Star Wars - The Mandalorian and Grogu

Has anyone been to see the new Star Wars Mandalorian film yet?

I took my son to see it at the local IMAX last weekend and we really enjoyed it.

It's silly, definitely aimed at kids as well as fans of the series, and has a lot of content and references to please older fans.

It felt very similar to the series, and like a series of episodes put together with a far larger budget. A lot more battles and fight scenes than the series and with the bigger budget the fighting, especially hand to hand, was far more how we imagined a Mandalorian would fight.

If you are a Star Wars fan then you will enjoy it. My son hasn't watched that much of the TV series but he still enjoyed it, so you don't need to have watched it all.

The new leadership of Lucasfilm and Star Wars but Dave Filoni really shows it was the right decision to replace Kennedy. He and Jon Favreau have worked their magic again. Hopefully Jon can repeat what he managed with Marvel.

I stopped watching Star Wars movies after Revenge of the Sith (2005), no interest, zero, zilch, they're milking it to the max, which imo is just ridicilous. I loved the movies (first 3) as a kid, as it was something special, amazing, never seen before and I loved sci-fi as a kid, and Godzilla.

Talking about Godzilla, I watched the first season of Monarch, started well, but then I struggled to finish the season, as it got less and less interesting. Loads of bla bla but nothing happening. Then season 2 got released, I was hoping for something slightly better, but same old, I think I watched 2-3 episodes so far, and I'm not really planning on continuing.

I liked the Alien: Earth series a bit more, had something interesting going, although not perfect, but more watchable than Monarch.

I've been watching Monarch and enjoying it. The second season has been better. I'm only 4 episodes in but Apple have been spending a lot of money on it and that shows, just as they have with all their shows. One think you can't argue about Apple is their series production values have been really high. Monarch also has the same produces and directors as the films and that shows as it does feel like a direct follow on from the films,

I'm only 4 episodes into the second season, but so far I've been enjoying it and haven't found it boring. We got to revisit Skull Island and see Kong and the Hollow Earth, plus a new Titan.

I've not yet watched all of Alien Earth. I've started watching the Alien films with my son so we are going to wait until we have seen them all then watch the series.

As for Star Wars, as you know I'm a big Star Wars fan. I read or listen to every novel as it's released and this is all interlinked with the Disney series that have been released to date (except for the Acolyte which was an abomination). But I think that's part of the problem now. There are not really releasing standalone films or series anyone can enjoy. They are all interconnected. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka have been the best of the recent things released in the franchise, and this film followed on nicely from the series. Another surprise was Skeleton Crew. A Star Wars series that was like The Goonies in SW. It wasn't really connected to anything else and was just a fun adventure.

There are a lot of series released recently though worth watching IMO. The Third series of Silo is back this month on Apple. I read all the books after the first series and was pleased to find they are roughly sticking to the books, which is very rare these days. They have changed some things and a few I didn't quite get why, but for the most part it's the same, and from this I've also read and enjoyed some of the authors other books. Sand being the best.

There is also Star City just released, again on Apple. This is linked to For All Mankind, which has been a great alternative history of space travel if Russia had got to the Moon first. Star City being from the Russian perspective.