The Cinematic Adventures of Baby Yoda

The long-running Star Wars franchise added another movie to its ranks this past weekend with The Mandalorian and Grogu. And in my eyes, it's a strong contender for the "most OK" of the lot. Picking up on the three-season long television series The Mandalorian, the movie follows "Mando" on an action-packed adventure with the character people will always call "Baby Yoda."

The Mandalorian and Grogu is an entertaining movie. There are action sequences of seemingly endless natures and scopes. There's a surprisingly deep relationship between a character whose face you almost never see and a character whose face is rubber. Sigourney Weaver seems to be having fun, and it's kind of infectious.

But the fact that this comes after three seasons of television actually makes a huge difference. The Mandalorian has been around for years, bringing a lot of film-caliber action to our living rooms. The line between movies and television has never been thinner or blurrier than it is right now, yet the idea that a movie has to be "bigger and better" than a TV show persists. And so, to amp up The Mandalorian to cinematic size, they basically took what you could imagine as a "fourth season" of the show, and removed nearly all the quiet parts.

For nearly an hour-and-a-half, the movie bounces from one set piece to the next, deliberately leaving the audience with almost no time to catch a breath. Each sequence as an island is well-realized. Delivered as they were in assembly line fashion, I found myself getting a little numb to it all. Which is probably why I felt the best stretch of the movie was the 15-minute "end of act two" centered on Grogu. The pace relaxed, the stakes felt more personal, and character took center stage. Before, of course, an over-the-top final act.

Actually, it's probably not the shadow of three seasons of The Mandalorian looming over this movie for me as much as two seasons of Andor. It's not fair to now compare all of Star Wars to what I'm increasingly convinced is the best Star Wars there's ever been... but there's also some recency bias. Over the past several years, I've watched a lot of different "fine" Star Wars TV shows (and bad ones; looking at you, Boba Fett). I've accepted the tonal shifts between The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. But when Star Wars is capable of being Andor instead? I understand The Mandalorian and Grogu wasn't remotely trying to be that. But also... most of me says, wistfully, why not?

Trying my best to set all that aside, I'd give The Mandalorian and Grogu a B-. I have a hard time imagining that it could ever be anyone's favorite Star Wars movie... or least favorite. But it's a serviceable action romp.

I Only Wish I Could Have Savored It...

Season two of Star Wars: Andor has come and gone. (Too fast, but I'll come back to that.) This is the show I've been looking forward to more than anything else in 2025... all the while worrying that perhaps the excellent season one had set my expectations too sky-high to be met.

The narrative accelerated in season two, using multiple time jumps to fill in the gap between season one and Rogue One. In a way, that's a shame, because I would happily have spent multiple seasons with this collection of deep and well-written characters. On the other hand, this is the way that creator Tony Gilroy wanted to tell the story... and in the modern TV landscape of quick cancellations, I'm happy he got to tell the story on his own terms.

There are many things I could highlight about season two, but I'll contain my enthusiasm and pick just a few. I appreciated how much this season took the real-world subtext of resisting authoritarian regime and made it "text." The story highlighted one historical analog in particular, the French resistance of World War II, with the Ghorman storyline. All the key characters had French accents, their invented alien language was crafted to sound very much like French, and the core of their struggle mirrored that of real-world history: we're suffering while the world sits by and lets it happen. It all culminated in the excellent eighth episode of the season, "Who Are You?", that depicted an all-out assault as a true nightmare, not the escapist fun that Star Wars as a franchise usually presents.

I love the awareness of Tony Gilroy and his writers about tropes -- leaning into them when it's useful and steering clear of them when it isn't. In particular, it seemed with one particular character that they'd written themselves into a corner where "fridging" the character (killing them off as motivation for the hero's story arc) was the inevitable end. Instead, they pulled out of that particular nosedive in a satisfying way.

Despite only having 24 episodes total to work with, and a definite end point to get to, I love that the writers were willing to stray from the marked path at times -- taking advantage of unplanned things that were surely found along the way. I'm thinking of Elizabeth Dulau in the role of Kleya Marki. I can't imagine that when they cast Dulau back in season one, they were thinking to themselves "and then next season, we're going to actually make one episode of Andor that doesn't even have Andor in it, and she's going to be the star instead." But they recognized how amazing she was in the role, seized upon the talent they'd found, and did just that.

