The Mandalorian and Grogu Review

With OSR and General RPG Context

I was dared to write a review of this movie by someone on the Discord. But I probably would have had these thoughts anyway. Overall, my opinion of the Movie was 6.5/10, maybe 7/10 if I clapped when I saw all the things I knew.

General:

Most important part, Grogu is a stupid name, and they should have just kept him as The Child or Kid not just in the movie but throughout Season 3 of The Mandalorian. Even if they gave him the name Grogu, they shouldn’t have used it more than once. This movie is a lot like season 3, a retread of what was already successful but in a safer and more blatantly markable format. Th result of hands-off management seeing a show was successful and doubling down on what was there and not letting it grow. The Child and the Mandalorian probably should have departed in Season 3, it reflects how the main character developed the Kid to the potential he could and now the Child must embark on the next stage of his growth. Just as the Mandalorian must advance from traumatized boy to hardened warrior to melted-heart father. Something made more obvious by the ad for children’s toys, featuring the Child in the opening trailer (all kid movies). The signature rehashed line from Season 1 “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold”, a threat in line with the space-western atmosphere of the pilot but awkward in a more family friendly movie. And the price of the Mandalorian’s services being a new Razorcrest, his destroy yet iconic (for a given meaning of iconic) spaceship.

But what do you expect from a Star Wars movie? Even at their darkest, they are aimed at kids and their parents.

Something that people have complained about, the prevalence of tie-in characters to other shows, especially The Clone Wars and Rebels remain a valid point. The so-called “Glub Shittos”. While being asked to watch 7 seasons of a Cartoon Network and then 3 seasons of a Disney animated show are a bit much for the casual viewer. They did fit right in with the age range for me, so I got all the references. It’s just a bit on the nose from David Filloni, besides his cameo with his cowboy hat in both the Mandalorian and the movie. The plot hinging on a character we haven’t seen since 2008 (what a lifetime ago that was) might jar some people.

Fun thought I had when walking out of the theatre, the Mandalorian has been consistently played by a combination of Pedro Pascal (voice and unmasked), Brendan Wayne (physical acting) and Lateef Crowder (action). He’s effectively a Muppet, something I’ll touch on later.

Movie could do with some editing, some of the characters repeat themselves in different scenes to get their point in their emotional arc across.

Opening:

We start with a post-Imperial warlord somewhere on the Outer Rim, threatening a planet’s townships (all 5 of them) for more money. Right before the Mandalorian goes to town on the base and personnel. He also gets a scene where the Warlord realises the base is penetrated and hands guns to the local leaders, heedless that he shot one not a scene before. Small region is good, lets players of any game stand out and in a Star Wars context, emphasises the frontier part of the Space Western.

The hunt for the war criminals and their outlaw/petty statelets is an excellent plot hook for any game especially a Star Wars game. It has a defined threat and theme and more importantly establishes worldbuilding that naturally pushes the players towards the plot. The New Republic lacks a presence or political territory in the region; hence they use independent freelancers who may have authority but lack the power to fight the threats head on. There are lists of foes to go down and check off and factions to play off during the adventure. Requiring the veneer of player skill and planning. And I say veneer, The Mandalorian is never truly troubled by Stormtrooper opposition, and his bag of tricks allows him to escape even the most dangerous of spaces, with only potential opportunity costs. This is like the show, but even so, in the show it is clear the Mandalorian is not extremely skilled, he relies on brute forcing encounter with his blaster and kinetic resistance armour. Which was a little annoying after the excellent first episode where he had to demonstrate some strategy. Even the torrent of blaster fire (a legacy of the original Star War adding twice as many shots as stormtrooper and explosions) fail to even hit him. His value as a character is now too high for even the remote chance of incidental harm.

Besides the general D&D response of not letting your players tack the buffs and the equipment excessively, this ties into my greatest annoyance for the Star Wars RPGs by Final Flight Games. You could stack Soak so high nothing short of artillery could harm a character and rig guns to tear through anything short of a heavy vehicle. And if you did bring those, the rest of the party would die in short order.

First Half:

The Rebel Base is obviously California with the golden sun and the palm trees. In fact, the other natural landscape we see is the grass dunes of what is clearly the cold current running past California. A legacy of being a bit cheap on this film, the first to be filmed solely in the USA. There is lots of shots of moving vehicles and starfighters, they want to audience to feel like this is a mechanical universe of working engines. That distinct Star Wars vibe that even the Prequels had, but no one noticed under the CGI.

