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Category Star Wars
A Star Wars: Sana Starros #3 Micro-Review – How to Steal a Rancor
***This is where we keep it nice and simple. Comic book reviews in 100 words or less. Straight, concise, and to the point.***
TITLE: Star Wars: Sana Starros #3
AUTHOR: Justina Ireland
ARTISTS: Pere Perez, Dono Sanchez-Almara (Colorist) Travis Lanham (Letterer). Cover by Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez.
RELEASED: April 19, 2023
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
This issue is about Sana and her crew having to steal a rancor. That’s pretty damn cool. Less cool? Sana having to poor rancor urine on herself to attract the thing. Ew…
I can’t say that Sana Starros is at the top of my stack each week. But the series is working for me, thus far. It’s a family adventure story filled with action, hijinks, and a villain that’s very easy to dislike. I’m hoping this book gets a decent-sized run.
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A Star Wars: Yoda #7 Micro-Review – Yoda vs. General Grievous
***This is where we keep it nice and simple. Comic book reviews in 100 words or less. Straight, concise, and to the point.***
TITLE: Star Wars: Yoda #7
AUTHOR: Marc Guggenheim
ARTISTS: Alessandro Miracolo, Annalisa Leoni (Colorist), Joe Caramagna (Letterer). Cover by Phil Noto.
RELEASED: May 3, 2023
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
As the cover indicates, we get a fight between Yoda and General Grievous in this issue. It manages to be a pretty good fight, with Yoda being more formidable than one might initially anticipate. “Size matters not,” etc.
Have we officially established that the voice Yoda hears during the Dagobah scenes is Qui-Gon Jinn? Who else could it be…?
This Yoda series is working for me. You wouldn’t necessarily think Yoda would work as the subject of an ongoing. But here we are.
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A Star Wars #34 Micro-Review – Lightsaber Stories
***This is where we keep it nice and simple. Comic book reviews in 100 words or less. Straight, concise, and to the point.***
TITLE: Star Wars #34
AUTHOR: Charles Soule
ARTISTS: Madibek Musabekov, Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist), Clayton Cowles (Letterer). Cover by Stephen Segovia & Rain Beredo.
RELEASED: May 3, 2023
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
One complaint I’ve had since the beginning of this series is how lightsaber-centric some of the stories have been. Luke has to go back to Cloud City to find his blue lightsaber, Luke has to find a new lightsaber, Luke’s new lightsaber gets destroyed, etc. Now, we’ve got Luke looking for a kyber crystal to construct the green lightsaber we see in Return of the Jedi.
I’ll say this much, at least it was established in Jedi that Luke had to construct a new lightsaber. So we’re not just making up lightsaber stories for the heck of it.
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A Star Wars: Yoda #6 Micro-Review – “Always Present, the Dark Side is.”
***This is where we keep it nice and simple. Comic book reviews in 100 words or less. Straight, concise, and to the point.***
TITLE: Star Wars: Yoda #6
AUTHOR: Jody Houser
ARTISTS: Luke Ross, Nolan Woodard (Colorist), Joe Caramagna (Letterer). Cover by Phil Noto.
RELEASED: April 19, 2023
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
There’s some good dark-side related stuff in here. Namely about how the dark side is part of the Force itself, and always there as a temptation. I like that notion. It rings true to how certain temptations work in the real world.
At the risk of harping on, I really can’t say enough good things about how Luke Ross and Nolan Woodard render Yoda. There’s so much detail there that he almost looks drawn from life. It’s a big selling point for this series, as far as I’m concerned.
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TikTok Question: “Would You Want Another Season of Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
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The Mandalorian, “Chapter 22: Guns For Hire” Review
SERIES: Star Wars: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S3:E6 – “Chapter 22: Guns For Hire”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Lizzo, Jack Black, Christopher Lloyd
WRITERS: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Bryce Dallas Howard
PREMIERE DATE: April 5, 2023
SYNOPSIS: Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze face a hidden threat on Plazir-15.
***New around here? Check out our Star Wars review archive!**
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
Did we need Lizzo and Jack Black in this episode as the Duchess and Captain Bombadier? No. We didn’t. It’s stunt casting. But I’ll say this much: It’s good stunt casting. Lizzo is believable as a duchess, and Jack Black does just fine as a quirky ex-Imperial. I doubt we’ll see more of them any time soon. But I wouldn’t be opposed to it, per se.