I'm also mostly satisfied with how Andor ultimately decided to treat "canon," that heavy weight hanging over any long-running franchise with rabid fans. That is, they mostly treated it like bumpers on a bowling lane more than a set of handcuffs. One key example came in episode nine, where Mon Mothma delivers an epic speech basically encapsulating the entire message of the show in the most powerful way. They didn't let themselves be deterred by the fact that "Mothma's farewell speech" had already been depicted on Star Wars Rebels; they knew they could write a better speech (and have Genevieve O'Reilly absolutely crush the performance of it), so they did their own version, and then a bit of hand-waving to bring things into continuity.

My only real complaint about Andor season two is how they chose to release it: three episodes every week for four weeks. I re-watched season one in the run-up to the new season. Re-experiencing that again made me realize what an episode meal at a three-star Michelin restaurant that was, and how there was really no need for me to take the "minus" on my "A-" review of it two-and-a-half years ago. I savored ever dish season one brought before me, and left more satisfied than the first time.

Season two was like being invited back to that restaurant... except that this time, I was being timed as I ate each course. If I didn't finish it in time, the dish would be taken from me. The annoying way in which the entire internet presumed everyone would watch three hours of television in one night was maximally annoying. Tiptoeing around spoilers was impossible, as everyone treated everything from the third episode in a crop of three as old news the morning after it had dropped. And even on the rare occasions where I did dodge spoilers, I was still being forced to gorge myself to be ready for next week when we'd do it all over again. Some day, I'll need to go back and enjoy the entire series again, slowly, luxuriously. Properly.

I think I'll be happy to do just that, because I give season two of Star Wars: Andor an A.

Make No Bones About It

This week, the finale of the new Star Wars: Skeleton Crew dropped on Disney+. From the widely-circulated industry stories about the low viewership of the series, that's likely to be its only season. Once the show got rolling, I did enjoy it -- and if what I'm about to write winds up being a "eulogy" in the grand scheme of things, so be it.

Skeleton Crew is the story of four kids growing up on an isolated planet, who discover a spaceship and accidentally wind up lost in space. As they struggle to find their way back home, they fall in with an eccentric droid and a mysterious man who may be a Jedi... but who is most certainly hiding things from them.

Through all its highs and lows, I really love the idea of Skeleton Crew. Like Star Trek, Star Wars is in a franchise with multiple running television series, and each one needs its own distinct niche to earn its keep. Skeleton Crew is the type of Star Wars show that really should exist in some form: a show that's aimed at the young audience that made the franchise a cultural phenomenon in the first place.

There have been plenty of kids in Star Wars over the years, from Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace to "baby Yoda." But in Skeleton Crew, kids are the stars of the story... on their own adventure that feels like something real-life 80s kids dreamed up with their action figures. This is Star Wars going back to its absolutely foundational roots, not just in who the story is for, but what the story is: a kid (or here, kids) from nowhere whisked away into a grand space adventure.

Much of the early commentary on Skeleton Crew (not always intended as "criticism") likened the show to the movie The Goonies. So while I'm not adding much to the conversation to point that out, I feel like it needs saying just how much the show is like the Goonies. As you get to know the characters in the opening episodes, you can easily map each one of them to a specific Goonie. When a mid-season episode sees them venturing into a literal booby-trapped cave in search of treasure, it's impossible for anyone who has seen The Goonies not to think of One-Eyed Willy.

Where Skeleton Crew most differs, and is much better for it, is the inclusion of Jude Law. Going back to the idea of 80s kids dreaming up their own adventure, Law plays a character who feels part Luke Skywalker, part Han Solo. And his performance bobs and weaves between charming charisma and unsettling darkness. Just how dark will he go is a question that hangs over each episode.

But Law appears only briefly in the first two episodes. His full arrival in the story doesn't really happen until episode 3. And until then? Sorry to say it, but Skeleton Crew is hard -- almost painful -- to watch. Our four young heroes have a heroes' journey ahead of them, meaning they have much to learn, and start out in an incredibly naive place. One in particular, Wim, seems to be the main character at this point, and he's insufferable: whiny, impulsive, and constantly causing trouble. (In a later episode, when a character actually calls Wim "the worst," I became the "Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at his TV" meme.)

Yes, I acknowledge, Wim is being a kid, and doing it in the Star Wars show for kids. Wim is not "for me." But he's so not for me that I almost didn't make it past episode 2. Yet two episodes was how Disney+ launched this show, meaning that quite a few viewers got only this impression of the show, and promptly tuned out. (Part of what I alluded to earlier about its poor ratings performance.)

