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Okay, let me start this review by saying that I overlooked to write my review for Episode 7 of The Mandalorian and the last episode of the HBO Watchmen TV series. So I figured out that I'll do a review of both 7 and 8 at the same time given that The Mandalorian Season 1 has just ended on Disney+.

I'll probably do a review of the last Watchmen episode sometime soon, I hope.

Right, on to Episode 7 of The Mandalorian first.

Episode 7 is all about Moff Gideon, the mysterious loyalist to the (remnants) of the Empire who seemed to have a handful of Stormtroopers left with him. Death Troopers are also part of his entourage so I can safely say that they didn't disband when Director Krennic met his demise on Scarif many years prior.

And did you guys see how that TIE Fighter folded its wings to land? I wonder if this is how the TIE Fighters are supposed to land anyway given that we've never actually seen them landing on solid ground before in any of the movies.

The Client finally ordered the Mando to bring the 'asset' over to him and supposedly it has a role in The Rise of Skywalker (seriously I do not know when it'll be safe to talk about the film already) so I was looking forward to both Episodes 7 and 8 to see any clues that may lead up to the film. Again, it's great to see the original Stormies all weathered up like Sandtroopers in the series. It gives me that great sense of pride knowing that the Empire is actually well alive albeit remnants of it scattered all across the galaxy.

Greef Carga finally proved his worth to the Mando when he went all soft and ratted out the two henchmen who tagged along with him who had the intentions to dispose off the Mando. Great to see Cara Dune back in the fold too and I take it that she'll be playing a major role in the upcoming season. I had high hopes for Kuill in this episode and was expecting him to carry over to Season 2......

....but he ended up as the first casualty from the good guys camp when he unfortunately failed to protect The Child from the two Scout Troopers. So bye-bye Nick Nolte from the series. I like the Ugnaught character so I was kinda sad to him go. I have spoken. Episode 7 ended in a cliffhanger but we all knew that The Child was abducted and our heroes were trapped in that cantina after The Client was disposed off by Moff Gideon at the end of the episode which sets us up for.......

......Episode 8!

The episode started out pretty hilarious and it kinda stirred the fanbase especially the b***hurt fans who doesn't want any kind of humour whatsoever in Star Wars. The franchise had evolved ever since Disney took over and those who dissed all things Star Wars post-Disney takeover can watch the original trilogy again and again to their hearts' content.

Anyway, back to that Scout Trooper scene.

I thought it was a great homage to Quentin Tarantino with all the talky bits between the two troopers. This marked the first time ever we've ever heard any meaningful yet playful banter between two troopers of the Empire on-screen. And what about that terrible aiming by the two troopers, a cool tribute to the lore that Stormtoopers cannot hit their target. Some people hated the scene but I absolutely love it. Any true Star Wars fan would.

It was pretty cool to see IG-11 kicking into his 'nanny-bot' mode and kicked the Imperial butts when he swooped in to save The Child from the Scout Troopers and later literally most of Moff Gideon's troops to save our heroes from doom. Pretty heartwarming too to see our Mando all sad to see IG-11 making that sacrifice to save everybody when he himself doesn't fancy droids to begin with. Will IG-11 be back in Season 2? Unlikely. Will I want IG-11 to be back in Season 2? Yes!

There was another huge nod to the original trilogy in this episode when the e-Web repeating blaster we've first seen in The Empire Strikes Back was used by the Imperials to blast our heroes out from their hiding place.

Yet another flashback was shown in this episode and of course heaps of images showing Mandalorians of yore made its way onto the screen for our viewing pleasure.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the episode came in the form of the unmasked Mando, whose name was earlier revealed by Moff Gideon as Din Djarin, who finally revealed his face to IG-11 when the droid treated him for his injuries.

The most shocking image in the episode came in the form of Moff Gideon who wielded a 'Darksaber' to free himself from the wreckage of his crashed TIE Fighter who we saw earlier being chased in mid-air by our Mando. This was also the episode in which The Mando finally received his jet-pack from the Mando-lady boss so we get to actually see him flying in the air.

The end of Episode 8 saw our Mando travelling into outer space with The Child trying to locate the latter's homeworld. Will we ever see Cara Dune and Greef Carga again in Season 2 I wonder? Like many, I was quite shocked to see that Season 2 is coming when we were made to understand that the 8 episodes were all we're gonna get from Disney. Can't complain there, bring it on!