Christopher Lloyd, meanwhile, plays Helgait, the head of security on Plazir-15. Lizzo and Jack Black play royalty in this episode. But as far as I’m concerned, Lloyd is Hollywood royalty. It’s a lot of fun seeing him in a Star Wars project. Especially once we get to the twist toward the end involving his character…
This is Bryce Dallas Howard’s third time directing an episode of The Mandalorian, having done “Sanctuary” and “The Heiress.” She also directed “Return of the Mandalorian” for The Book of Boba Fett. So she was very much in her element here. Apparently, after this episode aired there were fans calling for her to direct a Star Wars movie. You’d get no complaints from me on that front. She clearly has her footing in the Star Wars universe, and has inherited her father’s knack for directing. I say bring her on.
The purple glow of the city made for a cool, memorable visual. Ideally, a Star Wars location stands out and is distinct in its own way. It’s not nearly as easy to do in 2023 as it was in, say, the early 80s. It can be done, though.
Have we seen a droid bar on a live-action Star Wars show before? I feel like we have, I just can’t remember when. Either way, it makes for, again, a really distinct and cool visual. Mando’s line “I don’t think they get many of our kind here” is a nice little callback to the “We don’t serve their kind here!” line from the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in A New Hope.
Toward the end of the episode, Grogu is made a knight of the “Ancient Order of Independent Regencies.” That’s cool and all, but they missed an opportunity to revel in the cuteness of Lizzo calling the little guy “Sir Grogu.”
The logic they used to move the Darksaber from Mando’s possession Bo’s was clever. It never occurred to me that they’d use Bo saving him in “The Mines of Mandalore” for that purpose. It’s one of those things that, in hindsight, seems obvious.
Still, the show might have missed an opportunity to give us a Mando vs. Bo fight. One that would have been that much more emotionally charged, given what they’ve been through this season. We’ll have to see if what they do with Bo and the Darksaber makes for a worthwhile ending to the season.
Mrs. Primary Ignition wound up falling asleep during the latter half of this episode. When I came to bed I told her that Bo had the Darksaber now. Her words back to me? “Oh, that’s good. Where did she find it?”
*sigh*
Hard to believe there are only two episodes left this season. And we still haven’t seen Migs Mayfeld yet!
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A Star Wars #33 Micro-Review – The Broken Saber
***This is where we keep it nice and simple. Comic book reviews in 100 words or less. Straight, concise, and to the point.***
TITLE: Star Wars #33
AUTHOR: Charles Soule
ARTISTS: Madibek Musabekov, Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist), Clayton Cowles (Letterer). Cover by Stephen Segovia & Rain Beredo.
RELEASED: April 5, 2023
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
Luke’s gold lightsaber gets destroyed in this issue…kind of? It’s honestly a little confusing. Hopefully the damn thing is gone. I’ve never liked it.
Something else I don’t like? When Star Wars harps on too much about hope. There’s a big line in this issue about hope, and it’s an eye-roller.
We get more with Lando and Amilyn Holdo in this issue. I won’t lie, now that the initial shock of them hooking up has subsided, Soule is doing a decent job selling us on them being together. Or at least that there’s a quasi-romantic dynamic between the two.
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The Mandalorian, “Chapter 21: The Pirate” Review
SERIES: Star Wars: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S3:E5 – “Chapter 21: The Pirate”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
WRITERS: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Peter Ramsey
PREMIERE DATE: March 29, 2023
SYNOPSIS: Din Djarin and his tribe come to the aid of Greef Karga on Nevarro.
***New around here? Check out our Star Wars review archive!**
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
We’re five episodes into season three of The Mandalorian, and I’m starting to worry that the bloom is off the rose. Not that the show isn’t good anymore, or that I’m not enjoying it. I’m just wondering if this season isn’t a step down from seasons one and two. I maintain that they should have saved what they did with Mando and Grogu on The Book of Boba Fett for this season. Because this show is ultimately about them. Right now it feels like we’re watching a show about Bo-Katan Kryze. Or at the very least, this tribe of Mandalorians. Maybe that’s what the show should be called now. The Mandalorians, plural.
