The Mandalorian and Grogu

For the first time in seven years, Star Wars is back on the big screen!

Unfortunately, The Mandalorian and Grogu feels less like an actual movie and more like a long episode of the television series.

This time around, the legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter - and his young apprentice, Grogu - have been enlisted by the fledgling New Republic to find and capture Imperial warlords that remain scattered throughout the galaxy. 

That’s a simple premise that sounds like it could describe any episode of the series itself, and that’s exactly the point. This is a movie that you do not need to do any homework for. If you haven’t seen a single episode of The Mandalorian, you are not going to be lost here. At all. Which is fine, I suppose. I don't mind that this is essentially one long episode. My main issue comes from the fact that this is one long filler episode. 

The story being told here is completely inconsequential. If you decide to skip out on this one, you aren’t going to be missing anything. Aside from Rotta the Hutt's glow up, of course. 

Yes, Rotta from the animated Clone Wars movie is back. You may not recognize him as a fully grown adult who is surprisingly shredded, but you can tell that it’s him by the way that he’s still being kidnapped. Which is funny; Rotta has only ever made two appearances in canon, and both stories revolve around him getting kidnapped. The guy can’t catch a break, I guess. 

But the similarities to the animated film don’t end with Rotta’s inclusion. Because The Clone Wars wasn’t originally supposed to be a movie; George Lucas famously decided to retool a three-episode arc of the TV show into a full-length feature film, resulting in a Frankenstein’s monster that was panned by fans and critics alike. And, despite what Jon Favreau may say about the matter, it’s hard to believe that this movie wasn’t also made from repurposed TV material. 

The Mandalorian and Grogu has an incredibly weird narrative structure. Each half-hour feels like it could act as the start of a brand new episode. And that obviously gives the movie an odd sense of pacing, because it doesn’t naturally flow the way that a movie should. 

But I’m not even sure if this story would’ve made for an engaging season of television either. Not that the story is bad; it just feels so completely inconsequential. As a matter of fact, this story feels like a knee-jerk reaction to Season 3’s lackluster reception. As if Disney realized that people don’t care for Mandalore or Bo-Katan, so they forced Jon Favreau to scrap that entire storyline. So, instead, he wrote a story that could theoretically appeal to anyone; even people who aren’t familiar with the show. 

The problem with that is: the movie doesn’t feel rewarding for anyone who has been watching the show since 2019. And, since the story doesn’t connect to anything else, the entire film feels like a completely unnecessary endeavor. I mean, I didn’t need this movie to be heavy on Star Wars lore or anything, but it would’ve been nice for the story to feel somewhat important. 

As it stands now, the plot is filled with surprisingly low stakes. And that is quite baffling, since movies usually tend to feel bigger and more important than their TV show counterparts. But all three seasons of The Mandalorian feel more relevant than this film. So much so, in fact, that you could probably watch a future season of the show without having seen the movie at all. And that’s… really weird to me. 

Remember when the Mando-verse seemed to be building up to an Heir to the Empire remake? Whatever happened to that? Did Disney scrap those ideas too? Because these post-Return of the Jedi shows have been around for seven years now, but we’re still not any closer to finishing out that narrative arc. Why is that? Imagine if the first Star Wars film in seven years was a retelling of Heir to the Empire. That would have been cool! Right? 

But, to be clear: I don’t think Thrawn would have made this movie any better. I don’t think deepfaked versions of Han, Luke, and Leia would have made this movie any better. I definitely don’t think Bo-Katan would have made this movie any better. But I do think that a little bit of world-building could have helped in making this story feel more important. And that sense of relevance probably would have made for a better movie. 

Now, I get that this film is trying to be a fun and simple little romp, but the fact that it doesn't include any kind of thematic weight or character development is really disappointing. Because I like these characters! The Mandalorian is undeniably cool and baby Grogu is absolutely adorable, but there is literally nothing else to their characters. They don’t even have an arc in this movie! 

Believe it or not, Rotta the Hutt actually has the biggest arc here. Which is really strange. Because that arc brings him awfully close to becoming the main character of this film. And, now that I mention it, I wonder if the movie would’ve been better if Rotta was in the lead role. I know that would be a difficult film for Disney to market, but if Guillermo del Toro came close to making a gangster movie about Jabba the Hutt, then why can’t Rotta get his own film?

But I suppose this begs a bigger question: would The Mandalorian and Grogu be better off as supporting characters? They can pop in and out of stories while other characters are allowed to take center stage. That could be fun. 

Or maybe they would be better served as playable characters in a video game. After all, the movie - and most of the show, for that matter - already feels quite video game-y. The two characters are always going on a fetch quest of some kind, so, imagine being able to play as The Mandalorian as he goes off on one of his famous quests. That would be awesome!