I'm here to say: it's really worth getting over that hump. Once Jude Law is fully on the scene, each episode becomes a playful adventure with just the right touch of menace. The four kids do begin the journey of growth, and most of them become quite likeable. Overall, Skeleton Crew becomes fun, if you've given it the chance. (And quick shout-out to composer Mick Giacchino, whose great score really contributes to that fun. Sure, he probably just got the job in a "nepo baby" way, being son of Rogue One composer Michael Giacchino. But Mick really has one foot in each of the two worlds of this story -- sweeping John Williams-style grandeur, and jaunty pirate-inflected shanties.)

One other thing I appreciated about Skeleton Crew: they really "leave it all on the field." Without giving too much spoilery detail, the concluding episode 8 brings irrevocable change to the characters and their corner of the Star Wars universe. It's hard to say what a season 2 of this show would even look like, other than "completely different." But if it works out that the show's poor performance means this is all there will ever be, narratively that works out fine -- we got a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Overall, I think I'd give Star Wars: Skeleton Crew a B. Mind you, if I ever actually sat down to watch it again and had to endure those first two episodes, I might decide I'm being too generous. But after finding its "sea legs," the series is worth the time.

On a Scale of One to Tano?

Earlier this week, the newest Star Wars television series, Ahsoka, wrapped up its first season. (Only season? A renewal has yet to be announced.) I went on a bit of a roller coaster ride with how I felt about the show, but now that "the ride has come to a complete stop," I want to weigh in with my thoughts before the zeitgeist collectively moves on (which I expect it will quickly).

As many people observed, Star Wars: Ahsoka played out very much like a season five of Star Wars: Rebels. Usually, this observation was made to point out how Ahsoka was picking up the story threads of the animated series, or to speculate whether someone could even enjoy the new show without having watched the earlier one. But I think that specifically overlooks how important characters were on Rebels, and how that in turn was the foundation of what was best about Ahsoka.

In my review of Star Wars: Rebels, I noted how it took me a while to warm up to the show -- largely because of the focus on the brash character of Ezra Bridger. I didn't expound upon that to say that I grew to enjoy the show in large part because the characters themselves grew. Ezra did not remain the boy he started as, nor did any of the characters on Rebels. They changed, developing ever-stronger and more interesting relationships with each other, and by extension, with the audience.

There are moments in Ahsoka that really pick up that baton and carry it forward. Mostly, they come in the middle of the season. Ahsoka becomes more interesting after a key mid-season episode, and subsequently has more interesting interactions with other characters. Sabine begins the back half of her own personal hero's journey. Interaction and banter become more entertaining across the board, particularly with Huyang, and (spoilers here), once he returns, Ezra Bridger.

So those parts that work well, I think work really well. I also love the focus on female characters overall; there's one episode here (the fourth, I think?) that has even less screen time for men than the original Star Wars had for women. And I feel a lot of goodwill about the casting -- seeing Rosario Dawson in the title role, hearing David Tennant as a put-upon droid, or watching Ray Stevenson bringing maximum gravitas as Baylan Skoll. I'd say I'm positive on the series overall.

But man, I feel like there's also a lot to be negative about here. A lot of people noted how much The Force Awakens was a repackaging of the original Star Wars. But I don't think anyone appreciated how many new elements there actually were in that movie until this season of Ahsoka repackaged all of those plot points. Both stories turn on a mysterious map that somehow leads to the location of a powerful missing figure... and (another spoiler) both stories end just when that figure returns and is about to do something interesting.

Actually, let me just drop another spoiler warning on this whole paragraph -- because I need to say more about Thrawn. Of all the elements of Ahsoka that required having seen Star Wars: Rebels for full context, his character was the biggest. The threat he posed in Ahsoka was all talk; we never saw him do anything especially clever. We got no depiction at all of why he inspired so much loyalty, why his forces stuck with him in exile after all those years, why the witches obeyed him, or why specifically anyone believed he'd single-handedly be able to restore the Empire. And while actor Lars Mikkelsen's voice is as perfect for the character as it ever was, he really just failed to look the part for me here in live action. Almost every other Rebels character was recast for Ahsoka; I think maybe Thrawn should have been too.

I also feel like the parts of Ahsoka that showed the most imagination and originality were the least developed. (Key exhibit: what was Baylan Skoll even all about? And will we ever find out now, after the unfortunate passing of Ray Stevenson?) Meanwhile, so much of what we did see showed such a lack of imagination -- particularly the final episode which (spoilers) decided zombies would be cool, and gave a witch a sword because sword fighting is kind of all we do here, I guess.