The central plot of the movie, deal with the Hutts to get information on the warlord that’s otherwise unknown is good. A chain of espionage deals concentrates characters into trade-offs and situations where their decisions matter to the outcome of individuals and locations, even if it resolves the overall story of finding the target. It also means the characters cannot just go in guns blazing at first.

Nal Hutta, the planet the Hutts live on seems to have seen better days. We don’t get the cities in the swamp but the palaces. Which admittedly look nicely intertwined with the fungus/trees in a way that the Prequels were good at. Giving the sense of being somewhere alien yet with its own regional aesthetic. I wouldn’t know how for a tabletop could emulate that without a deluge of clipped art. Noticeably, the Hutt twins may be positioning themselves as Jabba the Hutt’s heirs, but their fortunes are clearly lacking compared to what Star Wars fans might expect. They must employ the Droid Gotra (robot Black Panthers) to guard them without the normal scum guards and they speak English (Basic). Vague incest vibes with the intertwining, sleeping in a circle and finishing each other’s ideas. Probably not intended since the idea is a little spicier than what I would say Disney would do.

The rumbling gibberish Jabba spoke in Episode 6 and in later works emphasised the almost orientalist foreignness and gravitas of the enormous crime lord who makes other people understand him. The Twins also speak it to ensure kids and parents don’t have to read subtitles. But otherwise in Star Wars, the only Hutts who speak Basic are the ones on the outer edge. Like Jabba’s disgraced uncle Ziro, who can only be described as a zesty Truman Capote reference. Interestingly Ziro and the twins have tattoos, Ziro with a lot and these two Hutts with a few. A short description for the characters here, but an excellent way at hinting at a deeper culture and shared lineage.

But the Droid Gotra are the more important RPG context here. Most of them are repurposed battle droids from the prequel Trilogy, same vibe as the reprogramed ones from Mandalorian S3. This is a great way to bring in foes from a previous part of the game. Same stats with an improved design to fool players or different enemies which are in-universe, the same foes. Effectively an upgraded version. If we still got FFG Star Wars books, I could see an imaginary double page spread with all their stats.

The reintroduction of Rotta the Hutt is a classic Glub Shitto character. Only mentioned twice before in the opening The Clone Wars movie/first three episodes and a vague mention in Aftermarth, a pretty awful book by Chuck Wendig. Whose crimes against the Internet Archive and so the public domain can be looked up separately.

The information leads the Mandalorian to the Moons of Shakari. Shakari is a great demonstration of several Star Wars concepts all at once. First is the way Star Wars makes planets; it takes an industrial period and a pre-industrial period and merges the aesthetics. Keeping it timeless in line with the opening credits of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. Shakari looks like 1920s Chicago; Neon lights and moulded titles creating an art deco night that is merged with a culture that seemingly embraces gladiator games to the death as major public entertainment. A place both familiar enough characters can start poking around in but still strange enough to provide adventure. Also mostly human, which is not how Star Wars normally portrays cosmopolitan hives of scum and villainy, but it might be a budget thing. The only three aliens are the enforcer for the crime lord holding Rotta’s contract, a passing Rodian parent and a Martin Scorsese cameo (not his worse, he was in Shark Tales). I assume this is part of the cheapness.

Rotta’s contract is being held by a big-shot crime lord, who still hangs around his crime den behind a bar because Star Wars is always small-scale. At best it would be a casino or mansion, but never like an offshore account. Star Wars and indeed D&D are analog universes where money must be clutched, count and displayed (here in the form of a caged animal collection to emphasis the evil). There is a line about how he makes his money selling salt, which the government rations. Why is never explained and the Mandalorian never bothers to asks or bothers to profit. He’s a hunter not a gatherer, a licensed bounty hunter and not a criminal on the lookout for easy cash.

The crime lord Janu is a classic character for any game, a bald low-classed accented British man (shorthand for feigned refinement) with just enough joviality to hide the teeth. He blatantly sells Rotta out and invites the Mandalorian to profit from it, no subtlety because his set up is already clearly evil, too many GMs get tripped up trying to inject some ambiguity into the character’s choice. No, here it is an appeal to the thing that makes the characters prosper, cash. The characters could take it and that’s their problem.

