Sammo

29th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 15: The Believer - S2-E7

Stupidity: We are thrilled to see Bill Burr's face, and he does some impressive acting in this episode, however Mando and him are going inside a base without any intel or cover, trying to be low-profile and avoid risk, but he chose to ditch his helmet for a petty reason (makes driving - in a straight line - harder) and he does not pick it back up even if he easily could, when the drive is over. And of course, nobody in the base realises that they have never seen that guy before, and the original drivers must had no comrades/friends who were awaiting their return ,nor officer to report to.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: All highly speculative. Both of them take their helmets off and nobody knows who they are. Not unlikely since there is no reason given why they should be known to the people at the base. Unless you can give a good reason why they should, this is not a stupidity.

Can you give me a good reason why nobody should be waiting for the drivers' arrival or know what they look like? Which is what I said in the entry; not that people do not know who Bill Burr is (which is incidentally also what happens since he knows the officer, and he does know of the base at least), but that nobody knows they are not the people driving the trucks. He's totally unconcerned.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 15: The Believer - S2-E7

Stupidity: The Empire has plenty troops and TIE Fighters, and the locals are armed with sticks, but the convoys of highly volatile explosives have no armed escort whatsoever, despite the fact that they keep losing those huge trucks full of precious chemicals to those troglodytes with no body armor or special skills.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The empire doesn't have plenty of anything, this is after the fall of the empire, this is what is left and they are hanging by a thread. It probably costs too much to have escorts, or escorts like TIE fighters are too expensive to risk, even against "troglodytes." They'd rather accept the losses they take, apparently that is more cost efficient.

Plenty more than what the opponents have, in that very base. They have TIE fighters in the base, who provide air support at the very end. They have troops. The opponents show having no offensive weapon at all other than detonators, that they fling like stones. Losing transport convoys because you provide literally zero escort to them is no strategy in times of abundance, even less in times of scarcity. And that chemical is a strategic resource that helps their war, and the only reason the base exists.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 13: The Jedi - S2-E5

Stupidity: Ahsoka gives the magistrate a day to surrender for no real reason - she has no advantage doing so nor it is any more honorable or humane; she is in fact giving Morgan time to organize herself with hostages as she explicitly threatens to. Had she finished her assault without this senseless ultimatum, barely anyone would have been in any danger or tortured for a full day like it happened.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Tano doesn't know the strength of the Magistrate's forces. Djarin tells her that there are ex-military, hired mercenaries inside armed to the teeth and that he doesn't believe that even with the force she would survive. Tano agrees with this assessment and also asks if Djarin saw any hostages inside, so until then she didn't even know for sure whether or not there were. It is implied that had Tano continued her assault she would have been killed. There is indeed no stated reason why Tano gives a single day as an ultimatum, but it seems reasonable to assume that prior to meeting Djarin and The Child she would have used this time to plan her 2nd assault.

I think we disagree on the idea that it is implied that if she continued her assault she would have been killed; she killed 25% of their troops in their first assault, and then in the second one, which was in the open and broad daylight, she killed or disarmed everyone else including the main villain and the henchman, who was then killed by Mando, together with 2 guards. Mando was only instrumental in saving the hostages Morgan took after her threat - which, by the way, was expressed in a way that did not even imply necessarily that she was just taking the people hostages and not kill them right away as punishment. The evil henchman says it correctly "We'll be ready when she returns"; waiting only weakens her position in every way, since the stakes and/or disparity in forces is not shown adequately.

You seem to be ignoring the part where Djarin tells her that even with her skills she would be killed and she agrees. Whether or not that is actually true based on what we see doesn't really matter, it's their opinion based on what they know at the time. It seems fairly clear that she withdraws because she doesn't know what she's up against behind those walls.

She literally laughs behind his back when he says that line, and it is contradicted in every way from what we see, so it seems to be ignored by the writers first and foremost. They say the rule of writing is "Show, don't tell", I'd be fine with "Don't show the opposite of what you are telling." You can argue that it's more alike a plot hole than a simple stupidity, but I think you can agree that for what it is shown, Ahsoka had no other reason to wait for (more than) a day other than give the main character a chance to show up, and an ultimatum considerably worsens her position. It's not even clear why she took so long to make a move on the city, Bo-Katan (who does not have a direct path of communication on her) knew where she was, but the first time we see her it is also the first time she has a contact with the Magistrate.