I sort of wish I'd been blogging about Ahsoka on a week-to-week basis, because there were some episodes in the middle there that I found quite enjoyable. But the season got started rough, and it really failed to stick the landing for me. So overall, I'm going to give it a B-.

Maybe it's just that all live-action Star Wars TV falls short of Andor...

The Best Star Wars Since Star Wars

Amid the taking of vacation and the writing about it, I've fallen behind in my commentary on miscellaneous pop culture. While I have many items to go back and pick up, I think one demands attention first -- Star Wars: Andor.

The newest live-action Star Wars television show finished its 12-episode first season right before Thanksgiving -- and it was outstanding. Much as Rogue One was the best Star Wars film to come along since the classic trilogy, so Andor has become the best Star Wars television series (including all the animated ones). In my mind, it's done more for Star Wars (the franchise) than anything since Star Wars (the film).

Sometimes Star Wars just feels like a toy factory, serving up characters and settings that'll make good action figures and LEGO sets. Sometimes it transcends that and tells an engaging story that makes you actually root for those characters. Andor has transcended that and injected meaningful social commentary at the same time.

The series takes everything that has ever been slightly abstract about Star Wars and made it crystal clear. There have always been "bad guys" in Star Wars, starting of course with the Empire. But not since they blew up an entire planet in the original film has it been so manifest why they are the villains. And Alderaan's destruction wasn't really all that significant; we'd never been there or seen it, Obi-Wan gets briefly wistful, and Leia gets over it immediately. But Andor shows us a fascist state committing atrocity after atrocity, depicting the daily evil that is the Empire as a whole (and not just the cackling figurehead who rules it).

That in turn makes the conflict with the Empire feel more important and real than it ever has in Star Wars. This is not a game; there are stakes here. We see people killed, and their crushed and lifeless bodies collapse to the ground rather than vanish into thin air. We see the horrifying effects of a most cruel torture -- and unlike Leia on the Death Star, the victim doesn't simply bound into action when her prison cell door is opened. And all this arrives at a timely moment when the world seems to need the reminder that fascism is evil.

The characters of Andor are wide-ranging and different. We see people like Cassian Andor who fight in the most literal sense. We see people like Mon Mothma who fight in a very different way. We see people oppose the Empire even though they have everything to lose, and we see people oppose them because they have nothing to lose. (And speaking of the efficacy of characters here: like Rogue One, Andor brought us one of the franchise's best droid characters ever, imbued with true personality. The sequel trilogy's BB-8 was a technical achievement, sure... but he can't hold a candle -- or thumbs-up lighter -- to B2EMO.)

I have heard some people call the first season of Andor absolutely "perfect," and there I will mute my praise ever so slightly. The first two episodes are a bit slow to get the whole thing off and running, with the real meat of the story kicking in around episode three. And I remain uncertain how I feel about the musical score composed by Nicholas Britell. I don't mind the departure from the style of John Williams. (With The Mandalorian, Ludwig Göransson certainly showed us that "this is the way.") But the music of Andor is often purposefully off-key and pitch bent; while clearly meant to unsettle, I find it sometimes distracting in this effort, pulling me out of the moment on occasion.

But aside from those small quibbles, I can only praise the writing, praise the cast, praise the production, praise the ambition... and sit back to impatiently await the second season. I give Star Wars: Andor an A-. Other series coming in 2023 have an incredibly tough act to follow.

The Edge of the Galaxy

The first day of my recent Orlando trip revolved around space travel. The second day focused on fake space travel. We went to Disney's Hollywood Studios, home of the Galaxy's Edge Star Wars area that's opened since the last time I visited Walt Disney World.

We were allowed in early enough to beeline straight for the hottest ride, Rise of the Resistance, and face only a 20-or-so minute wait (compared to the 90 to 100 minutes the ride quite regularly balloons to). Rise of the Resistance is a big leap forward in the theme park "technology" of expanding the experience. Yes, it had the now-standard "here's a cleverly realistic movie to watch while you're standing in line." But then it also led to essentially three rides: a mild motion simulator experience, followed by a march through a fully realized set, culminating in a second more intense ride. Once you hit the part that felt like The Ride, the whole experience actually lasted 15 minutes -- epic for the amount of time we waited, but quite novel and enjoyable even if we'd had to wait longer. Rise of the Resistance is, simply, every bit as good a ride as it's said to be.

