This is the way....to make an awesome Mandalorian Helmet

To celebrate the awesome first season of The Mandalorian I found this video from Punished Props Academy on You Tube.

My son loves building props from movies and this looks like a fun project I might endeavor to do with him!
Just remember once you put it on....

The Mandalorian Episode 8: Redemption

The final episode of The Mandalorian absolutely stuck the landing! I was a bit nervous with the way the episode began with the two storm troopers, that felt very fan filmy in my opinion.
Redemption picks up immediately where the previous episode concluded, the crew are pinned down in the Clients building by Moff Gideon and dozens of Storm Troopers and Death Troopers with a E pod repeating gun pod aimed at them.
IG-11 races to them with baby Yoda in tow, in the chaos the Mando takes a grievous head wound and tells the others to escape via the sewage system tunnels. They refuse to leave the Mando to die but he refuses to remove his helmet and break the rule. But finally concedes to allow IG-11 (the one team member he's had the biggest issue with) to remove his helmet since IG-11 isn't "alive".
The group fumble thru the sewers to where the Mandolorian hideout is only to discover they Mando's are either dead or escaped. The Mando recieves guidance from the Armorer on what to do with the Child...the Foundling is now tasked with his own foundling....the circle is now complete.
The armorer fashions the Mando his signet and gives him his jet pack.
The group make their escape via an underground lava river but a company of troopers are waiting to ambush them at the mouth of the river. As the group slowly drifts closer to the end of the tunnel they scramble to fight the ambush. IG-11 offers to save them by activating self destruct protocols which the Mando refuses to accept as a solution, not because the Mando needs him help fight the Storm Troopers but because he's finally over come his prejudice for the droid.
Thanks to IG-11's sacrifice the group escape but find themselves pinned down by Moff Gideon in his TIE fighter. In one of the coolest action sequences of the season The Mando shoots a grapple line at the TIE as it flys overhead and gets wisked off behind Gideon, the Mand plants some charges and releases from the TIE as the wing get blown off and Gideon crashes off in the distance. The Season concludes with Greef Karga and Kara Dune staying behind as the Mando flys off with the child.
Then we get the best surprise cliff hanger since Episode IV, The camera scrolls to where Gideons TIE wreckage sits and suddenly something begins to cut thru the fuselage and Gideon emerges holding the Darksabre!
 



I hope we see what fate befell Bo Katan, since it appears Moff Gideon knows alot about the night of a thousand tears on Mandalore.

Kenobi Fan Film by Jamie Costa

Christmas arrived a few hours early for Star Wars fans this year as Jamie Costa released his Kenobi Fan Film.
Jamie Costa impressed me with his 2016 fan film Han Solo a Smuggler's Trade, and this time he took it to the next level. I think Rian Johnson could learn a thing or two about respecting the source material and understanding Star Wars legacy characters.
Between Jamie Costa and Star Wars Theory we know that George Lucas's Galaxy is still alive with the fandom!

The Mandalorian Episode 7: The Reckoning

The Mando receives a transmission from Greef Karga offering a proposition to return to Navarro to kill the Client in exchange for clearing his name with the bounty hunter's guild. The Mando returns to Sorgen to recruit Cara Dune to help with Karga's plan. The duo then travel to Kuiil's planet to recruit him only to discover he found and rebuilt IG-11 as well as re purposed him to help Kuiil around the farm. After a lengthy exposition the Razorcrest takes off with the Mando and his party of a Rebel "dropper", an Ugnaught mechanic, a re purposed IG assassin droid, the Child and 3 Blurgs.
We get a glimpse at the dynamic of this rag tag group and unlike the ST these characters don't mesh together as well as Rey, Fin and Poe, they're pride and prejudice create a believable dynamic.
We also are treated to a scene that caught me completely by surprise when Cara and the Mando are arm wrestling.
This is a fantastic scene because it shows how the force has slipped away into mysticism that few even know about.
fast forward to Navarro, the party meet up with Greef Karga and his 3 guild members.
Now this is where something fascinating hppens that was hinted about in episode 2, the group gets attacked by a group of Mynocks and Greef suffers a nasty wound that is poisonous. It's here we see the Child use Force Healing to save Karga's life. This is something that we might have witnessed in the PT in AotC and RotS when Sidious places his hand on Crispy Anakin! Now this technique seems contradictory to the advice Yoda gave Anakin in episode III about learning to let go of the things we love....because I bet if they taught him that technique he might've saved Shmii and his destiny would've been completly altered!
There was one other great moment in this episode when Mando, Cara and Greef are sitting with the Client, we get a great bit of dialog that further develops the state of the galaxy when The Client asks the Mando if he thinks things are better since the revolution,....it's clearly not. And questions why Mandalore refused the aide of the Empire. He also mentions the great Purge which explains all the moments throughout the season where people seemed shocked to meet a Mandalorian. It seems as if the Empire executed a scorched Earth operation on Mandalore towards the end of the Empire's rule.
Episode 7 leaves off with a cliff hanger that had my whole family yelling at the TV.
Excellent Excellent episode! I cannot wait for next fridays season finale!