August 2020 is just too far away. This isn't the way. *sigh*

What more can I say about the latest Mando episode when everybody's been praising it for being much cooler than 'certain' Star Wars films already. I don't know about that really because I won't go as far as saying an episode can be much better than a whole complete film but I do say that Episode 6 did provide that sense of nostalgia better than that particular Star Wars film that had been dividing the fan base recently.

On a separate note, JJ Abrams in his recent interview had said he had nothing but praises for Rian Johnson for his work on TLJ but he's going to take another direction in the upcoming Rise of Skywalker film. Abrams also said that HOPES that people will argue with the work he's put into the upcoming film because different opinions signal a healthy culture among the fanbase.

So, different opinion is healthy for thy minds it seems.

With that out of my system, let's get back to Episode 6 of The Mandalorian.

The latest episode saw our favorite Mando visiting an old acquaintance on a not-so deserted spaceport and he quickly found himself getting a job. Afterwards he met some familiar faces and I can only guess that Mando had worked with some of these guys before and left on a sour note.

When they left on the Razor Crest I immediately wondered how long would it take until they finally discovered baby Yoda on board. As predicted, our Mando was being pretty protective over the Child and luckily nothing bad happened (yet) at that point of time or else it might have been a really really short episode.

The prison rescue scene got really interesting for me when a Rebel Alliance (or The New Republic as they're known as currently in this timeline) crew member, complete with the iconic Rebel helmet made an appearance in the control room of the floating prison. This Rebel dude is played by Matt Lanter, the guy who voiced Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars animated series and Wyatt from the Timeless TV series.

Our Mando tried to protect the guy from being eliminated by the rest of his rescue crew but failed when Twi'lek gal used her space knife to kill the guy. So our Mando wasn't really interested to kill anyone but rather to complete his mission. Very un-Mandalorian like should I say?

Of course after our Mando disposed off his turncoat buddies, the real nostalgia factor kicked in when we get to see three X-Wings making their way to the floating spaceport with the intention to destroy it as per the homing beacon planted by our Mando. I didn't realize at first that one of the X-Wing pilot was in fact Dave Filoni, a Disney/Lucasfilm staunch figure behind many Star Wars hits such as Clone Wars and Rebels.

Once again, I felt that the episode was rather short in length but maybe it's just me expecting a much longer run time week in week out. I may be biased this week but I loved the episode because it had X-Wings! Sue me!

The weird thing is, Disney had initially arranged for us to watch Episode 7 just before The Rise of Skywalker comes out on the big screen because the word is that there are gonna be clues about the new film in Episode 7 and later Episode 8, but it looks like I'm gonna watch TROS first (tomorrow!) before I get to see the episode. Let's see if things do make sense for me as much as those who get to watch Episode 7 first.

The Ghosbusters: Afterlife official trailer is finally here amidst all of the fanboys wild speculations and crazy theories. Yup, I'm talking specifically about those who wanted Egon to come back as a ghost or some sort of a digital AI. Ridiculous. Nobody wants to remember the legacy left behind by Harold Ramis that way. Just ask Star Wars' fanboys about Carrie Fisher.

If you ask me, I was a wee bit gutted because I didn't get to see any of the original GB guys on screen in the trailer but I guess that's how movie trailers go these days. You don't want to spoil the broth by exposing too much information about your ingredients at this point. This makes the movie much more interesting in my books.

So, Granpa Egon somehow decided to purchase an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere (sometime between 1989 and 2014 to honor Ramis' real-life personae) and leave the hustle and bustle of New York and brought along a whole bunch of Ghostbusters stuff with him, including the iconic Ecto-1 vehicle. Wait a second, didn't any of the remaining boys objected to this? Was Peter and Ray all okay with Egon transferring everything to a place literally off the map when they know that something's bound to go wrong anyway in the future? Too many questions at this point but that's the whole point of trailers right? They rile you up and then they leave you hanging. Sheesh.

Based on my previous readings and the trailer itself, all I know is that Egon has an estranged daughter by the name of Callie and her two kids, who apparently inherited the farm and everything in it. Somewhere, somehow the kids together with some newfound buddies managed to unleashed some sort of evil spirit from the depths of the farm's underground facility (?). Way to go kids! Now go ahead and call Granpa's buddies because you're gonna need their help.