From there, we headed to an appointment at Savi's Workshop to build our own lightsabers. This is, to be frank, an expensive experience. Even if it were more reasonably priced, it wouldn't be for everyone. You don't end up with a toy you're going to play with; you end up with a highly personalized memento of your vacation that you'll keep on display. That said, that memento is cool as can be. If you've ever swung a plastic lightsaber, this is not that. You choose crystal (blade) color, emitter piece, hilt sections, and end piece -- each from multiple options, resulting in an end product that truly does feel uniquely yours. (Out of more than a dozen people in the room, we were the only one to build a green-bladed lightsaber, so that alone made ours feel more rare.) And this thing is sturdy, hefty. The parts are weighty and metal (or something cleverly crafted to feel sufficiently like metal). In the end, I think the only way you could feel more like "you actually built a lightsaber" is if the end product could actually cut things.

As we continued through Galaxy's Edge, we found the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run ride, which wound up being a personal favorite of mine for the entire trip. You pilot the Millennium Falcon on this ride -- actually steer it in a fantastic motion simulator experience. The ride is built for 6 people, and there happened to be 6 of us together. Two people pilot, two fire the guns, and two repair damage the Falcon takes along the way. All of this is directed by flashing lights directing you to flip switches all over the Falcon cockpit, making this so much more than a passive ride you sit back and experience. We rode it enough times throughout the day for everyone in the group to experience all three roles in the simulator -- and when the line dwindled to a mere 5 minutes at the end of the day, rode it a fourth time for good measure (getting a great group photo of us all for good measure).

The bulk of the day was actually filled with other non-Star Wars rides in the Hollywood Studios park. I'd done the Tower of Terror before, but it was fun to experience it again.

I'd actually never experienced the Aerosmith-themed Rock 'n' Roller Coaster before this trip; that was fine, if well outshined by other coasters in Orlando (even others at Disney). This was notable, though, for the Disney "Magic Bands" we'd secured for the trip. Our travel friend had suggested them as a way to make gathering ride photos much easier (you just wave your band at a button as you get off a ride). But in this case, waiting in line with a band on triggered custom "band tour posters" that displayed on the walls.

We'd encounter that sort of use of Magic Bands again the one time we rode Star Tours this trip. (We got Hoth and Coruscant as the random locations -- nothing added from the sequel trilogy.)

We'd also wait in a too-long line for the Slinky Dog coaster in the Toy Story area, after some friend of friend recommended it. Maybe if you have a kid who's looking to move beyond explicitly "kiddie" roller coasters, sure. It was a big bust with us, given the 60 minute wait to get on.

We closed out the entire day with a stop at Oga's Cantina for a couple of Star Wars drinks that looked quite authentic and tasted amazing. I actually wish more of the Galaxy's Edge area had been built up like this. Seeing the Millennium Falcon just parked there was great, of course. But otherwise, the area looked like a fairly non-descript rock quarry -- not as impressive as the Harry Potter-themed areas over at Universal. Basically, each individual experience within Galaxy's Edge felt wonderful, even if the whole area containing them felt a little underwhelming.

Before this trip, Hollywood Studios was the Disney World park where I'd probably spent the least time. After this, I would say it's the Disney park I'd absolutely want to spent the most time at in any future Orlando trip.

Rebel Rebel

A few months back, I wrote in praise of two Star Wars animated series: The Clone Wars and (especially) The Bad Batch. Now I'm back to voice support for the show that was made in between the two, but is set in the Star Wars chronology in the years before the original film.

Star Wars: Rebels centered on the adventures of a small Rebel band led by Hera Syndulla. Her crew included willful young Jedi trainee Ezra, his mentor Kanan, young Mandalorian warrior Sabine, bruiser-type alien Zeb, and trouble-making robot Chopper. Over the course of its four season run, this band brushed up against the people and events of the original Star Wars trilogy with increasing frequency.

It took me a while to warm up to the show. It focuses a lot on Ezra in the early episodes -- and he is very much a moody, exasperated (and exasperating) teenager in the beginning. Even as the focus began to widen, some episodes were better than others. Rebels really had the feeling of a show in which all the scripts were written by lifting the best bits from some ongoing RPG campaign that was being run and recorded somewhere. (Executive producer Dave Filoni's campaign, one might assume?)

Still, the show felt good enough to stick with, as it brushed up against characters and plot elements of the original Star Wars trilogy in fun ways. Yes, that too supported that feeling of it being a role-playing game, but now at least it was becoming a well-run campaign, a very effective nostalgia delivery system. By season two, the show had really hit its stride, boldly incorporating the voices of original Star Wars cast members, appearances of great characters from The Clone Wars series, and interesting stories about these new main characters themselves. Seasons two and three of Rebels really represent another great run of Star Wars.

