After the showdown with what seems like every bounty hunter, Chapter Four, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, opens with a crustaceans swimming in a serene pond. The story is again by Jon Favreau. Villagers sweep them up in a wicker baskets. A mother, Omera (Julia Jones) watches her daughter, Winta (Isla Farris), chase after a frog. They are all disturbed by a rumbling that scatters birds. Winta screams for her mother as blaster bolts rain down! Alien raiders, Klatooinians, attack the village while Omera cleverly uses the basket to cover herself and her daughter in the water. Klatooinians are dog-faced, green aliens who were seen in Return of the Jedi (1983).
It reminds me of the Marauders attacking the Ewok village in Ewoks: Battle for Endor (1985) except no Teek! The leader of the raiders is played by Sala Baker who played Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). The raiders take the bowls of blue crustaceans and head back to the mist. Omera pulls off the basket when they are gone and sees the destruction to the village. I sense a Seven Samurai Situation! I get the raiders, but why attack a remote village?, the shrimp don't look difficult to catch, the raiders are so lazy they can't get baskets and pluck them out? The Mandalorian’s Razorcrest bursts from hyperspace and we have inside The Mandalorian and Cub. Baby Yoda starts hitting buttons, a little Baby Groot, so the former bounty hunter takes him on his lap. He scans and finds the planet Sorgan, the first planet identified on the show. The Razorcrest descends and streaks past Omera and the village. It soars over forests and the rivers before landing.
The Mandalorian sets Baby Yoda in a seat while he goes out to check the area. The hatch drops and Baby Yoda is at his side! They reach the village where food is served, a bowl of noodles, I would like to visit this place more than Galaxy’s Edge. Baby Yoda shuffles along and a Loth-cat growls at him. The cats, native to Lothal of course, first appeared in the Star Wars: Rebels episode, “Rise of the Old Masters” (2014). Then, we get a woman in armor, Cara Dune (Gina Carrano) watching him. He orders a broth for Baby Yoda and asks about the woman’s business. The Mandalorian is told by the waitress she has been there for a week. He finds the woman is gone and heads to track her, using his visor to check the heat of her footprints.
The tracks suddenly end and The Mandalorian is caught in a fight. I’m not certain how she can beat someone in beskar steel armor, her face is not protected, I get that it is Gina Carrano, but still the effectiveness of fighting someone in full armor is questionable. They find themselves with blasters at each other as Baby Yoda watches sipping his drink! He offers her soup and later she explains that she is an ex-Rebel shock trooper hunting Imperial warlords after Endor. Cara was given peace keeping jobs, but decided to retire to Sorgan. She doesn’t want The Mandalorian there. I was expecting Cara to be a favorite, but she is overpowered, punching a metal helmet?, but she may develop as a character later on.
Night, villagers look at the Razorcrest with The Mandalorian working on it, they go up to him telling about the raiders. The villagers recognize The Mandalorian, Stoke (Eugene Cordero) and offer all of their money to take on the raiders, exactly like Seven Samurai (1954). The classic by Akira Kurosawa is a brilliant piece of cinema with veteran samurai, Kambei (Takashi Shimura) assemble a group of samurai including Toshiro Mifune’s Kikuchiyo to defend a village from bandits. When the villagers mention the farm “in the middle of nowhere”, they traveled a day to get there, he accepts their credits. Cara is alone in the forest with a fire going when The Mandalorian asks about round two and gives her all of the credits. They go along on a boat and by morning reach the village. The village kids all gather around Baby Yoda.
The mother is setting up The Mandalorian’s hut when he enters. He whirls and draws when the daughter walks up. They give him some space and later bring food. Winta goes out with Baby Yoda to play. He explains that he never removed his helmet in front of anyone since he was a foundling. She leaves and he removes his helmet to eat the tray of food while watching Baby Yoda and villagers. Night starts to fall and Cara with The Mandalorian walk into the forest. He is using heat vision to track the raiders. The Mandalorian spots “something big”, the track Cara identifies as an AT-ST! The All Terrain Scout Transport first appeared on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back (1980), but was effective in the Moon of Endor forests in Return of the Jedi (1983). It is mysterious and deadly unlike the appearances of trilogy vehicles in Star Wars: Rebels.
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| Cara Dume's costume at D23 Expo, photo by the author. |
The Mandalorian tells the village that they have to leave. Cara argues with the villagers that the AT-ST and The Mandalorian says they can train the villagers. Two Samurai! Cara lays out the plan with a pit to trap the walker and barricades from trees to draw it in. Omera raises her hand to The Mandalorian’s question of who knows how to use a blaster. They hand out blasters and blaster rifles. Cara trains a line-up of villagers with staves. The Mandalorian tells Omera that they are leaving to draw out the raiders. Night, they sneak over to the raider’s camp and take down two of them drinking day glow blue juice. They enter an empty tent filled with two tanks (of the crustaceans?) and The Mandalorian sets a charge. Cara warns about two raiders entering, then they face more raiders until escaping with the charge set off. Then they see the red eyes of the Scout Walker! Very threatening and not a chicken walker at all. The hints of the AT-ST works like Jaws (1975); the sound, the tracks, and then just the viewports.
They start to run as the AT-ST lumbers after them firing. It doesn’t seem like there would be operators in the AT-ST night and day. The villagers ready their weapons as Baby Yoda waits with the children in hiding. The AT-ST like a Troll from Lord of the Rings bursts from the forest, but hesistates at the edge of the trap. It activates a searchlight and scans the barricades. The scout walker fires on the village, but Omera and Cara tell the villagers to stay. Then, the raiders come running from under the legs of the AT-ST! They have to face the raiders and The Mandalorian hopes to settle Baby Yoda there, but there is a greater threat. This is a good episode, but I’ve seen it more effectively told in the Clone Wars episode, “Bounty Hunters” (2010) which had Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka team up with four bounty hunters, seven, to protect farmers from Hondo Ohnaka. The addition of the monstrous AT-ST and of course Baby Yoda is great, but it is just a shade from a perfect episode.
Four Bars of Beskar Steel out of Five!
#TheMandalorian, #Sanctuary, #GinaCarrano, #JuliaJones.
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