Finn Wolfhard i.e. 'Mike Wheeler' from Stranger Things is one-half of Egon Spengler's grandkids brigade and he had the most fun in the trailer because he got to take Ecto-1 out for a spin. How come the original members didn't get to use the 'gunner seat' position in any of the first two movies? I only remember this being used on The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series though. Oh, and I loved that scene where Paul Rudd's character was astonished to see the Ecto trap. A 'replica'? Really?

Anyway, some people are saying that the trailer didn't really confirm that the kids were indeed Egon's grandkids but that scene where the boy discovered a whole bunch of Spengler's uniforms kinda gave way. And the girl who literally wears Egon's glasses and has a penchant for science is another dead giveaway.

I still want to see the rest of the original cast in the next trailer. June 2020 is still a long way to go so I bet at least another on or two trailers is coming our way sooner or later. I hope Jason Reitman throws in more clues for us crazy fanboys to mull over as we count the days to June 5 next year.

I personally want to know if Rick Moranis will make an appearance in the film but we know the man retired some time back. But you never know.

Besides, everything happens for a reason.

My better half commented that The Mandalorian episodes are generally unrelated to one another save for the Baby Yoda factor and I don't think she's very far off. You don't really need to watch the earlier episodes to understand what's going on during each episodes and to me that's a good thing especially for those who wants to catch on the whole Mando hype. But seriously, are there people who're not intrigued by the TV series already by now?

This week's episode follows our favorite Mando to a very familiar surrounding among hardcore Star Wars fans. Right from the moment the Razor Crest flew over that oh-so familiar canyon where Luke, Ben and the two droids stood before they made their way to the hive of scums, to the many references uttered by crazy-mechanic-lady who looked awfully a lot like Tracey Ullman from Men In Tights at the Mos Eisley hangar.

Some might say that this episode spoke directly to the OT fans since there were mentions of womp rats and Beggar's Canyon and that superb re-visit of Chalmun's Cantina. Even that guild-member wannabe, Toro, sat at where Han sat when the infamous shoot out between Greedo and him happened during the events of A New Hope. Han shot first by the way, always.

The speeder bikes, or swoop bikes, are a great nod to the speeder bikes used by the Imperial Scout Troopers during ROTJ or to be exact, the one used by Anakin Skywalker during Attack of the Clones when he went searching for Shmi in the Tatooine deserts. And don't forget that dewback. Such a great fan-service to those who fancy the OT films. Yours truly is very happy indeed.

Perhaps the biggest cliffhanger of all is the identity of the mystery guy who looked over the body of Fennec Shand at the very end of the episode. Several wild theories have sprouted out and I seem to like the one that theorized that Boba Fett might be the one who made an appearance there. The next best fan theory is the one that speculated that Luke Skywalker might even be the mystery figure given his stature as the only Jedi left after the events of ROTJ, so he might probably have picked up the disturbance in the Force when Baby Yoda made his rounds. But Luke's appearance might steal the limelight from ou favorite Mando so that's very unlikely.

Or the mystery guy might just be a random bounty hunter from the guild. That's my killjoy theory for youse fans.

Don't worry, Baby Yoda is very much present in the episode but not as much as he did in previous episodes.

When it comes to the Original Trilogy, I cannot not take a closer look whenever characters from the first three films made their way into the Black Series line. I like how Hasbro seems to diversify the range of action figures from all of the available Star Wars medium i.e. films, series and video games because Star Wars collectors are literally flooded with choices right now.

But when I first heard that Hasbro's gonna give us a 6-inch scale Wedge Antilles, I just knew I gotta get him first from whatever figures he may come with in his wave. I first came across him a couple of weeks ago but at the time I figured that he's probably gonna show up in droves in the next few days at all leading retails stores, so I passed on him (stupid!). I was so wrong.

The next couple of days were disappointing to say the least because I always stumbled across the wave but always without ol' Wedge. And so things remained until my better half came across one for me over the weekend. For the record, I really wanted Wedge to join my collection more than any other figures, even more than any of the new film's characters. Oh yeah, have I told you before that I'm a sucka for anything Original Trilogy?