No, I do not believe the writers included a laugh as an indication that Ahsoka believes the exact opposite of what Djarin states and that she agrees with his assessment that she is outmatched just to keep him happy. Yes, they do portray her as very powerful inside the city, but there are two people in there fighting at the same time which splits the enemies forces. Yes, giving yourself time to prepare also gives your enemy time to prepare. Sometimes there's no way to avoid that. This is neither a Stupidity nor a plot hole.

"Splits" is an overstatement; she takes the whole force down herself. We both agree that "she regroups after a preliminary assault and then prevails through teamwork" is the general idea of what it should happen, but it's not what it is shown. Remove Mando from the episode and you would only have (assuming she adopts the same effortlessy successful strategy to attack head-on a prepared enemy: she gets inside with no problem whatsoever!) a couple prisoners as casualties, which is something that Ahsoka herself brought upon her. There's not even an indication that she was preparing any strategy, since she asks about the presence of any prisoner while she is already going back to face the Magistrate.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 12: The Siege - S2-E4

Stupidity: In a throwaway comedy line, the Mythrol says that he still does not have vision in his left eye. For unexplained reasons that is the one guy that they take along for the dangerous base assault mission; a wimpy, obese, half-blind accountant. And for the whole mission he is quite a good shot, even (left-handed one at that, even). Cara is the Marshall and Greef the de facto 'ruler' of the town, who appears to be the biggest if not the only one of the planet; are we to believe the whole planet is so small that its whole defence is composed by these two people and there's not a single other able-bodied person on it? (00:11:30)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The base was supposed to be practically empty, run by a skeleton crew. It was meant to be a simple, in and out mission and the Mythrol was just supposed to be their driver. He goes with the group inside, against his better judgment, because the lava tide will be coming in soon. It is never stated that the four members of the team are the only able-bodied people, they simply believed that the four they bring would be enough. Which as it turns out was completely accurate, given the fact the team succeeds even with the base being full of stormtroopers. Also, you don't have to be a stereotypical tough guy to be a good shot. There's plenty of people that aren't soldiers and are far from in good shape that are perfectly capable with a gun.

And that are also blind in one eye? I figured that the lava tide was just an excuse to bring him in - no such tide is shown to affect the area, even if the mission takes them longer than they anticipated.

You say in your mistake that the blind in one eye comment was meant to be humorous. No reason to believe he was being completely honest. But yes, it is not unheard of for people with limited or even no vision in one eye to still be a good shot. It only limits your depth perception and peripheral vision. No reason you can't hit a target right in front of you with only one good eye. Regardless of whether or not the lava tide coming in was a true statement or just an excuse to get him to come in, it isn't a stupidity mistake that the group brings him in. These mistakes are not for actions by characters you would not agree with were you in their shoes. This category of mistake is for an action so daft it defies logic, such as running back into the building with the killer you just escaped.

"I'll bring my pudgy accountant to my base infiltration mission, he has a speeder bike" doesn't sound exactly logical, no (other than the fact that he's a funny character and helps making the episode entertaining). If he was supposed to just be their driver and then an extraordinary circumstance such as their speeder bike being destroyed forced him to abandon a "Keep the speeder running" (as Mando says en route - in a typical trope, they are discussing their roles and basic mission objectives only when they are already well on the way and have zero scouting or tools) plan, it would have followed some kind of logic, but that is not what happens, they drag him in. When do you ever see in a robbery/heist movie the characters tell their getaway guy "come on in, we could use one more guy with a gun actually, forget our only escape mean"? By any logic he'd just slow them down, he even just showed them that he's not any good at picking a lock.

It doesn't rise to the level of a Stupidity mistake. Bringing him isn't an action that is so stupid it seems unbelievable. He doesn't even appear to be as much of a hindrance to the mission as you suggest, they seem to operate just fine with him there.

