The Mandalorian and Why We Love It

My husband and I are longtime fans of Star Wars. Despite this, we decided not to sign up for the new Disney + streaming service to watch The Mandalorian, no matter how intriguing it looked. After all, we’re huge Star Trek fans as well and we had no plans to sign up for CBS All Access to watch Discovery and Picard. We already pay for costly cable and Amazon Prime. We’re patient people. Some day, we reasoned, we would sign up for a month’s worth of service and watch all the episodes in that time span. But that would be years down the line.

On the first day of its release, my daughter called me. A Disney junkie who bought an annual family pass to Disney World shortly after moving to Florida–and got her money’s worth from it–she’d signed up for Disney + as soon as she found out about it and paid the annual fee (our children did not adopt our spending habits.)

“Mom, did you sign up for Disney? You have to watch The Mandalorian. The ending was great!”

Not only did our children not adopt our spending habits, they also didn’t adopt our love for all things Star. But she loved this show–the quality, the characters and the ending of the first episode. I could no longer resist the urge to see it.

The following contains spoilers, so if you haven’t signed up for Disney +, try the Seven Day Trial, watch The Mandalorian, and come back. 

 I loved it. My husband loved it. Our friends, who we convinced to sign up for Disney + loved it. We even watched an episode during a joint vacation to the mountains of Virginia over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Why do we love it? Here are a few reasons.

First, Baby Yoda. We don’t know if the baby is really Yoda, as the story takes place after the fall of the Empire and the death of the Yoda we all know and love, but we don’t care. Baby Yoda is the cutest thing to hit the screens.

Which leads me to another reason we love the show. Baby Yoda is so cute, he generates a lot of great memes on the internet. My daughter sent one as I typed this.

 I don’t know who who to credit for memes such as this, but thanks.

 As one fan put it. Baby Yoda united the entire Star Wars fandom. I believe it.

Next, it may take place in space, but The Mandalorian is a Western. A Western in the spirit of every Clint Eastwood movie my husband has ever watched. I thought as much during the first episode, and I’m not the only one. A Brazilian friend on Facebook posted a Spaghetti Western Mandalorian Trailer (in Spanish, so I had to get the gist) complete with spaghetti western music. It was great. One episode was even titled, "The Gunslinger." Who could resist a space western?

Another reason we love The Mandalorian is the Mandalorian himself. In an age where masculinity is derided and discouraged, he’s unapologetically masculine. And he has a heart. In episode one, we learn as a child he lost his parents and was taken in by the Mandalorian order. Consequently, he not only feels it’s his duty to watch over “foundlings,” he wants to. Hence his concern for Baby Yoda. He also makes a great dad. A lot of dads are missing from families these days, for a variety of reasons. This one not only protects his charge, risking his life to protect the baby, he does dad stuff, and we can’t get enough of it.

We also love that Disney only releases one show a week. The anticipation adds to the enjoyment.

There you have it. We have no idea if the plot of this show is going anywhere, other than around the galaxy, but we don’t care. It’s a good show, and it’s been a long time since we’ve been a good one. Well done, Disney.

My First (of) December Post, Complete with Baby Yoda Meme

We had a nice Thanksgiving, if not a scenic one. We traveled to a resort located in the mountains of Virginia with old friends we've known since our husbands' Air Force days. A destination we should have thought through. No one wanted to golf, snow tube, ski, or visit the waterpark, and with cold temps and high winds, we weren't able to get out and do the outdoor stuff we love. A cabin with a view might have been a more suitable choice.

But it's the company that counts, and the company is always enjoyable. We sat inside the living room of what seemed more like a small apartment and enjoyed a quick-start gas fire, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, watched Jumanji 2 and The Mandalorian, and—like Baby Yoda—we ate.

 

Overall, a good time.

We're home now and suddenly it's December. There's just thirty-one days until 2020. This year went by shockingly fast. This past January 1st, I set out with specific goals, the majority of which I’ve accomplished. So much of what I did was with the intent of staying in the moment to enjoy each day, because time was flying by too quickly. Somehow, time flew by even faster.

I have no idea what’s ahead for 2020, besides VBS and Christmas, the two events that serve as time buoys, so to speak, and which arrive before I know it. It’s time to set new goals—bucket list stuff—and complete goals I started this year, which I knew would overlap into 2020. I love to learn and to grow, both as a pastor's wife and as a person. I have a month to think about what I want to do in the coming year. Besides paying $6.99 a month to watch Baby Yoda, that is. Because like VBS and Christmas, that's a given.