The fight in the gladiator pit is also a classic. It’s an elaborate excuse for a set piece fight and it creates a nice narrative arc for Rotta. He refuses to accept the man who paid his way will sell him out until the Mandalorian proves it by exposing the crowd’s general bloodlust. Also, the name for the death match is accept by all, with minimum of exposition. Everyone knows what it is and it’s just common knowledge you throw wavs of monsters at people. Something I noted is that most of the monsters including Rotta and all the Hutts were obviously CGI. Star Wars might have gotten a lot of flack for using CGI in the Prequels, but even some of the often-disliked CGI (like Episode 1 Yoda) was puppetry. The Mandalorian tended to use more practical effects, like the mantis prop for Doctor Mandibles, to get that visceral effect like how the splash of blood in Episode 4 demonstrated how the Lightsabre was a dangerous weapon. The CGI lacks the inherent slime and solidarity of props and plasticine, and it might be a budget thing again. Despite the high cost of renders, it has a reduced chance of failure. The same reason all vehicles after the initial base scene were CGI, I think. The money was probably used for the cameos by Martin Scorsecee and Signory Weaver.

Rotta’s arc is a nice simple turn on the characterisation lathe. He was sold into effective slavery by his relatives (he’s branded with their symbol), and he has found he doesn’t want to leave due to the perks of his fame. He is also still a naïve boy (Disney Hutts are not hermaphrodites) at heart, he thinks he will just slide out of the contract by his own virtues and connects to children and protectors. He is open rather than duplicitous, unlike how the rest of the Hutts with their species stereotype. By seeking to not be like them, he stands out. Which lets the setting pretend it has more depth while still categorising the rest as one-note. This can be endearing for any RPG, like Meepo from D&D 3E, The Sunless Citadel (2000).

The floating baby-controlled bassinet is good. They should have kept the Child in that all the seasons and movie, really get that Lone Wolf and Cub thing going after the first three episodes.

Rotta’s fate is a good and simple dilemma that works for both video and RPGs. He’s a good guy (if a murderous gladiator), he doesn’t want to be caged anymore, he wants to live independently and he doesn’t want to die. To achieve the overall objective, the Mandalorian needs to cage him (suspend him with straps since he’s too big to freeze) and deliver him to certain death at the hands of his father’s cousins. Conveniently, he can provide information that short-circuits the twins’ offer and reveal the twins’ duplicity. A game can use either or both to ramp up tension. An alternative pathway creates engagement and provides an in-game dilemma, but both swaps one enemy for another and so changes up the progress of the plot and conflict. With new opportunities for a diverse range of foes.

The simple emotional arc of seeking and obtaining freedom and for the Mandalorian of disregarding the coldness of his profession to find another way are digestible and complete. Something the Sequel Trilogy with its mystery boxes, malignant decisions (hiring a director who doesn’t like Star Wars) and non-communicating directors did not. Simple stories allow players and GMs to hang personalised details off to liven up a campaign and make it entertaining.

Second Half:

The movie feels really like a couple of specials stuck together. A problem that has bedevilled ever Star Wars movie since The Clone Wars, especially as plenty of material like Solo and Rogue One was adapted from the unmade show, Star Wars Underworld. Also, God of War (Dad of Boy version), as Cory Barlog said he reused some stuff. Catching the unknown Imperial warlord is as simple as Rotta telling the Mandalorian that Janu’s last name was Coin and then delivering him back to the Republic base to never be seen again.

The capture clearly showed how they don’t want the Mandalorian to take damage, even when he should be bouncing shots. As well as downplaying his flamethrower, with the flames dissipating. The wrist-flamethrower has since Jango Fett displayed it in Episode 2, a surprise terror weapon that anyone from the WWII-Vietnam generation (George Lucas) would have recognised. For FFG, the Stormtroopers occupying the civilian cars in groups of four is a good demonstration of the Minion rules in action.

The rival bounty hunter, Embo, who captures the Mandalorian and the tiny puppet mechanic (an excuse to get someone who can speak to come after them) is a classic Glug Shitto. His name is never mentioned, he comes from TCW and his design is stellar. A mixture of ninja and wuxia motifs (he seems to have ditched the colour and patterns since the cartoon), his presence and stride indicate he is supposed to utter cool and deadly. Very character in a descriptive media needs to be distinct, a tic or a design that makes them more than just a disposal faceless Stormtrooper. Of course, this falls embarrassingly flat if thy don’t show it off. Also, the weakness of Mandalorian Iron/Beskar seems to be it conducts electricity a little too well. Well, they do go on about the purity of it.

The Hutts as they describe their vengeance to the Mandalorian is a great worldbuilding tool for any fantasy or sci-fi RPG. The Hutts live for hundreds of years and can make it awful for anyone, no matter how long the other people live for. They, elves and transhumans can wait to strike against people well after their protectors have grown old and die or strike against descendants with the same fury.

