The Issue With the Mandalorian Helmet

 We are just a few days from the premier of season two of The Mandalorian. It should be an interesting ride to see where the story goes.

Now one big thing from the first season was that the Mandalorian did not remove his helmet in front of others, as was the way for all Mandalorians we saw in the series. This was clearly a very big rule for them, as it was mentioned many times throughout the series.

Now if one is into Star Wars and watches everything like we do in this house, you will find that in both cartoon series,  'Clone Wars' and Rebels', we see a lot of Mandalorians going around without their helmets for long periods of times, very openly in public, for all to see.

As all three of these are technically Star Wars canon, there pops up some obvious issues over this area of Mandalorian customs.

I've seen a few articles talking about the helmet mandate being part of the aftermath of the Empire decimating Mandalore in an attempt to wipe of the Mandalorians. There are a lot of references to this event in the series and some serious significance given to to it with the revelation that Moff Gideon has the Darksaber (A significant Mandalorian artifact from both of the previously mentioned cartoon series). The basic idea is that as they fled the need to embrace the identity of being a Mandalorian became a more significant and so it did not matter who you were under the armor, just that you were a Mandalorian. This also follows up with an established Expanded Universe concept about Mandalorians and how they adopt children of any species or culture into their ranks, which was also shown in the series. Their beliefs are it is not your birth that makes you a Mandalorian, but your loyalty and commitment to their ways and culture that matters.

I understand the reasoning given and see the logic there, but I believe it to be more complicated than that and can relate it to what we have seen in our own world.

As we all know, there is not one religion or culture that dominates our world and so by logic, even though we have seen too many sci-fi franchises not follow this reasoning, any other world out there would have a noticeable diversity to the beliefs of the major species that run things.

My thoughts are that for the longest time the group that was ruling Mandalore did not hold to old religious ideas about always wearing the helmet as they wanted to be a bigger part of intergalactic politics and to do so effectively, their faces needed to be seen and known. And while they were the ones in power, there were still groups of Mandalorians who found that to be blasphemous, embracing the old ways, even if they were a minority.

In the fall of Mandalore however, a minority group could easily find itself in a position to be listened to, especially if they had a more aggressive stance on going after their enemies and holding on to traditions. Just look at the middle east to see this exact manner of cultural swing having taken place. A society that has been greatly abused by other powers does seem to go backwards and allow strict religious ideas, that had almost fully been ignored for generations, to retake hold and dominate.

Basically with the fall of Mandalore, a small but strong religious sect of Mandalorians took control and reintroduced old beliefs as being 'The Way' for all to follow if they were true Mandalorians. This is a rational way to explain the discrepancies without any need to retcon or ignore established canon.

I cannot see the series going much farther without at least some manner of addressing this and if rumors are true about Boba Fett appearing in the new season, that would be a perfect chance to explore Mandalorian culture, as there is debate if Boba and Jango are really Mandalorians or just bounty hunters wearing Mandalorian armor. And of course if they explain how Gideon got the Darksaber, it would make sense to show how the ruling house of Mandalore fell, which would be another great time to explore these issues.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the Worst Indiana Jones Movie

So to repeat what I titled this post, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the worst Indiana Jones movie, that honor undeniably goes to Temple of Doom.

So the first real issue is Indiana's love interests. Out of the three he is given in the four films, Willie is by far the worst. She is fully  useless through out the whole film, mostly used for comedy relief as she is just annoying, spoiled and whiney, nothing else. I don't believe for one moment Indiana would be attracted to her, as she lacks common sense and is just unlikable on ever level. There really is no doubt he ditched her as soon as possible and most likely forgot about her, hoping to never see her again.

Then we have the plot.  The story for Temple of Doom is not compelling, you just don't care. Which is a big problem, since it has Indy doing his most noble of missions, yet there is something lacking. I can't explain it, but of all his quests, this one I really didn't care if he completed it or not. Helping the village and freeing their children should matter, should have some depth and passion to it, yet that didn't seem important to Indy and so it wasn't important to us. We just were never given an sense that he was as interested in finding the Sankara stone as he has been in finding every other artifact we see him go after. He also treats the whole thing as something to do just because he has some free time.

Then we get into the adventure itself. There are no clues to follow, no big journey to take and really no adversary of note for him to be up against. Most of the action takes place in the last third of the film, with little before that. And while it is great to get a sense of the culture, it just slows everything down, killing off any possible sense of urgency. And the main adversary not showing up until half way through as well. The head priest is the only Indiana Jones adversary who is not in a battle of wills with Indy, he just has a lot of armed men and some brainwashing potion. Character wise this was a simple villain with simple motivation. Even when Indy was under his power, it never really felt like he had done anything to out smart or earn his victory over Indy. He just had enough armed men.

