Episodic Adventures for the Hutts

It has been six and a half years since Star WarsThe modern blockbuster: it's a concept so commonplace now we don't even think about the fact that before the end of the 1970s, this kind of movie -- huge spectacles, big action, massive budgets -- wasn't really made. That all changed, though, with Star Wars, a series of films that were big on spectacle (and even bigger on profits). A hero's journey set against a sci-fi backdrop, nothing like this series had ever really been done before, and then Hollywood was never the same. was last in theaters. The Rise of Skywalker, which came out in 2019, didn’t exactly leave the franchise on a high note. It was the reviled third entry in, I think everyone can agree at this point, an ill-conceived trilogy of films that were meant to start Disney’s run of Star Wars on a high note. Instead, after the spectacular success of the first film in the trilogy, The Force Awakens, the franchise seemed to stumble around, not sure of what to do. Rogue One was well received, but The Last Jedi was hated by at least half of the fandom. Solo then came out like a wet fart in the night, and at that point Disney was scared. Their cash cow that they bought for $4 Bil was suddenly careening into oblivion, and they didn’t know what to do.

Thus, the troubled production on The Rise of Skywalker which then led to its disappointing Box Office numbers (it still made over $1 Bil at the Box Office, but that was a far cry from the $2 Bil that The Force Awakens made) and ever since then it’s felt like Disney hasn’t known what to do with the franchise. Well, okay, even when it was running strong it didn’t feel like Disney really knew what they were doing. Both Rogue One (which was a financial success) and Solo (which wasn’t) were plagued by production problems. Various other projects were greenlit and then canceled. The franchise was struggling and, as the years went on, fans really started to feel like there was little point in paying attention to the Galaxy Far, Far Away anymore.

If there was any bright spot it was The Mandalorian, a show distinctly set in a corner of the Star Wars universe for its first season, focusing on a bounty hunter as he went off and had his own adventures far removed from anything going on in the movies. Fans loved the first season of the show, and it made both Mando and his adopted little son, Grogu (aka “Baby Yoda”) household names. Disney suddenly had a hit that could help them shake off all the hate from the movies. They just had to treat it properly… which they absolutely didn’t, squandering that good will from the first and second seasons of the show via a spin-off book end, The Book of Boba Fett, as well as a lackluster third season, and now even those that loved The Mandalorian wondered if there was any reason to stick around with the character or the world?

All of that is to say that The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film to hit theaters since 2019, had a steep hill to climb. It needed to win fans back into the theaters, not just fans of the show but also fans of Star Wars. It needed to bring that might, that aura of cool that Star Wars used to have and it needed to show everyone that, yes, Star Wars in theaters was something worth watching again. In short, it had to knock it out of the park. Unfortunately for Disney, The Mandalorian and Grogu is a perfectly fine, almost middling film, that won’t win back any lapsed fans of the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

The film picks up sometime after the events of the three seasons of the show, with our hero, the titular Mandalorian, aka Din Djarin (voiced and occasionally performed by Pedro Pascal, with additional on-set doubling provided by Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder), working for the New Republic as their bounty hunter. His job – which he is joined in by his faithful little green son, Grogu, as well as New Republic pilot Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios (Steve Blum) – is tracking down former Imperial officials who are still trying to bring the Empire back, one way or another. These men are a direct threat to the New Republic and cannot be allowed to operate.

After one job getting one of these Imperial leaders ends with the target dead, Din is chastised by his handler, Ward (Sigourney Weaver), because it’s hard to get information out of a dead man. He’s then sent on his next mission, a job to find and free the son of Jabba the Hutt, Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), and bring them back to their aunt and uncle, the Twins, back on the Hutt homeworld. This will be in exchange for information that will help lead Mando on to a real target, one of the most important former Imperials that the New Republic wants. But things go sideways fast and it leads to Mando and Grogu out, on the run, trying to fight off enemies from both sides who want him dead.

Whenever a television show makes its way to theaters it has to prove that whatever story the audience is watching had to be a movie. If the film feels like an overly long episode, or collection of episodes, that could have just been seen on television then the film, in a way, has failed. Why pay good money to see this in theaters if you could have watched it via normal means otherwise. One thing The Mandalorian and Grogu absolutely does not do is shake the feeling it’s more than a collection of episodes put on the big screen. It feels like four, twenty minute episodes of the series tied together, a mini-season of the show that, for some reason, Disney felt could make money in theaters instead. This is a massive miscalculation because this film feels so small, so basic, and not at all theater worthy in the slightest.

The film is so basic and episodic in its storytelling. Mando and Grogu get their orders, go somewhere, have a small adventure, then get their next bit of information so they can go somewhere else, have a small adventure, and do it all again. They go from place to place, with their adventures regularly getting broken up by action set pieces, but it doesn’t change the feeling that this is just an episodic set of breadcrumbs, a dungeon crawl with our heroes at one end working their way through encounters until they get out the other side.

And the thing is, I wouldn’t actually hate this if the adventure they were going on felt consequential for the characters. If Din, as our protagonist, actually had an arc through all of this, that would mean something. But our Mando hasn’t really had anything to do with his character since the second season of the show. He’s not passive, as he makes for a solid action hero when the scenes require it, but there really isn’t anything here for the character to invest in. Working for the New Republic is a job, almost like any other, and while the clientele is more trustworthy, Mando is still a bounty hunter, still going through the motions.

What the film lacks is the hook to make us care about whatever is going on. We don’t learn why Din decided to work for the New Republic (after, last we saw, his teaming up with the Mandalorians to reclaim their homeworld) so we never feel a connection to his new job. Does it really matter to him if he does a good job for them or not? Does he care that the targets he’s sent to collect end up dead? Because we don’t understand his connection to his current career we don’t care if he does it well or not.

It doesn't help that the character functionally has nowhere to grow now. Back in the first two seasons of the show his arc was about Grogu, the baby he picked up. He had to figure out what to do with the kid, while bonding with the little Yoda-like, and just as it felt like he was going to keep the kid he then passed Grogu off to Luke Skywalker to train them. And then the show reverted that, and Grogu was back... and at that point Mando's entire storyline ended. Third season of his show barely knew what to do with him, simply letting him tie up loose ends. And now he's here because they needed a hero for a movie and couldn't think of anyone better. Mando is a piece of merchandise, there to sell tickets, and his adventure is as mercenary as his character. The film has nothing to say about him, why he's here, and why he's doing anything. His time is up and Disney has yet to realize it.

By the same token, the adventure he’s eventually sent on – tracking down Rotta, which then puts him against the Hutts he’s supposed to be working for – doesn’t have a deeper connection to his character. He’s never worked for the Hutts before, that we know of, so there’s no past history here. He’s never dealt with Rotta either. Hell, Zeb (from Rebels) is here to assist Mando in his missions, but even then there’s no connection set up between the characters. Everything feels disjointed and airless. Characters are here because they were in previous Star Wars media, but how they connect to Mando, his character, or his story is left off the page entirely.

What we needed for The Mandalorian and Grogu was a story that actually connected to the characters. We needed villains from their past, characters they knew, a history to build on. We needed something that would make us care about what Din is doing beyond, “well, he’s the hero so we want him to succeed.” That’s superficial, and The Mandalorian and Grogu is a superficial movie. It’s fun in places, with lots of action to pass the time, but when it actually counts, when it needs to make you care, the film doesn’t have an answer for audiences at all. It’s a weightless and empty popcorn film, and at this point Star Wars needs better than that if it’s ever going to get audiences back into seats again.