Of course they are the good guys and it all works out in the end and it made for a fine episode, but for all we know and they know, they dragged a non-combat trained and physically unfit accountant to their commando mission, the fighting part. It's already a big stretch that the magistrate and the marshall of a whole planet have to resort on that guy of all people for a getaway driver role (he's not even portrayed as being a great pilot, since Cara drives the vehicle they will escape with: he's literally there because he's got a bike and he's an indentured servant), but it sure seems unbelievable they brought him - inside the base - all of a sudden with no story justification about it (which would have been really simple) and contradicting the original plan.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 11: The Heiress - S2-E3

Stupidity: Stormtroopers absolutely do not care about bombs being thrown at them, do nothing to avoid them, in fact run towards them, and do not react (not kicking them back, but not even trying to step away a little) when they literally poke them in the toes.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 9: The Marshal - S2-E1

Stupidity: In Cobb Vanth's flashback, the miners are watching the Death Star blow up (evidently the Rebellion had a camera crew there to capture the moment, or they bought a neat home video version of Return of the Jedi) but the evil mining syndicate enters the bar and guns down everyone. So they are killing the...harmless and weapon-less miners they want to force to work for them? The town is minuscule, they may have killed their WHOLE workforce there. (00:20:35)

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Season 2 generally

Stupidity: At the end of Season 1, the armorer tasks Mando to bring the Child to "his kind", which she specifically identifies as Jedi. It's already quite a stretch that Mando never heard of Jedi before, being such an important part of the Mandalorian culture he's been taught, but during the first episodes, until he finally indeed meets some Mandalorians, he approaches people looking for Mandalorians and not Jedi, and goes through some notable verbal gymnastics to never mention Jedi.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 9: The Marshal - S2-E1

Stupidity: The bad guys have guns literally at the neck of Mando, but when his slow and erratic homing projectiles fly around, they don't shoot. Slowest reaction times ever.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: They may not have known what the projectiles were. Some kind of weapon would be the obvious assumption, but by the time they likely figured that, they were either panicking or simply not focused on shooting Mando, since doing so probably wouldn't save them.

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 9: The Marshal - S2-E1

Stupidity: Mos Pelgo has been around for decades, but nobody has ever thought before of the stratagem used at the end of the episode, which didn't need the Mandalorian or anything more than what the villagers already possessed (being a mining town they had a lot of explosives just lying around).

26th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 8: Redemption - S1-E8

Stupidity: Cara destroys the R2 unit, but the oar is still there, and the Mandalorian has a jetpack and freshly restored explosives. Even if we take at face value the fact that far fewer troopers than they already destroyed (and that have been treated canonically as laughingstock through the entire series as unable to aim) are a significant threat, the dramatic moment of sacrifice is still blatantly forced. Especially when during the sacrifice it is shown that the stormtroopers are not shooting at him, negating entirely the premise that the stormtrooper fire would have caught them the moment they were in sight.

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 8: Redemption - S1-E8

Stupidity: Inside the building, there's a broken window behind the bar. Cara Dune has perfect cover and can shoot easily at the stormtroopers from the height she is at (it is the way they shot from outside), but she instead jumps on the bar counter, where she is entirely exposed.

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 7: The Reckoning - S1-E7

Stupidity: The Imperial sub-boss and his guards deserve to die just for the fact that they allowed a supposed prisoner to be brought in full blaster-proof armor complete with wrist guards that contain deadly weaponry. Who would sit across the table with someone who is wearing a flame throwing suit?

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 7: The Reckoning - S1-E7

Stupidity: The initial plan for Greef Karga and the three hunters was to kill Mando and whoever else he brought over, and deliver the Child to the Client. Considering this was their plan, there is no reason why they did not kill them in their sleep.

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 6: The Prisoner - S1-E6

Stupidity: The security droids appear impervious to blaster hits at the beginning of the episode, but nobody from the crew grabs one of the droid rifles, who instead easily pierce their armour. Mayfeld then one-shots them no problem when the plot requires him to towards the end of the episode.

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 4: Sanctuary - S1-E4

Stupidity: The necessity to deal with the AT walker through a complicated plan stems from the fact stated by Cara that on the planet there's nothing that can destroy the legs of the mecha. Ignoring the Ewoks' guerrilla tactics from Endor, Mando has a fully functional ship that in the next episode one-shots an enemy ship and that he has no reason not to use in here (which is a planet outside any jurisdiction, against an enemy with no anti-air capabilities).