And I will never understand the big finally chase, as it is just stupid. They knock over a reservoir of drinking water, than somehow magically is a dam breaking in a river and flooding a deep cavern system. Sorry, there is no way the amount of water that the reservoir could hold at its fullest, could possibly do anything more than just make a lot of stuff wet right in the area it was knocked over in, let alone create a violent river that ignores physics, flying over the deep mineshafts and ripping apart the side of a mountain. I didn't notice it as a kid, but now it is just idiotic.

I won't go into the moronically inaccuracy of the big dinner scene and how it could be viewed as culturally offensive as it was just a huge comedy scene that was supposed to gross you out, with none of it being accurate for that culture.

It also felt like there was not real resolution of closure for the film. Yeah, Indy got the stone back to the village and freed he children, the big bad head priest was killed, but it all felt meaningless. From a logically point of view, the cult would still be around and there would be nothing stopping them from doing it all again with a new head priest as soon as Indy was gone. That village feels like it will find itself in the same situation before too long, as they have a super magic stone that they don't hide and no way to protect it on their own. They kind of are inviting people to steal it from them.

So while I do have my problems with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as it is far from being a perfect movie, with a great deal of unjustifiable flaws in it, I find it to be a better movie in general than the Temple of Doom.

Of course we now have the fifth Indiana Jones movie in the works, which if all goes as planned should be out in 2022. No Lucas or Spielberg this time around, which I'm not sure is bad thing.

So there is my opinion and my defense of it. I am watching the film as I write this, so I clearly do not hate the film, I just have my issues with it.

Why Kylo Ren Has The Best Character Development in the Whole Star Wars Universe

 Now each Star Wars Trilogy had one featured hero who has the dominating story arc. Classic trilogy it is Luke, prequel trilogy we're following Anakin, and sequel trilogy we're with Rey. Luke's story is a fairly straight forward hero's journey. Anakin is a forced story of the rise and fall of a hero. Rey is more or less back to the basic hero's journey.

Other characters get their stories told, but most of them are not that well played out, with some characters really getting the screwed over.

However, there is one character storyline that to me stands out as the best and that is the story of Ben Sols/Kylo Ren.

The only child born to Leia and Han Solo, legendary heroes of the rebellion, nephew to Luke Skywalker and grandchild of Darth Vader. So before he was even born, the whole weight of the universe was on his shoulders. The insane amount of stress of being a child in the that family, with that legacy being forced on you, would be unbelievably unfair. There was no way he was not going to be viewed as the hope for the future.,

So we jump to his Jedi training years where we know Ben was caught up in the struggle between the light and dark sides of the Force. His Uncle trying to train him and most likely filling him with the idea of taking over and become a Jedi Master himself, and Snoke filling him with the promise of power and control, something he most likely was desiring in his life more than anything. He would have been very much caught between two worlds. Then Luke sensed the growing darkness in Ben, and most likely feared the idea he might be creating a new Vader, Luke made a huge error in judgment that made those fears come true.

Unlike Anakin's fall to the dark side, which felt forced in every way, I very much believe Ben's fall.

But then he is still very much caught between the two words still, having some real, believable inner struggles that we see played out through all three of the sequels as he tries to figure out who he is. And like any person he doe so back and forth in his struggle for self. His anger works and while he does have the family trait of being whiny, this is the first time it feels justified. With both Luke and Anakin, they were annoying when they got whiny, but Kylo was doing it as he was dealing with his inner conflict. most likely more angry with himself than the universe.

In The Last Jedi, one of the most well done, brilliant scenes was when Kylo took out Snoke, showing he was more powerful than his master and had control over that power. He had succeeded where Vader had failed and was now the master.

His anger towards Luke at the end of the film felt very much justified and real. Luke had failed him and now he had proven himself, claiming the control in life he never had before, that he could easily and rationally blame Luke for denying him.

Then we jump to Rise of Skywalker and we find that Kylo Ren is not fully satisfied with his new found power and control. It's not what he was hoping for. He is haunted by the actions that brought him that power, as seen in the brilliantly done scene of him speaking with a vision in his head of his father, who he had killed. His inner struggle never went away, even after achieved what he thought were his goals.

The guilt and revelation of what he had become pushed him to his redemption as he sacrifices himself to prevent the Sith from rising again.

Nothing of his story felt forced to me. It was a fully told story that was well acted with believable motivations and reactions. The story arc just works on so many levels.

It is sad that so any characters got cheated out of a story arc of their own, but out of the few we got, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren's was I personally feel the best of them.