The Mandalorian: Chapter 10- The Passenger

 "What can I say? I'm a great judge of character."

Ok, this episode isn't as awesome as last week's, mainly because it's ultimately a filler episode about getting from Point A to Point B, as far as the arc is concerned, with a bit of picaresque fun and adventure on the way in something of a story of the week. There's a lot less to analyse as it's all rather straightforward in comparison. You can't deny, though, that it's all very well done.

Mando, in travelling to meet this mysterious other Mandalorian, has to transport a cute and amusing frog lady with her jar of eggs which Baby Yoda, the little sod, tries to eat. He gets intercepted by a couple of cops for a broken taillight and runs away, crashing and incurring the wrath of a family of particularly fearsome spiders. That's it. That's the plot. But the way it's done is rather entertaining, despite the fact this is all filler- although I like the way the cops (New Republic types with X-Wings) basically let Mando off at the end.

I don't even mind Dr Mandible(!) looking a bit crap, or all the cutesyness. This is a superbly entertaining episode which continues the strong start to a second season which so far is better than the first. And we even get a cameo from Richard Ayoade.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6- The Prisoner

“A lady never tells...”

This is the third episode in a row which puts the plot to one side in favour of a story of the week. I’m sure we’re all getting rather impatient by now, but at least this episode is a cut above the previous two, and has Richard Ayoade as a rather arrogant droid and a rather complex double crossing heist plot which feels, again, like something out of a Western.

Our man Mando used to run away with a rather interesting gang, played here by a nice little variety of character actors. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Xian, a rather flirtatious Twi’lek (why do no other Twi’leks look quite like Bib Fortuna did, with two proper gnarly tentacles rather than straight pointy ones?), but you can tell from the start that there’s no honour amongst these thieves, which makes them very different from Mando. Things go entertainingly wrong throughout with some superb directing throughout, with this episode again being shot like a horror film.

Meanwhile the smarmy droid has his own agenda with baby Yoda, but it’s never a good idea to try and shoot a toddler who is strong in the ways of the Force. This is one tough childminding gig. Mando certainly has guts.

We get clever plot twists, flirting, X Wing fighters and a gripping story. Fine. But can we get back to the arc now, please?

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

“Everything can still be awesome!”

Yeah, I’m not exactly going to give this film a slapping. Let’s say right now that I loved the first film and that this is pretty much 140 extra minutes of the same stuff and the same quality. Basically, it’s a bit good. Oh, and Merry Christmas and all that. This feels a suitable film for today.

Anyway, we start with the Duplo invasion from last film’s cliffhanger (I love the toddler voices!) leading five years later to everything having gone a bit Mad Max except, of course, for Emmett, who is his old self. There follows a clever and very meta plot which partly represents a bit of sibling rivalry in another dimension and partly shows us how uncool it is to be overly grimdark and antiheroic. It’s a nice moral, although I’m not sure I approve of the revelation towards the end that cutesy chart pop is not evil: I think you’ll find it’s evil incarnate. It’s not rock ‘n’ roll that’s the Devil’s music, it’s manufactured pop.

Throughout all this we get far too many self-referential and metatextual moments to recount, but the best by far is Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi doing her song about how she’s Totally Not Evil. Plus we get sooo many pop culture references and more taking the piss out of Green Lantern. This is always a good thing. And Will Arnett is scarily close to being my fave Batman. Plus we get grim, dinosaur loving future Emmett with his timey-wimeyness and stubble.

Another superb film. Unbelievable, super cool, outrageous and amazing.