I don't know if I'm gonna open him up anytime soon but I like the head sculpt and how it really resembled the actor Dennis Lawson. Wedge looked kinda thin in the films and he's kinda chubby here, but to be fair we never saw much of the character off his X-Wing cockpit, except for that Return of the Jedi end scene. Overall, I think the head sculpt is probably 80-90% there, so there's not much to complain really.

We're living in an era where lately Hasbro has really proved that they're able to catch up with the head sculpts produced by 6-inch greats like Mafex or SH Figuarts. The face digital print technique employed by Hasbro has really taken the Black Series up a notch from where they previously were. With a relatively lower retail prices, the Black Series will soon be a better choice for collectors who constantly look for better head sculpts but Hasbro needs to buck up on their accessories offering and probably improvise on their articulation points.

Let's see if I do end up opening him in the next couple of days. Maybe.

Admittedly I had waited for Episode 4 with full anticipation since I knew the much hyped Cara Dune was gonna make an appearance in the episode. And she did make an entrance to the show with a bang. Once a character pounce on a Mandalorian bounty hunter (and actually floored him!) you just know that the character is gonna be something. I love the fact that they made Cara as a tough guy...err...gal, going against the normal cliche female lead/supporting characters thoughout the Star Wars film universe thus far.

The thing about the series is that Jon Favreau only wrote the episodes but the directorial duty went to different directors for each of the episodes. To my surprise this episode was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter. You might know her as Claire from the Jurassic World franchise or Gwen Stacy from Sam Raimi's Spiderman 3 film. With that in mind I kinda expected something explosive from the episode even before I watched it. You know, with her being Ron Howard's daughter and all. Maybe that's just me.

Honestly, to me this episode has that Magnificient Seven feel through and through. If not for baby Yoda's presence I would have definitely hummed the 'Seven theme song throughout the battle sequence. What's not to love about a couple of mercenaries being hired to protect a bunch of helpless villagers on a random planet with the promise of only the minimum of payment, right?

The episode still has plenty of baby Yoda although we'll only learn about how the infant is still being tracked on the random planet somewhere past the mid-point of the episode. I still feel weird on calling him 'baby Yoda' but at this point we've still yet to know about the species and what to call them, so I guess it makes sense to call him (or her?) just that. It's either baby Yoda or 'baby Yaddle', because those were the only two being from the species we've seen so far in the Star Wars films.

The episode really got into the Magnificient Seven mood when our Mando and Ms Dune trained the villagers on how to use weapons to defend themselves against the band of Klatoonian land pirates.

And.....this particular scene when Cara taught them to use the wooden staff just screamed Men in Tights to me.

I guess I was really at the edge of my seat when I saw the Klatoonian baddies unleashing their AT-ST onto the hapless villagers. Of course this didn't last long when the villagers' own version of Yul Bryner's Chris Adams in Magnificient Seven defeated the baddies and Cara brought the walker down to claim victory for the villagers.

I personally thought that the episode was pretty short and maybe it could've worked better if it was allowed to run more than 40 minutes. But overall it was a unique episode and stood out against the first 3 episodes altogether. Let's see what next week brings us. Let us remind ourselves that we've already reached the mid-way point of the 8-episode series at this point already, so let's savor every moment we get from The Mandalorian.

Before I end my rant for this episode, let me share a piece of art which appeared during the credit roll at the very end of the episode. These McQuarrie-esque art should be compiled into a book for their sheer awesomeness. I like this particular one though. It shows our Mando holding up his weapon while baby Yoda slowly makes his way down from the ramp of the Razorcrest.

This week's Watchmen episode was rather unique because it explored the backstory of the Hooded Justice. It started off with a 're-enactment' or rather fictionalized re-enactment of how HJ was apprehended by the cops back in the late 30s. I'm not sure if that really happened or was it just a propaganda by the police way back when the authorities wanted to paint a bad picture on the vigilante.

Angela aka Sister Night went time traveling back to the past courtesy of some Nostalgia pills meant for her grandfather which she swallowed by the bottle. Kinda remind me of the pensieve contraption from the Harry Potter books.

In the re-enactment HJ was depicted as being a queer and had a relationship with Captain Metropolis but we later learnt that the 'real-life' HJ was indeed Will Reeves aka Angela Abar's grandfather who was loyal to his wife and was marginalised by his own police team mates as he strives to become the best African American policeman during one of the most difficult time in the history of modern America.