The Mandalorian Episode 6: The Prisoner

The Mando visits an old acquaintance, Ran, who requests help on a job. Ran explains it's a 5 man job and they need the Razorcrest.
This episode felt very different than any of the previous episodes, it reminded me of the Suicide Squad in a galaxy far far away. Xi'an especially came across as a Harley Quinn wanna be, I was glad to see a Twi'lek as more than just a sexualized manner and it was nice to see a male Twi'lek in live action. The mission was to breach a New Republic prison ship and break Qin, Xi'an's brother, out.
There's an atmosphere of un ease from the moment the Mando arrives on Ran's space station, and the episode does a great job of keeping the suspense through till the very end!
There's a good deal of action in this episode, Mando takes down about eight New Republic Security Droids that are definitely not to be taken lightly, they're no rodger rodger's! And later we see Mando get into a very tough one on one against the Devaronian. Burg, who takes a flame thrower to the face and keeps on coming! This fight does show how to avert our expectations correctly when Mando seeming end the fight with a similar tactic we saw in the first episode.
I enjoyed Bill Bur's character, Mayfield, an ex Imperial sharpshooter, there's a funny interaction when we're first introduced to him where the Mando throws shade at him and Mayfield retorts "I wasn't a Storm Trooper wise ass!". I also thought it was hilarious when Mayfield was egging the Mando on while they were heading to the mark saying maybe the Mando was a Gungan and talked like Jar Jar!
There wasn't much of Baby Yoda in this episode but what we got was enough, seeing him hiding from Q9-0 on the Razorcrest had my wife and son on edge, I can't wait to see the new meme's of Baby Yoda trying to use the force and then looking at his hand wondering how he blew away the droid only to see it was the Mando.
My favorite scene in the episode was when Mayfield was alone in the corridor of the prison ship with the red emergency light and flashing lights, very reminiscent of Aliens and every other flash you saw the Mando sneaking up behind Mayfield. That was great cinematography!
Congrats to Dave Filoni for becoming an X Wing pilot!
And now my theory about who that was at the end of episode 5 is wrong....I don't think it's Moff Gideon, so I'm gonna jump on the Boba band wagon. It was Tatooine, and perhaps she was meeting Boba at Mos Espa...

 

Wonder Woman 1984 Trailer

Natasha Romanoff drops her trailer
Princess Diana, "Hold my Sword".
An awesome trailer is no indicator of how good the movie is gonna be, but this trailer was so totally awesome!
And apparently Steve is back!
I'm hoping he dies again in this movie and comes back in the 3rd WW movie!
OMG they killed Steve! Those Bastards!
I did like the juxtaposition between Diana and Steve there at the end of the trailer, good stuff!

Thor watched this trailer and was like, "You're Breathtaking!"

The Mandalorian Episode 5 The Gunslinger

The Mandalorian has every bounty Hunter in the galaxy looking for him except a young wanna be named Toro Calican. Young Toro is tracking Fennec Shand, a notorious merc whose worked for many crime families.
This episode starts with a dog fight between the Razor Crest and a sleek quad engine star fighter.
Things are looking dire for Mando and baby Yoda as the bounty hunter has disabled one of the Razor Crests engines but a quick maneuver with the trust reversers and full flaps extension the hunter becomes the hunted.
I'm not sure extending flaps in space would help slow the Razor crest down as there is 0 atmosphere.....anywho.
This episode is fan service overload as we hear Mos Eisley tower reach out to the Razorcrest with landing coordinates. We arrive at docking bay 35 and are greeted by Peli Motto and her pit droids, I enjoyed how she portrayed a mechanic, true to form finding all sorts of problems that need to be fixed. and once the Mando leaves she's sitting around playing Sabacc with her droids!

The Mando heads out to look for work to cover the costs of the repairs and we end up in the Mos Eisley Catina! Of course we head there, and this is where we meet wanna be Han Solo, Toro Calican.
The Mando teams up with Calican to go after Fennec Shand the merc I mentioned earlier.
We get a lesson on the natives, Mando get's shot in the ass but the Beskar protects him, and we catch Fennec. Mando leaves Toro with Fennec and the young n hungry wanna be gets a brilliant idea but it costs him his life.
For me the episode seemed a bit underwhelming but if you take a step back and think about it there are some questions it brings up. Where was Fennec running to beyond the Dune sea? How does the Mando know so much about Tuskens? Who's the new owner of the Mos Eisley? Allowing droids to work the bar? The place has really gone to the Dugs!
Everyone's wondering who the mystery person was at the end of the episode, I think it's most likely Bill Bur's Bounty Hunter character. I don't think we'll see Moff Gideon till we return to Navarro.

007 No Time to Die Trailer

For the most part I've enjoyed Daniel Craig's Bond movies but when I heard the rumors that Lashana Lynch was to take the title of 007 I had reservations. With all the wokeness in Hollywood; Ghostbusters 2016, Terminator Dark Fate, Charlie's Angels, Captain Marvel if UA & Universal wanted to destroy this franchise who am I to stop them. But after seeing the trailer I have hope that won't be the case. I think this is Craig's final Bond film and it looks like he's gonna go out with a bang, I'm glad to see Lea Seydoux is back from Specter and looking forward to seeing how far the rabbit hole goes.
I really love how Craigs bond series really builds upon itself with each new entry, my favorite 2 are Casino Royale and Skyfall.

The Rise of Skywalker IMAX poster is NOT the way!

This Poster is not the way!
Drew Struzan is laughing his ass off at these atrocities!

















And the other one from earlier this year with the Hot Toys Palpatine figure used was another terrible poster.


Good to see they're saving money in the budget!
Personally I like this one the most...and it's made by a fan.

Black Widow teaser trailer

Dear Brie, watch a professional and learn how it's done on AND off the silver screen!