The final season four is a bit of a step down again. Certainly not enough to undermine the project, but... endings are hard. Especially when, as an immediate prequel to Star Wars, Rebels was obligated to "clean up its room and put all its toys in exactly the right place." The last dozen-or-so installments are a highly serialized tightrope walk of trying to invest us in a particular story line that Rebels can resolve (because it doesn't impact the original trilogy), even as its trying to excite us with more classic characters and more lead-ups to A New Hope. The balance isn't always quite right, but at least this tightrope act is working with the big net of Star Wars to catch it.

The series as a whole is well worth watching for those middle two seasons. Overall, I'd give Star Wars: Rebels a B+. It has a solid voice cast, ever-improving animation, and its way of storytelling was a real forerunner for the current live-action Star Wars television we've been getting. If you're a Star Wars fan who hasn't checked it out, you'd probably enjoy it.

* * *

As a footnote, what I absolutely cannot recommend is the next animated series in the Star Wars canon: Resistance. A prequel to The Force Awakens, I tried it and couldn't make it past the third episode. Its protagonist, Kaz, is a shocking dark horse contender for the most annoying character in the Star Wars universe. Yes, far more annoying that Ezra was on Rebels in the early going. Yes, as whiny as C-3PO. Yes, as big a stupid disaster magnet as Jar Jar Binks. With no other good points arriving immediately on the scene to balance that out, Resistance was utterly unwatchable. If you're reading this, and you actually watched all of Resistance... why? HOW?

Hello There!

The spinoff/prequel/sequel series Obi-Wan Kenobi has finished up its six-episode run on Disney+. In my personal corner of social media, the response seems to be generally (though not enthusiastically) positive. In the broader world of social media, it feels like a broken pipe is endlessly spewing sewage. Put me down, unsurprisingly, for something more like the first response.

It feels pretty clear to me that these six episodes serve as a far better prequel to Star Wars than the actual prequel film trilogy did. It's more grounded in characters (who don't behave woodenly), and it's more cognizant of trying to lead up to the original (as opposed to simply "rhyming" with it -- George Lucas' oft-cited term for repackaging his own earlier ideas). Of course, the paradox is that this series wouldn't hit as strongly had we not already seen Ewan McGregor play the role of Kenobi. I can't claim that this in any way supplants the prequel trilogy; it's just better.

Of course, it isn't without its flaws. Some of the character behavior is a little hard to square without just falling back on "people can be complicated and inconsistent." (True, but not usually a winning defense of fiction.) Increasingly in the later episodes, characters act in ways that don't seem to fit with the previous episodes -- instead, they're made to fit with what must be true because of where Star Wars begins. (To get slightly spoilery about the final episode: the theme of "mercy" seems big at the end, but not very organically incorporated.)

But there's a lot more good than bad in the series. There was surprising fun in seeing many actors return to Star Wars when you probably thought you'd seen them there for the last time. There was even more fun in seeing many things appear in live-action Star Wars for the first time (especially if you've watched the Star Wars cartoon series).

There were several compelling new characters that resonated with me despite limited screen time. Kumail Nanjiani and Indira Varma felt like especially strong additions to the Star Wars universe, and Moses Ingram did a good job as the Third Sister -- a role that was almost written to fail with its big emotional swings.

The shining jewel of the whole experience for me, the reason to have done Obi-Wan Kenobi the series? Princess Leia, as played by Vivien Lyra Blair. I saw a bit of whining about the character online, essentially stemming from overlooking the fact that Leia is ten years old here. In my eyes, the portrayal was an absolute triumph in both writing and acting. Basically every single moment felt like the Leia I've seen before, and often Carrie Fisher in particular. This little girl absolutely becomes the Leia of Star Wars.

I didn't need Obi-Wan Kenobi to be completely great, so maybe that's part of why I'm ok that it wasn't. (Hopefully, it's also because I'm not a toxic fan.) I give the series overall a B. Stronger by far than The Book of Boba Fett, probably not as strong as The Mandalorian when it's really firing, but worth the time.

So Bad, It's Good

A few weeks back, I wrote in praise of the Star Wars animated series Clone Wars. Obviously, that praise is somewhat belated, as the series concluded (for the second or third time) in 2020. But I can voice more timely support for the series that took Clone Wars' place, and still has future episodes to come on Disney+.

