name star to preempt the more grounded kids stuff.
(With that being said, I'm with you that the homage to Vader at the beginning of A New Hope was surely intentional. There's even a similar beat of dialogue to his "If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" when the captain asks, "If this is a bulk freighter, why is your vault magnetically sealed?" Which is another mystery we don't have an immediate answer to that might theoretically come back later, I suppose.)
But yeah, the space opera / suburban 80s Amblin mashup is working really well for me so far, children's entertainment or not. Other fun details I spotted:
-The droid with the stereotypical pirate accent and peg-leg is named SM-33, aka "Smee" from Peter Pan
-The holographic display that Neel's siblings are watching looks a lot like the one from the Star Wars Holiday Special, which.... bless this production team for pulling into the proper canon. No notes.
Just watched episode 1 again, and a couple additional thoughts:
-Their home planet behind its Barrier definitely seems stuck in the past The Village style, as somebody else commented. When they talk about the Republic, they're probably referring to the High Republic of The Acolyte times, with no knowledge of how the rest of the galaxy has changed in the meantime.
-I don't think Jude Law is connected to SM-33 / the derelict ship at all. Barrier issues aside, that ship was buried too completely to be a recent arrival on the planet, and Law's character seems like a regular-aged human as far as we can tell so far.
-I didn't catch before that the pirate captain at the beginning (aka Law, but we're pretending we don't know that yet) was called Captain Silvo. That's presumably a reference to Long John Silver from Treasure Island, who starts that story as a seeming ally to the young hero before revealing that he's actually a pirate knave himself. It's not hard to imagine 'Jod Na Nawood' having a similar arc ahead with the kids on this show.
The mystery around At Attin is definitely intentional. Here's my guess/take on what we've seen:
- They've hidden themselves from the galaxy with their barrier. Is this the Great Work? (capitalized in captions too, I think.
- Security Droids/Condon give me vibes of keeping the population under control to keep their "utopia" going.
- Old Republic was so, so long ago -- did they just choose to disconnect from the galaxy? They've missed the fall of the Jedi AND the Empire.
- Basically The Village?
Yeah the protagonist kid is hard to take, and it's unfortunate that so many shows put that same impulsive, selfish idiot character in the focus like that—Star Trek: Prodigy, which was at least at first a very overt attempt at making a Star Trek show that would appeal to the Star Wars kids of the current generations, has essentially the same lead.
In fact, Prodigy also has a group of kids end up in possession of a buried starship and con the digital intelligence left on board into believing they're its rightful crew. Serpent, meet tail...
I've only seen the first of the two episodes but I'm really surprised at how charmed I was by it. I've never seen Star Wars do exactly this tone and this style before and it's an interesting change of pace from the dour wanna-be-epic tone it usually defaults to.
"The Acolyte" also pointlessly put a character in a mask just to delay a character revelation a couple episodes for no real reason