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 4: Sanctuary - S1-E4

Stupidity: The whole battle plan of our heroes hinges on the fact that the AT walker will be drawn closer when they battle the raiders. Forgetting the very Disney cartoon mechanics of the 'training' of the militia, in the very opening we saw that the armored weapon was shooting all the way back from the trees, and during the battle itself its lasers hit at a far superior range than the good guys' flimsy barriers. The plan works only because the bad guys decide that instead of shooting comfortably from their positions burning to ashes the puny barriers the villagers hide behind, they are not going to use their firepower, and instead send the infantry to be slaughtered.

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 4: Sanctuary - S1-E4

Stupidity: The cult the main character adheres to sanctions that under no circumstance other people should see his face under the penalty of being cast out for betraying his only family and ancestral heritage. So naturally he removes his helmet in front of an open window with a bunch of kids playing right there, and has his dinner right on the sill of his doorless shack. (00:17:50)

25th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 3: The Sin - S1-E3

Stupidity: Mando keeps the stormtroopers at a standstill saying that what he holds is valuable, but as the stomtroopers fully know, the Child is good to them even dead, and in fact their boss gave out tracking fobs with the mission to kill it and don't even bother to try and catch it alive (which begs the question why nobody just used their ship to bombard the compound, since they cared nothing about the target's safety).

20th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 5: The Gunslinger - S1-E5

Stupidity: Mando's ally breaks the fob saying he's got it memorized. Memorize a tracking device, that's new.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: He means he memorized the chain code, the biometric data stored on the tracking fob. Calican already knows Fennec is headed towards the dune sea so they don't need the fob to track her location.

Beyond the dune sea, is what he says, yes, which is an enormous desert on the vaste planet. Memorizing the biometric data does not help at all without the tracking device. I took it that he memorized the positional data, but if I know someone's last known location, and that they are headed "beyond the Sahara desert" it is not really helping me find them, is it? You can make a guess, of course.

The chain code is what is used to identify the target, when they are turned in to collect the bounty. You don't need the tracking fob if you already know all the numbers in the chain code. That's the part that he memorized. It doesn't appear that the tracking fob gives you precise location data, so "In the Sahara dessert" is all you get. If the tracking fob did give more precise location data then every idiot in the galaxy would be a bounty hunter.

To identify the target he has the puck already. My point is that "Got it all memorized" is a plot device that works when your target is stationary (like The Child in the first episode), not a moving target. He smashed a -tracking - device (which took it where he is now) and then says he's "got it all memorized." You can't memorize tracking, and the chain code simply includes data like the age that are of no use for a target already well known like Fennec. What he memorized was her last known location at most... which if the fobs are as vague as you mention (one hopes that they are not just beeping dowsing rods) would make even less sense, because he wouldn't have a clue about her position and course and could be off by hundreds of miles.

The chain code contains identifying information that proves what target you've brought in. In another episode a character worries that if his chain code is scanned he will go to prison because he's a wanted man. Yes, the tracking fob is used to hunt down your target but that's not why Mando wants it and why the other bounty hunter destroys it. Without the fob, even if Mando catches Fennec he won't be able to collect the bounty because he doesn't know the chain code.

If we go with this theory, it sounds like Mando wants the money (and recognition) to bring Fennec in, but he does not care about that nor he was asking for it; the fob has a different use, and the chain code is memorized separately from that anyway (he was given in the first episode tracking The Child a fob without a chain code). The chain code is simply a code with the essential information about the subject, like a personal document. If that what he memorized, it's as if he said "Don't worry, we'll find her in the desert, I got her social security number." And if he captured Fennec, which was needed alive, he would have gotten the recognition no matter what.

I tend to agree with the mistake that the tracking fob is receiving updated biometric coordinate data, so there's no way memorize updated data, at most it would be memorizing last known coordinates. However, I would advise using terms like "Baby Yoda" if you want to be taken seriously, otherwise it looks like you haven't watched the show. There's no need to use incorrect terms just because you think people won't know who "The Child" or "Grogu" is.

14th Jan 2021

The Mandalorian (2019)

Chapter 15: The Believer - S2-E7

Stupidity: Bill Burr tells Mando off for using his little blaster pistol next to the cargo (he was nowhere near, actually), but greets with jubilant cheers the TIE fighters cannoning right next to them. Likewise, it's incomprehensible with a material of such volatility why the locals, who have abundance of thermal detonators, don't just toss them like they do in their last ditch attack (they are magnetic) or for that matter why at all the Empire uses land trucks to transport them, in a world with freely available and cheap hover technology.

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.