The Bad Batch was a spin-off setup during the final 12-episode season of Clone Wars. It centers on a group of clone soldiers who actually aren't exactly like all their brethren, following their adventures in the immediate aftermath of the prequel Star Wars trilogy. The 4 episodes of Clone Wars that set up these characters actually was far from my favorite of the story arcs from that series, but as soon as The Bad Batch got a show of their own, they really began to shine.

For starters, the characters here really are quite interesting. That introductory Clone Wars arc set them up basically to be superheroes of a sort, each with their own special "power." But The Bad Batch series has really rounded them out with meaningful character flaws and personalities beyond "what they can do." The same thought and care that went into Clone Wars characters like Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex is fully brought to bear here. And it actually works better here, as The Bad Batch is not an "anthology show" like Clone Wars was, and can feature these same characters in every episode.

Perhaps more importantly, the time frame of this new show makes for a more compelling backdrop than the Clone Wars. That show did a great job of mining for diamonds of good ideas amid the rough of the prequel trilogy story... but ultimately, Clone Wars was always to some extent just "marking time" until the events of Revenge of the Sith. (That's why many of the most effective arcs in the show focused on areas the films didn't really explore, like the Mandalorian civil war.) The Bad Batch is set "after the fall," and Star Wars has never really had this much time and space to explore people "who thought they were fighting for the good guys" and are now disillusioned. It's fertile ground for storytelling.

To put it more directly: since the original trilogy, there's only one thing in the Star Wars canon that I've enjoyed more than the first season of The Bad Batch. (Rogue One. Duh.) The dialogue is occasionally pretty stilted, but that's kind of been a thing about Star Wars all along. (The cleverness of the plotting and quality of the voice acting more than makes up for that here.)

For certain, I'd give The Bad Batch at least a B+. Many episodes are better than that, and if season two continues the momentum of season one, I'll quickly nudge that up to an A-. The Mandalorian may be the Star Wars show with more buzz right now, but The Bad Batch is absolutely the better show.

A Total Clone Show

The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett have lit up the internet in a number of ways. But while the masses have been focused mainly on "Baby Yoda," Star Wars fans who have been watching all the TV shows have been thrilled at how characters originally introduced in the cartoon series have been appearing in live action Star Wars for the first time.

I finally finished watching all of the Clone Wars series. This was the first weekly Star Wars TV show, set in between Episodes II and III and taking an anthology approach to filling in that gap. Different episodes would feature different characters. Some plots would exist for one-off episodes, while others would develop over time.

There are 7 seasons of Clone Wars, and more than 130 episodes, so it wasn't internet buzz that made me seek it out -- I actually started many months ago. Technically, I started many years ago. As seasons one and two of Clone Wars were first airing on television, I was involved in making a game based on the series, and wound up watching every episode that then existed as a result. That didn't really translate to an enjoyment of the show that kept me watching after I was no longer "required" to, and so I drifted away from it. As many fans would tell you, I left before Clone Wars actually got good.

That's sort of accurate. But I think it would be more accurate to say that I left before Clone Wars grew up. The first two seasons of the show feel very much aimed at kids. The plots were often shallow. Too many episodes focused on Jar Jar Binks or C-3PO, or were stretched to fit a teachable moral (explicitly spelled out at the start of every episode). And since the trappings of the prequel movies weren't exactly a favorite of mine to begin with, any obstacle to sticking with the show felt like too big an obstacle.

But enough people whose opinions I trust told me that Clone Wars was worth going back to and finishing. And indeed, they were right. I'm not sure there's a clear break point where the show improves; I just know that by the end of season three, it almost felt like a different show. A deep serialized arc with multiple concurrent subplots had crept in. Stand-alone episodes fell away almost entirely, with nearly every episode now part of an explicit two- or three- (or four!) part story. And it really stopped feinting at being a show "for kids," spending some whole episodes on political scheming, philosophical disagreements, or romance.

By season four, Clone Wars had become good enough to convince me that the entire folly of the prequel trilogy was actually worth it, as stage setting for this. And there were still three more seasons to go after that, each one a marked improvement over the last! I had the pleasure of just watching them all at my own pace, not having to wait a year or more between seasons (or much more, in the case of the six-year gap between seasons six and seven). And a pleasure it was.

