The Mandalorian (TV series)

[shootemindehead]

Well, that ended well (mmmm, well enough anyway). Except,   Luke's appearance shows why de-aging and CGI has a LONG, LONG, way to go before it can be considered ready to use as a method to bring back the OT stars into Star Wars. It was bad. I'm generally against recasts and this de-aging lark anyway. I think the OT crowd have had their day.   Wasn't that crazy about Boba Fett being brought back from the dead, either, and am even less enthused at a show about him in 2021 as teased in the post credits scene in S02E08. But I suppose that Disney just couldn't help themselves.

[ProfessorChaos]

woah that was one hell of a finale! i hope not, but i could almost forsee that being the finale for the entire series. believe that i heard they are planning on a third season.   while I agree the digital de-aging of luke was a bit off-putting, it was still fucking awesome to see. my son and i just finished return of the jedi the other night so we were super pumped. poor grogu, hopefully luke's bitch-ass nephew doesn't kill him along with the rest of the students....but for me the timeline stops there for now. doubt i'll even show the sequel trilogy to my son. i've only seen the first of that turd-fest anyhow.

[MinionZombie]

The second season got off to a bit of a slow start for me, I kinda felt like we were just straight into side missions rather than the main story, but after a couple of episodes it felt like it got moving again and I settled into it nicely. Solid finale with an emotional climax.   Also, yep, the CGI Luke Skywalker was pretty dodgy ... the dead eyes, the weird mouth (I swear it literally moved around his face at one point) ... you kinda wonder, why not just get some YouTuber who specialises in DeepFakes to just do it? The ones who know what they're doing can actually do better work than the big studios when it comes to this de-aging stuff. Hopefully Grogu and Mando will team up again. Perhaps there'll be a time jump in season three, or after we've seen some of his training? Will they tie it into the sequel trilogy's backstory about the massacre, with Grogu escaping/being rescued, or maybe that was set a bit later?

[shootemindehead]

Those deepfakes aren't particularly convincing either. I think people are just more good willed toward them cos they're made by some guy in his bedroom, as opposed to a giant moneybags media corporation.

[paranoid101]

Should have got Bucky to do it. Fantastic series, did everyone watch the after credit scene, no spoilers but wow lol fivuSdj-lvhl.jpg

[MinionZombie]

Those deepfakes aren't particularly convincing either. I think people are just more good willed toward them cos they're made by some guy in his bedroom, as opposed to a giant moneybags media corporation. Depends on which ones you look at. I've seen plenty okay/iffy ones, but I've also seen some really good ones. You can't help but wonder, those deepfakers with Disney resources could have really done a good job with it. Anyway, oddness of the de-aging aside (I was questioning whether it was even his voice, as he's usually more gravelly now ... but then again, he is a professional voice actor as well), that whole sequence going through those droids was awesome. Speaking of - Mando vs that one droid really made them intimidating and tough. You actually felt the tension, especially when they all turned up again.

[shootemindehead]

It was about time there was some tension in the flippin show.

[MinionZombie]

Someone's done a deepfake on the last episode...   The eyes are better, but obviously they're only deepfaking on top of what was already there - which includes the lips that never actually close, they're always open, even when making "B" or "P" sounds. But it was a little improvement over all, I thought.

[bassman]

The progression from the X-Wing arrival, to the black robe in the security footage, then the gloved hand and green saber reveal....I jumped up from my chair without even realizing it. So exciting. But then the uncanny valley took over during the full reveal. It didn’t ruin it entirely, but it would have been better as a recast(Sebastian Stan, who’s already in bed with Disney) and a voice replacement.

[MinionZombie]

The progression from the X-Wing arrival, to the black robe in the security footage, then the gloved hand and green saber reveal....I jumped up from my chair without even realizing it. So exciting. But then the uncanny valley took over during the full reveal. It didn’t ruin it entirely, but it would have been better as a recast(Sebastian Stan, who’s already in bed with Disney) and a voice replacement. I suppose they needed the audience to know straight away who it was, rather than seeing a different lookalike actor and then wondering in a moment of confusion as to who exactly it was.

[shootemindehead]

Casting this Stan geezer would just cause the majority of the audience to ask "WTF is this guy". It had to be CGI. Just a pity it wasn't better CGI.

[Moon Knight]

The dodgy CGI didn’t ruin the moment for me. That was my childhood right there.

[bassman]

At the very least, I hope they recast before Luke is used again. Assuming he’ll be used again when Grogu reunites with Din at some point(Grogu can’t stay with Luke for very long). We’ve already seen a different actor playing Han, and he looked nothing like Harrison Ford. Sure, it was from a period of Han’s life that we hadn’t seen, but surely they could work something out without the floating faces they’ve now done three times with poor results. Just ease in a different actor and give us some more of Luke at full power. Everyone loves Hamill, but a close enough replacement could work. We’ve seen practical make up effects for historical figures in movies for decades now and most of them are above and beyond the CG face replacement. I’m not meaning to drag the show through the dirt. It’s phenomenal. But the CG faces need to be left alone for another decade tor so until it’s more convincing. Ironically, I just saw a de-aged Pedro Pescal(Din Djarin himself) in Wonder Woman 1984. “Oof” is the best I can say about that movie...

[shootemindehead]

Ehrenreich is a perfect example of why there SHOULDN'T be any recasts of the original characters. It was awful. Not once was he convincing as Han Solo. Or I should say, not once was he convincing as Harrison Ford, because that's who Solo is. It was obvious that he was going to be rejected and it came as no surprise to me that that film failed. It was a disastrous idea from the beginning. The film wasn't helped by being a lump of meh either. The problem here is that none of the original actors were that good, so they brought far too much of themselves to the roles. This means that anyone who gets recast is going to have to be an impressionist and that's a tougher ask than most think. It would be next to impossible to conjure up a completely successful replacement that everyone will accept. Personally it never really works for me and recasting a major character is always a failure to some degree. The only way it can work is if there's a significant age difference involved and even then it can be awkward. In the end, the original characters had their time and it's over. Things need to move on and Disney need to make new characters and new stories for Star Wars. The thing is, they need to make them good, which so far has been a tall ask (with the exception of 'Rogue One' and 'The Mandalorian'). The period of Luke, Han and Leia has plenty of room to explore new stories. They just need to leave those characters out of it, because offering up a fake, whether it's CGI or somebody else, is going to fail.

[bassman]

I like Solo. Ehrenreich certainly was no Ford, but he seemed to do okay with what he was given. It was a younger version that we hadn’t seen, so I was able to let go and accept him. The film itself doesn’t get enough credit, IMO. With it’s troubled production and the divided reaction to Last Jedi, people were primed to hate it before it even premiered. But in the end, I feel it’s a very fun western set within the SW universe. In certain ways, it may have paved the way for the tone of Mandalorian.