Either way, I think it's clear that Disney doesn't know what to do with these characters anymore. Their growth - and their story - definitely peaked in the Season 2 finale. So, maybe it's time to just let them go. The Mandalorian and Grogu both felt like fresh and exciting characters back in 2019, but maybe it's time for us to move on. Maybe it’s time for Disney to introduce us to some new characters. 

Speaking of which, I really hope that Starfighter will be better than this. And it pains me to say that since I like Jon Favreau way more than I like director Shawn Levy. No offense to Levy, I just prefer Favreau’s style as a filmmaker. But Favreau’s usual charm is definitely missing here. Which is surprising. Especially since he directed one of the best episodes of the series! So I don’t know what happened here. 

I do like the way Favreau incorporated real puppetry and stop-motion animation, though. Some of the stop-motion effects are so good that most people will probably mistake them for CGI. Which is really impressive if you think about it. So, this is a movie that Ray Harryhausen probably would’ve loved. Jim Henson, too, for that matter. 

Plus, the regular action scenes are also really exciting, and all of the IMAX sequences look really damn good. So, the film does have a nice visual aesthetic. For the most part anyway. Sure, certain sequences do look pretty flat, but they still look more engaging than all of Season 3. The Stagecraft technology was beginning to look really restrictive, so I’m glad that they moved away from it a bit here.

Still, none of the visuals can distract me from the fact that the story is lacking a surprising amount of substance.  And I use the word “story” lightly since the movie doesn’t even have much of one. Mando basically just skips around from one action set piece to the next. 

Not even the cast can elevate the material here, and there are some incredibly talented names featured in this cast! But Martin Scorsese is here for no reason. Jeremy Allen White is completely unrecognizable. Sigourney Weaver seems to be phoning in her performance. And Pedro Pascal only pops up for one scene! So, as much as I do like this cast, none of the actors are utilized as effectively as they should be.  

Steve Blum is still pretty good as the voice of Zeb, though. Which is fun. I just have no idea why Zeb is even part of this movie to begin with. Shouldn’t he be more involved with what’s going on in Ahsoka? I don’t know…

But, as you can tell by the tone of this review, I have pretty mixed feelings about The Mandalorian and Grogu. I don’t know if it’s the worst Jon Favreau film - since I’ve never seen Cowboys and Aliens - but it’s currently my least favorite Jon Favreau film. And that’s definitely a disappointing thing to say. 

Is it the worst live-action Star Wars movie? Probably not. But it may be too soon to say. Attack of the Clones has always been my least favorite film in the franchise, but I've had years to really let that hate sink in. And, despite how bad the execution may be, I do respect George Lucas for taking a big swing with each of his Prequel films. But The Mandalorian and Grogu is not taking a big swing. Some may argue that the movie isn’t taking any kind of swing at all. And I might agree with those people. 

This film is the epitome of “playing it safe.” But playing it safe is not what Star Wars needs right now. I mean, this is the best that Disney can come up with after a seven-year-long hiatus? This is the follow-up we get to the disastrous Rise of Skywalker? Say what you will about that film, but at least The Rise of Skywalker had stakes! At least the movie felt important and consequential! 

So, it’s a shame that this film will be taking Star Wars discourse away from projects like Andor and Maul: Shadow Lord. Those are both incredibly good shows. Then again, I suppose The Mandalorian was also a really good show when it first premiered. 

Sigh…

I really hope that, whatever the future may hold for these two characters, the series will be able to return to its former glory. And the same goes for the Star Wars franchise as a whole. Because, while I’m glad that Star Wars is back on the big screen, this is not the return-to-form that I was hoping it would be. Remember when The Force Awakens injected a huge wave of excitement into the Star Wars fandom? That excitement is definitely missing here. And I can’t help but to blame that on Disney for being so frustratingly reactionary. 

Jon Favreau clearly set out to make a fun, simple, and pulpy little romp here. And he did just that. I just firmly believe that, if he wasn’t forced to retool his work on Season 4, he definitely could have made a better one. But, since Disney refuses to learn from their past mistakes, The Mandalorian and Grogu ends up feeling like a forgettable film that fails to justify its own existence. 

It isn’t a bad film, per se. Parts of it - especially Ludwig Göransson’s score - are actually quite good. The problem is with how thin and disposable the narrative feels. This is a story that ultimately didn’t need to be told, and that makes the entire movie feel disappointingly uninteresting. But, being the huge Star Wars fan that I am,  I’m sure I’ll end up watching this film plenty of more times in the future. I just don’t think that I’ll revisit it as often as I revisit all of the other films in the saga. 

Still, even in spite of all of my criticism, I can’t deny that the movie can be fun and entertaining in parts. This is a film that families and little children can enjoy. I can’t hate it for that. For better or worse, the movie is exactly what it set out to be.

And that’s exactly why The Mandalorian and Grogu would probably get a mild recommendation from me.