The other classic trope they indulge in is the pit monster. Pit monsters are great; they are always strange and unique foes (or at last they should be) who can provide a welcome change for the campaign. The more exotic or strange, the better, for they highlight both cruelty of their owner and the unusual nature of the world they come from. Every evil villain should have one, even if it’s just turrets dropping down from the ceiling or an elite goon with a silly haircut. The giant venomous super-eel was also cool. Not just because of the implications something that large and vicious needs venom to catch prey. But the pale-pinkish skin seems to stand out so vibrantly against the dark green-black of the pit. It almost looks like a classic Star Wars matte-painting rather than CGI. The access tunnels that service the pit are also a convenient way to escape rather than have the characters climb the pit walls, a somewhat awkward scene if being watched but the monster is dead, being a lull in the action.

The introduction of the Amanin as an aquatic goon is also something D&D and Star Wars games can learn from. They like many other historical earth people are hired for a sole role which they are believed to excel in. They provide a degree of diversity in opposition and if the concept is used sparingly, create the illusion of depth. Like a member of a single type bucking the stereotype, the contrast of the elite stands out more among the common mooks. But that means you cannot use them commonly or the mystique is lost.

The flipside to all of this is reducing groups down to their narrative tropes makes them one-dimensional. The kind (slightly Cajun?) Gatori is a gangly lizard man on a planet ruled by a species of Crime Lods and their hives of scum and villainy. Yet he demonstrates the same trait that made Star Wars enthralling beyond the combination of WWII dogfights, Sengoku Jidai films and digestible mysticism. It’s a galaxy that is still much like our own world, full of people that seem to be living their lives and capable of connection to each other. This overlaps with the hodgepodge mysticism, but when Luke walks into the cantina is Episode 4, he enters a world where many bizarre aliens are going about their daily lives. More of the illusion of depth and Star Wars demonstrates this every time we encounter an alien who sounds like Martin Scorsese, Rotta choosing to be monolingual or TCW concept art for Rodian gangsters with sunglasses and sci-fi suits.

It converges back with the classic Appendix N works like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Tolkien’s Legendarium. This is a bit of a controversial take considering many people insist a human player could never connect with the mentality of a non-human and use that as an excuse to ban them from the table. But Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are based on the picaresque novels that grew out of the multicultural Spanish Golden Age ports like Seville and was originally set in the antiquity port of rich Tyre. They are all about the rogues of a dozen languages scheming and connecting over common ideas of wealth. The direct ancestor of the united scum of the cantina. And the non-humans of Tolkien are akin to humans in their values (family clans, oaths, pride and finer materials) and differ only in their degree. The Dwarves keep long grudges from their long lives and cloistered culture, and the Elves have seen it all from their perspective of divine grace. D&D keeps the same ideas; the non-humans still act like humans and maintain the same goals. Some would say it’s for ease of play but there is no reason the ease of play should be separate from the world the game is supposed to inhabit.

Maybe Gyagx and Greenwood crafted a world based on half-digested pulp and paperbacks. But the game exists to facilitate the game, tautologous as that sounds. If D&D did not want to have non-humans of some or any stripe, then they would not be offered, and the rules would insist on them being sperate. As AD&D does with it’s racial apathy tables, which in of themselves still allow for combinations of characters based on character deceit (hidden half-orcs) or some combinations requiring two different players’ dice to meet separate requirements for those choices to be an option. So, I say down with inhuman humanoids in a fantastical setting like D&D or Star Wars.

With that rant over, I do agree the ending is kind of perfunctory. The villains are dispatched by their own hubris (keeping a Dragonsnake bigger than them), the Republic bombs the palace and the heroes escape. Rotta could rebuild Jabba’s criminal empire to be less evil but he doesn’t want to be involved. I guess a society which translates a clan-business structure “Kajidic” into Space English (Basic) as “Cartel/Crime Syndicate” could have it cover legitimate businesses. But he might also join the New Republic, and besides the mentioned idea of him being fitted for a uniform, he could turn up again in the Glub Shitto roster. The final fight features some cool giant droids which fit the Elite goon model mentioned above. Embo and his dog survives because he’s too cool to waste.

The New Republic bombing the palace opens a lot of questions I saw mentioned elsewhere. Did the other Hutts seen earlier die? Did the New republic just commit a war crime or does the galaxy think the Hutts are all guilty? Did they declare war on the Hutt’ or has the Hutts’ power diminished so quickly that the equivalent of an airstrike by a major galactic power on important cultural leaders should be swept under the rug?

It, like the rest o the movie won’t matter in the scheme of the franchise unless a later writer decides to make it so. And that’s pretty much the wrap; average movie, some common narrative lessons and all tied away.