Greetings from Millbury

Paul only had to work half a day before the long weekend, so after a quiet morning, we ate bagels and drove to Millbury, which has a big outdoor shopping center with a big movie theater. We went into a bunch of stores (Barnes and Noble, Michael's, The Paper Store, Yankee Candle -- there's also a Sephora and an Ulta at opposite sides, and they were putting the finishing touches on a Yard House about to open), though we didn't end up buying anything. But of course we were there to see The Mandalorian and Grogu. 

Which was...a good new season of The Mandalorian; I liked it better than the second, though the movie didn't have some of the fun cameos and had fewer live-action versions of animated characters than we got on TV. I liked it a lot better than most of the prequel trilogy and some parts of the sequel trilogy. But it's no Rogue One. I'd probably rank it a little below The Force Awakens and above The Rise of Skywalker, though I must confess that part of that ranking is entirely for Sigourney Weaver. 

I will also confess that I liked the warg battles no more in The Lord of the Rings, the arena fight better in Thor: Ragnarok, the dinosauresque conflicts about the same in Jurassic World, and it's a tossup with the camping trip in Harry Potter. Which is to say I found certain elements nostalgic but for other franchises, so I give the writers few points for originality. The visuals are great, Grogu is adorable -- a good mix between credulous child and Force-powerful being -- and Pedro Pascal is fine though the helmet really gets distracting.

 

Now we're watching For All Mankind (so tense, I like the Star Trek part of this show much better than the Star Wars here) after Your Friends and Neighbors (also tense and sad) and the season finale of Ghosts (kinda hard to take seriously in comparison with the others, but reasonably entertaining). And the Orioles won despite rain in Baltimore! So a good start to the long weekend!