Beskar ore (an indestructible iron ore) was famous for being used in Mandalorian armor, and the only place it came from was the Mandalorian homeworld. Mandalore was occupied by the Empire for many years, and after the Empire fell, Beskar became very valuable to the Mandalorians as they started to rebuild. The old Imperial who hired the bounty hunter in the show probably obtained a stockpile of it sometime during the occupation, and/or after the Empire fell.

I thought it was pretty cool to see an IG droid in action, after only seeing it briefly in ESB and a few comic book panels.

Mandalorians didn't have a cultural aversion to droids from what I recall. However, from a practical standpoint, droids can be reprogrammed and hijacked. A real pilot can be leveraged/threatened if they're compromised to act against their passenger.

Bad star wars, you mean?

That would be great

Probably impossible at this point, though. Everybody is on other projects. Incidently, The Rookie has been pretty good so far.

From what I recall, Lucas was intentionally keeping Yoda (& Yaddle's) backgrounds and species a mystery.

I'm guessing Disney wants to change that, considering the introduction of this new baby Yoda character.

I like the Mandalorian so far.

I agree on the Watchmen. I saw one episode and it was a complete turn off for me. I get why it may have been important to the story, but it's not something I enjoy to see in my downtime.

Merchandising was a pretty new concept back then. That's why when Fox funded the movie, they weren't interested in merchandising and instead went for the distribution rights of the movie.

Today, merchandising is a huge piece of the pie.

I agree--I think Disney really botched things. I really expected more from them.

Dropping all the expanded universe material like it didn't matter, and then with Kathleen Kennedy recently saying "we have no source material" is kind of a slap in the face. I have bookshelves full of 40 years worth of star wars books. That is a heck of a lot of source material right there. Not to mention all the decades of comic books and video games out there. There is an incredible abundance of source material. Even if you can't use the original trilogy characters, there are plenty of side stories and pre/post trilogy adventures to explore and expand upon, as well as fascinating characters.

I agree--I've re-watched it a few times and liked it for the most part, but do have some issues with it. Some of the contemporary moments/dialog that get shoehorned in kind of remove me from the moment.

The others (TFA, TLJ, and Solo) I haven't had a huge desire to see more than twice.

I think with a solid team of fans without much corporate involvement would have resulted in something much better. Some of the fan fiction films out there that I've seen are incredibly creative and often times left me wanting more.

With Disney's treatment of the films, I haven't really been left wanting more. I don't have high hopes for the latest film.

At least with the Mandalorian, it returns to exploring an interesting area of Star Wars lore. Which is what Disney should've done in the first place.

That's Joe Pantoliano, who played Cypher.

I agree--there was the goal of rescuing the the child, getting away, and then the main plot kind of stopped developing there. The child mainly turned into a side curiosity after that the other characters occasionally encountered.

I was hoping to see some more development since it started as the big plot point.

Even with the adventure of the week, I would have liked to see something worked in where the Mandalorian needed to get something or go somewhere to move the plot forward. Right now, it's just aimless wandering.

I think Rogue One was the only new film that had any sort of coherent story. The others were a mess and just basically made up things on the fly. There were some good visuals and interesting sequences, but those don't really seem to make up for all the other problems.

I've enjoyed the mandalorian so far, but my only minor criticism from this latest episode was that the stormtroopers basically acted like untrained circus clowns. I would have expected them to display a bit more tactical awareness, even if they can't hit the broad side of a barn door. I'm guessing that stormtroopers who survived the fall of the empire probably didn't make it out of that without some skills to show for it.

There were certainly a lot of problems with it, but far less than the other films. When it first came out, I didn't like it a whole lot, but then when placed against the other films, I liked it a bit more since the others were so bad.

One thing about the new films is that I cringe every time there is a contemporary reference or use of a contemporary word/phrase in a star wars movie. They just sound so jarring and out of place in that universe.

That's not a problem with the Mandalorian--there's hardly any lines, lol

I saw an interview with Filoni a few months back--he talked about star wars on a much deeper level than anybody I've heard from before, and pointed out a lot of interesting things that I never realized before. It was really interesting--and refreshing that someone involved in creating live action star wars content cared so much about it. He certainly has quite a lot of passion for star wars.

That shouldn't have stopped them from at least trying to establish a defensible position instead of just standing out in the open without any sort of formation.

These were supposed to be Moff Gideon's troops. In season one, they seemed to be reasonably competent as far as OT stormtroopers go, not to mention outfitted with good, clean, and serviced equipment (unlike the old imperial client's stormtroopers from season 1).

Anyway....that doesn't stop me from looking forward to the next episode.

It looked like they were in drop ships that came down from Gideon's cruiser. It seemed like they were his troops, but like you say, not his personal guard.

TPS reports? Really?

They did have "jeans guy" in the background of one scene. It was trending for a bit, then disney erased him.
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He (Richard Brake) also had a significant role in Doom.

I still think contemporary references have no place in star wars. It's like breaking the 4th wall. It just doesn't work for the material.

It's the superhero advance. Or the Mario invincibility star.

I'm not really bothered by it since it's just part of the action.

This. There were a lot of good stories and characters in the EU that disney decided to throw away to allow what they so-called "creative freedom". Ugh.

That doesn't mean everything in the EU was perfect--there is some clunky stuff with rough edges in the mix.

But the point is that there was plenty of room in the EU for new stories that don't have to be directly connected to the main characters of the OT, as The Mandalorian has proven. Disney didn't need to throw away the EU to make room for the really clunky, unplanned, uneven, and very rough cornerstone films they put out. They would've been better served following or fitting into existing EU stories that already had a roadmap in place, rather than making something up quite literally on the fly. If disney really wanted "creative freedom" they could have just done some other new space opera where there were no established rules or characters to contend with.