Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Alasdair Stuart buckles up for the first full trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu…

I hate that my first response to a trailer for a Star Wars movie is a deep sigh and ‘…Okay, let’s do this.’ I’m not that guy! I’m Captain Positive! I’m chipper! But something about the meat grinder that Star Wars movie development have become, and the ineffable smugness of that Superbowl trailer has got my hackles perma raised. Maybe this actual trailer with actual plot will change matters. Let’s dive in.

0.04 –’Hey, never touch the buttons.’

Lovely shot, bad start. This is an inside baseball thing I know, but it’s hard not to see what’s intended (playful! Not your father’s Star Wars!) but rather a troll about whether or not we’re ever getting that Rogue Squadron movie. Or any of the other half dozen Star Wars movies announced and somewhere in development hell and I’m getting cross again. Look, Grogu’s still being cute, let’s move on.

0.14 – Razor Crest 2.0

James Whitbrook over at io9 has written very well about how Mando getting another Razor Crest is one of the things that’s so irksome. This one has yellow markings though! So there’s that. Also, it seems he may have been gifted this by the New Republic. Those look a lot like the hangers Carson and co were deploying out of in the last season.

0.26 – ‘Closed for the night! Thank you!’

Okay we’re finding the level now. If this is deliberately light-hearted and slightly goofy then honestly, great! So many of the major science fiction franchises are loaded down with fans who get grumpy when something ‘improper’ happens that it’s nice to see Star Wars having a little fun. Cute new alien race too. By the way, it’s been confirmed this charming gentleman (the same race as Jon Favreau’s character in Solo by the way) is voiced by Martin Scorsese, legendary director!

0.29 – Hutt and Hutt

I reserve the right to roll every single eye in my possession if we’re back on Tatooine yet AGAIN, but I don’t think we are These are the Hutt Twins, a big part of The Book of Boba Fett and presumably on Sigourney Weaver’s hit list.

0.32 – ‘Long live the Empire’

Note the Snowtroopers and the view outside the window. According to some of the toys announced (and God help us we get so much information that way now) these are Imperial Remnant troops and they’re not in good shape. There’s some speculation they’re on Hoth but I’m holding hope there’s more than one snow planet in the Star Wars galaxy. With Tauntauns. Ah, damn it.

0.36 – ‘We’ll take out every bad guy in your deck of cards.’

OUCH. This looks, judging by the actual cards we see Sigourney Weaver’s character holding, like an in-universe version of the Most Wanted playing cards issued to US troops during the 2003 Iraq invasion. These listed 52 of the highest ranking members of the Ba’ath Party or Revolutionary Council. In this case it’s a Sabacc deck so that’s 76 cards. Oh and apparently Sigourney Weaver is playing Colonel Ward.

On the one hand, this is part of a US military procedure that goes back as far as the American Civil War where cards were used to teach troopers everything from targets to, during World War II, whether an aircraft was friendly or not. It’s a practical piece of soldier craft, but it’s one most connected in the modern eye with the Iraq war and everything that happened surrounding that. Giving that to the New Republic is going to leave a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths. Doubly so given the smash cut to Grogu saluting.

0.41 – Mando on the Attack

And cutting straight from that to Mando executing a couple of Imperial soldiers.

0.45 – Sigourney Weaver

Oh hi! Always nice to see her.

0.47 – Cold weather messenger droid

Okay, the little mousebot with enormous snow wheels is cute as a button.

0.48 – ‘This isn’t about revenge, it’s about preventing another war.’

If this is a movie about the New Republic using a freelancer to carry out vigilante assassinations, then this is territory Star Wars has only ever hinted at going before. Cara Dune (who is surely due a head transplant and return?) mentioned working similar ops when she first appeared. It’s a morally enormously grey area, one rife with opportunities for interesting stories and I have real concerns that Grogu is the spoonful of sugar around some pretty nasty choices. But if they can pull it off, then this could be something special.

0.52 – Troops

Something odd about the soldiers we see running across the screen here. I want to say they’re Clone Wars era bots but they look spindly and organic. That being said, the architecture we see in a shot a few seconds later looks very Hutt-esque and the Twins seem to favour droids, so, maybe?

1.02 – Hey Pedro!

Yep, organics. Look at the person who takes Mando’s helmet off.

1.05 – Cool Hat!

And our first major live action step over! This is Embo, a semi regular character on the Clone Wars cartoon. He was a freelance bounty hunter who worked, fairly regularly, for the Grand Hutt Council. So, odds are, he’s working for the twins here. Maybe even capturing Mando and Grogu given that looks a lot like their hut in the distance.

1.10 – Two Captures

I’m not sure but this looks like two scenes where Mando is captured have been cut together to look like one. I may be wrong (it would be weird if he got his helmet taken off twice given the Mandalorian creed) but the lighting is very different in all the shots we see of this.

1.25 – HUTT FIGHT!

This is presumably the cage-fighting Hutt Jeremy Allen White is voicing who we’ve actually seen before! 18 years ago! This is Rotta, who we saw in the original, and not great, Clone Wars pilot movie as a baby. Given his new found build, twin axes and career as a cage fighter, the kid’s certainly made a name for himself.

1.29 – Enormous Snake!

Superficially looking like the Mandalorian totem beast, the Mythosaur, this is actually an enormous, pale white snake that Mando seems to be fighting in the sewers somewhere (note the pipes in the background). He’s lost his helmet and what looks like a good chunk of his armour and weapons so this is going to get gnarly.

1.36 – Zeb!

Zeb, beloved of Rebels viewers, makes his big screen debut! Apparently, Steve Blum is returning to voice him too!

1.51 – Force and Furious

Okay Grogu force jumping into the abandoned pram and hot rodding out of there is adorable, you got me on that one.

Also just prior to this we get a shot of the arena Rotta is fighting in as the beasts break out. One of them is apparently a Mantellian Savrip, which we last saw on the holo chess board in the Millennium Falcon way back in Star Wars. Oh and the sign, written in Aurebesh above him? Reads ‘Weathers Apollo’. That’s a nice tribute to Carl Weathers, who played Greef Karga on the show.

This looks massive and enthusiastic and while there are a couple of choices (the deck of cards for one) I’m really dubious about I’m pretty much onboard. It’s not smug, it’s not infuriatingly vague, it’s an actual trailer for an actual movie! One that comes out 22 May.