Overall, I'd give Clone Wars a B grade. But that's truly an average, a result of me not really reflecting on each season as a whole as I went along. Loosely, I'd say the early seasons rate a C at best, while later seasons were at least an A-. The good news, if you've never watched Clone Wars yourself, is that I really don't think it's necessary to be a completionist here. The background you need on the series is provided by prequel movies, so if you want to just skip the early "bad" seasons and start around season three, you could do that. You can even skip all the way the real cream of the crop and watch just the last season or two, if you really wanted. The farther in you jump, the more chance you'll miss the introduction of a cool new character created for the show, or the first chapters of an important ongoing storyline... but I think it will all still probably be coherent compared to the average hyper-serialized television series.

Wherever you decide to start, the point is: I think you should start.

Spilling the Boba Tea

The internet has thoroughly picked over The Book of Boba Fett, to a degree where me offering my own take probably isn't adding much. But hey, it's my blog, and there might be one or two of you who might care to know my VERY SPOILER-FILLED thoughts on the show. The bottom line: though it's probably overstating things to call it "bad," it was so aggressively subpar in so many ways that it really piled up quickly.

Let's start with some important background: I never understood why Boba Fett was so popular. He had maybe five lines in the original Star Wars trilogy, then is unceremoniously defeated by someone who never even saw he was there. He basically walks into someone's fist and gets killed. My husband has tried explaining to me, repeatedly, that the cool comes from the costume, that he had a jet pack and that was enough to make him the best action figure in the collection. I still don't get it; we see that jet pack work twice, and the second time it's to catapult him into a toothy sphincter.

Everything that Boba Fett was supposedly good at, The Mandalorian (show and character) is better at. We already had a Star Wars show centered on a principled man of few words who wears a cool costume, wields awesome weapons, and kicks ass. He had a better theme song, ominous and percussive and relentless instead of slow and dirge-like. We didn't need the same show again, repackaged around a guy who's determined to become the crime lord of the Armpit of the Universe that the protagonist of Star Wars told us was a horrible place he never wanted to go back to. (Pointedly, given the opportunity to go back to it again in this season of The Book of Boba Fett, he does not. He calls Grogu an R2-ber.)

As if The Mandalorian wasn't already "the better Boba Fett," Boba Fett's show itself is loaded with more "better Boba Fetts." Fennic Shand is a much more stoic and brooding character, more interesting, and played by the more capable Ming-Na Wen, a stronger actor and in an entirely different class when it comes to delivering exciting fight choreography. Different episodes gave us guest star appearances by Timothy Olyphant (one of the most dynamic brooding tough guys on television in the last two decades), and Danny Trejo (the guy you call to play a tactiturn badass). Add to that the fact that, true to what we saw in the original trilogy, Boba Fett got the snot beat out of him in pretty much every fight he engaged in throughout the season, and yeah... he was getting upstaged on his show in every single episode.

And that's not even considering that the back half of the season was really just The Mandalorian season 2.5. Everyone has pointed this out already, of course, but it really bears repeating because it's really a strange decision. When Angel spun off of Buffy, sure you'd get a cross-over episode every now and then, but you wouldn't just have Buffy show up for the last half of the season to resolve plot threads that were introduced on her show. When Loki got his own show in the MCU, it didn't suddenly become Thor's show in the last half.

Maybe that's because they simply didn't know what story they wanted to tell with Boba Fett. Was this supposed to be a redemptive arc, taking a villainous character and turning him into an upstanding man of the people? Was it supposed to be The Godfather, where becoming embroiled in a criminal enterprise threatens to peel away parts of his soul? Nah, seems like it was just the story of him accumulating cooler lackies than he himself. (I, like most, wasn't keen on the Power Rangers bikers that looked like they'd been sorted into Harry Potter houses, but we all liked seeing a Wookiee actually be a badass fighter, right?) When the protagonist of this show was already the least interesting thing about it, of course the further adventures of Mando and Grogu, and cameos by Ahsoka and Luke and Cad Bane, are going to be more exciting than the aimlessness.

It ended alright. Ish. The action of the final episode was fun. But notably, the character moments that truly mattered all had to do with elements ported in from The Mandalorian. Boba Fett's showdown with Cad Bane was underwhelming to a degree that made the latter's return feel like a waste. (But I take that blinking light on Bane's chest at the end to mean we shouldn't actually count him for dead yet? I mean, not when the whole show started with a dead man coming back to life.)

The Book of Boba Fett really was two shows. The show that was episodes 1 through 4, and some of 7? I'd give that show a C- at best. The show that was episodes 5 through 7? That was probably a B+ for me. Factor in the proportions we got of each show, and I think I'd call The Book of Boba Fett a C overall. It would be completely inessential Star Wars if you didn't have to watch it between seasons two and three of The Mandalorian.