How bad is it that when I see Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who reprises his role as Carson Teva in this episode, I keep waiting for him to break into the accent he used for all those years. on Kim’s Convenience? Still, it’s nice to see them bring that character back again. In terms of people we have to check in with every season (Greef Karga, Migs Mayfeld, etc.), his name is definitely on the list.
Gorian Shard, or “the swamp monster” as Mrs. Primary Ignition calls him, is voiced by Nonzo Anosie. I thought he sounded familiar, though I couldn’t quite place his voice. He’s probably best known for playing Thomas Jepperd in Sweet Tooth.
The moment from this episode that got a lot of online buzz was when Zeb, the big purple guy from Star Wars: Rebels, briefly cameos (shown below). This isn’t as big a deal to me as it is to other people, as I haven’t seen much of Rebels. But it’s cool to see Zeb in live action, and Steve Blum rightfully returns to do his voice.
Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows pops up in this episode as Colonel Tuttle. Much like me waiting for Lee to do the Kim’s Convenience accent, I kept waiting for Meadows to do the accent he did in the “Ladies Man” skits.
The tree full of Kowakian monkey-lizards was a cool visual. Reminiscent of classic Star Wars, as we obviously saw a monkey-lizard in Salacious B. Crumb back in Return of the Jedi.
Mrs. Primary Ignition brought up an interesting point: Do all Mandalorians have the nickname Mando? Obviously it was used for Din Djarin because he never told people his given name. But if someone were to casually know say, Paz Vizsla, would he also get the Mando nickname? It’s possible, I suppose. It’s not like Mando is a huge leap from Mandalorian.
Wait…the New Republic uses Lambda shuttles too? I thought those were an Imperial thing? Palpatine and Vader rode around in those things, for cryin’ out loud! I realize that in-universe it’s probably the equivalent of a car brand. But from a viewer’s perspective, those things are identified with the Empire. Not what I would have done, per se.
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The Mandalorian, “Chapter 20: The Foundling” Review
SERIES: Star Wars: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S3:E4 – “Chapter 20: The Foundling”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Emily Swallow, Ahmed Best, Wesley Kimmel
WRITERS: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni
DIRECTOR: Carl Weathers
PREMIERE DATE: March 22, 2023
SYNOPSIS: The tribe works to save a taken child.
***New around here? Check out our Star Wars review archive!**
By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder
This is the second episode of The Mandalorian to be directed by Carl Weathers, who also plays Greef Karga. His first episode was “Chapter 12: The Siege.”
Great shot of the ship and the dragon flying into the sun. One of the more memorable moments in the entire episode.
I’ve always felt for Ahmed Best, the actor who did the voice and motion-capture for Jar Jar Binks in the prequels. He must have thought he was getting the role of a lifetime. And then, after all the backlash, it became an albatross. So to see him in this episode as Jedi Knight Kelleran Beq is really cool.
I actually had no idea Kelleran Beq wasn’t a new character. Apparently Best played him in the 2020 YouTube show Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge. It’s really nice that they found a way to incorporate him into The Mandalorian. I imagine Star Wars guru and Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni had a hand in that.
Two questions coming out of Grogu’s flashback to the siege of the Jedi Temple…
1. Why were there so many Jedi protecting Grogu? Is it the obvious answer, i.e. that he was a young and defenseless child? Or had he been designated special in some way?
2. During the attack, the Jedi were bound and determined to get Grogu to Kelleran. Why? Is he a designated caretaker for young initiates?
It’s not necessarily evident to non-Star Wars geeks, but those were Naboo pilots that helped Kelleran, and a Naboo ship he flew away in. That’s a nice touch.
Very convenient that Bo-Katan didn’t have helmet hair when she took hers off to eat. Come to think of it, has anyone on this show ever had helmet hair? Maybe Mando in his unmasking scene with IG-11. But that’s about it.
When Mando, Bo, and the team return with the rescued Ragnar, the other Mandalorians clap. Or rather they…kind of clap? They clang their gauntlets together repeatedly. Same effect, I suppose.
Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.
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