The funny thing is Reeves never shed the noose and rather adapted the image as his own, something like an anti-hero statement when audiences know that he is really a black man masquerading as a white man underneath his mask in the time of uber racism.

I felt kinda sorry when Reeves' own police buddies turned against him but it was fitting to finally see him turning into some sort of vigilante in the end and joining the Minutemen upon Captain Metropolis' invitation. Like any good superhero would do, Reeves lost it in the end when he saw his son (Angela's daddy) putting on the white paint around his eyes and taking up the HJ mantle. Now we know why Angela is so estranged from her grandfather.

Fast forward to the future, we got a glimpse of how Will Reeves killed Chief Crawford or rather lulled him to his death. A mind control light is the last thing everybody's been expecting from the Watchmen universe but then again nothing surprises us anymore right? In a way, Reeves finally got his ultimate justice albeit almost a century in the making. What better way to tell the public that racism doesn't deserve a place in the modern world than to execute the person that condoned it all. But is Crawford really a racist or was he just proud of his family legacy? Or was he just ashamed of his forefathers' history that he just had to hide the Kavalry uniform? Why can't he just burn it instead? Too many questions at this point. Can't wait for the next episode.

And where the heck was Adrian Veidt in this episode? When can we finally see Doc Manhattan coming back to earth?

Ok, I shouldn't have accidently read those pesky reviews on Episode 3 before I actually watched the episode. I'm not someone who easily gets influenced by one-sided reviews but there are people out there who think they can do a better job than Jon Favreau and it's kinda annoying to hear their whiny comments week in week out. I get it, I get it... you guys can do better than Rian Johnson and (now) Jon Favreau. Whatever. Get a life. For every 1 disgruntled soul like you there are probably hundreds/thousands of happy fans, who appreciate these new Star Wars materials, who remember what's life like without any new Star Wars films during the 1984 - 1998 period.

So let's get back to what went down in Episode 3 of The Mandalorian.

I can't describe how cool it was to finally see the Mando family all huddled up together when our titular Mando guy brought back a bunch of Beskar steel as reward for bringing in his 'cute' package back to the one that hired him. Inevitably the rest of the Mando guys got a bit jealous but a head-on melee for the Beskar steel never happened (I was a little bit disappointed) between them. I think the Lady Mando did a marvellous job to handle the situation.

Speaking of the beskar steel, The Client (yup, Werner Herzog's character is STILL un-named at this point of time even in Episode 3) actually used the 'ice-cream maker' contraption we last saw carried by Willrow Hood in ESB. It's actually a container in which The Client uses to keep the Beskar steel safe and we can see him opening it to reveal the precious metal earned by our Mando guy for bringing him the infant. So that's one less mystery for Star Wars fans to ponder over. No more guessing whether if it's real ice-cream Willrow Hood was lugging through Bespin over 8 years ago. He must've been carrying something of importance out of Bespin and out of the Empire's reach or it could have been ice-cream all along if the dessert does mean the world to him.

Some backstory on the Mando is shown via flashback scene. From the brief flashback we learnt that his family was killed during the Clone Wars era as evident from the appearance of the Super Battle Droid destroying everything in sight. The question here is, who actually saved our Mando guy from the Super Battle Droid at the end of the flashback sequence? This'll be interesting indeed when we find out in the coming episodes (if any).

Hey, is that Constable Zuvio we see in that cantina scene? The poor guy didn't even get his scene shown to the world even in the special edition The Force Awakens blu-ray so it'll be nice to have him appearing in The Mandalorian.

When our Mando guy got a make over, he looked more like Jango Fett than Boba Fett with his shiny armour and all. On the action figure front, this can only mean that a new action figure is coming our way since he no longer look like he did in the first two episodes.

When his conscience kicked in I just knew that he was gonna turn back and rescue the little guy but the real treat was when the Mando started to kick the Stormtroopers' behinds to escape The Client's place.

What came next was equally stunning as well as his Mandalorian brothers (and sisters?) rallied behind him and helped him to escape the planet with the infant. This scene alone made the entire episode worthwhile.

At the end of the episode is a clue that maybe pointing to our guy to finally getting that jetpack next week. One can only hope.

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