Jon Favreau’s Disney’s LucasFilms’ Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

Corporate-ordered entertainment. But, entertaining nonetheless.

The Mandalorian TV-show was exactly what Star Wars needed when it first aired on Disney+ in 2019. Star Wars was in a wonky place. The studios weren’t sure how to make fans happy. Fans weren’t even sure what they wanted. Out of the desert, like the cowboys of old, Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Chef) and Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) walked into the local saloon and caused a stir. The first 2 seasons of the show were absolutely fantastic. It added and explored Star Wars mythos while also knowing just when to hit the nostalgia button.

Season 3 was awful, killing any hype or momentum that the story held. Also, the writing choice not to stand by the story decision to have Luke Skywalker train Grogu at the end of season 2 was a huge mistake. It seemed destined for our leads to reunite in the show, but they met back up in like 2 seconds. It was very disappointing. Now, 3 years after the last season, and 7 years since the last Star Wars movie, Disney is once again hoping for its bounty hunter, The Mandalorian, to save the franchise. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu sort of does this.

I imagine that, behind the scenes, this was exactly what Disney wanted to ‘relaunch’ the Star Wars IP. Mando and Grogu are relatively well-known icons in this universe. Jon Favreau has a long relationship with Disney outside of Star Wars, directing both the live-action remakes of The Jungle Book (2016) and The Lion King (2019). These two things, together, are money-printing tools for a corporation. As of this review, Manalorian and Grogu is projected to make $95 million domestically in its opening weekend and $160 million globally. (Report here.) The force might not be as strong with this one as executives were hoping for, financially.

The marketing for the film has led to a rocky start. The Super Bowl spot was heavily criticized for not being exciting enough. Fans were upset over the choice to make the ad a callback to an old Budweiser commercial, rather than a big, bombastic trailer with epic music. It was narrated by Sam Elliot, who is not in any Star Wars project to date. Polygon wrote on this drama, “The Mandalorian and Grogu’s Super Bowl trailer, however, inspires only boredom.”

I had only 2 expectations I wanted the film to meet: To hear a cool rendition of The Mandalorian’s main theme and to see the title characters do cool bounty-hunter stuff. The film does these things very well! The problem is, it doesn’t do much else. If you think of this as a full-scale Star Wars adventure where the fate of the universe is in the hands of our heroes, you will be disappointed. This is a small, character-driven story on a big screen. This is evident in the script structure, as the film’s pacing is more in line with the show’s episodes than with a “proper” 3-act structure.

This is one of the parts I actually think the film excels. This keeps the show’s tone, so fans of that can jump in and it feels like home, while also keeping the story fresh for those unfamiliar with these characters. I took my girlfriend to see this, who has only seen the prequels because Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith were re-released in theaters. She didn’t even know Pedro Pascal was the lead in this film until the opening credits. For her, this was a fun welcome to a different side of the franchise. She was able to follow along on what she needed to know to grasp the story.

Of course, her favorite part was little Grogu. He shines in the film. Disney knows exactly what they have and are going to milk it dry. In this case, good for them. I will watch Grogu be silly for at least a few more years without issue. Grogu is delightful to watch, and by the film’s third act, the movie earns the “and Grogu” part of the title. The film does a great job at balancing the two leads. The story naturally gives each character moments to shine that feel earned and satisfying. Their duo also provides the film with great comic relief; there were multiple moments I found myself laughing out loud.

Mandalorian and Gorgu’s action sequences are some of my favorite in non-Skywalker-saga Star Wars. The opening action scene, set on a snowy planet, sees our heroes facing off against multiple AT-ATs. This sets the stage nicely. The intro for The Mandalorian himself was so cool. Sorry, no big fancy words to describe it, it was so awesome and lets the audience know this guy is not to be messed with. In large part, what helps the action scenes, and the rest of the film, is the score. The score is my favorite non-John Williams score for a Star Wars project, ever. That aspect of the film actually surpassed my expectations. Ludwig Göransson did a fantastic job.

The different worlds and creature designs are where the film’s atmosphere cashes in its bounty. There are so many cool creatures and fun ways the story uses them. The animatronic feel of certain designs makes for a great viewing experience, evoking the feelings of the original trilogy. Each planet feels so distinct from the others; you really feel like you are going on a space adventure. This element of the film felt on par with the prequel trilogy. These 2 aspects work together putting the film into hyperdrive and propel both generations of fans on a fun adventure.

Though the adventure is fun, it does feel at times soulless. The cinematography, other than maybe 2 or 3 shots, feels lifeless. I just don’t understand how these huge companies spend millions of dollars and then hire people who aren’t good at what they do. No shade against the cinematographer himself, but he hasn’t done much outside of television. Cinematography for TV is very different from that for film. This is most likely why the film feels like a long TV episode rather than a triumphant first Disney+ show-turned-theater-release movie.

The dialogue and some story elements feel like they were written for kids. This is probably because one of the writers was Dave Filoni, who is primarily used to writing kids’ shows. Not that there aren’t mature themes in Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars: Rebels, but here it needed a more adult touch. At one point, Mando is looking for Rotta the Hutt on a planet he’s never been to before. He asks a four-armed creature (voiced by Martin Scorsese, the man who directed Goodfellas and Taxi Driver) for information, who tells Mando to turn around, revealing a massive poster with Rotta on it. There are a few moments like this that make Mando feel less like a lone cowboy space bounty hunter and more like someone who asks the Burger King employee if they sell live octopus. He loses credibility.

With this, we find the film’s biggest enemy is not the Hutt family syndicate and Empire warlords, but rather the fact that it doesn’t fully know whether to acknowledge the show’s existence. One of the most impactful moments of the show is when Mando’s ship, the Razor Crest, is destroyed. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, The New Republic just gives him a new one. I understand that for the plot, they needed him to have a bigger ship to carry more people, but bringing back the old ship in this way felt unearned. Maybe had the film ended this way, it would have been rewarding.

The Hutts are a huge part of the story. In The Book of Boba Fett, Boba takes over Jabba’s former territory on Tatooine, and the Hutts eventually back away from their claim there. Since Mando and Boba Fett are established allies, it felt strange that Boba wasn’t referenced at all. This may not matter in the film itself, since Boba doesn’t appear, but to the overarching plot, including the show, it needed to be brought up.

With not much happening in the film, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu has a lot on its shoulders in the world of entertainment. Will it make more than this movie or that movie? Will it make Star Wars relevant again? These are questions the film doesn’t care about answering. It is here to tell a self-contained story about a bounty hunter and his apprentice as they navigate the galaxy. That is all it needed to be, and that is all it is.

I am a huge Mandalorian fan. It came out at the perfect time for me in high school. I wanted to wear his full armor to my graduation, which, thankfully, my dad convinced me was perhaps not the right idea. I am still convinced it would have been “so cool.” If you scroll to the top of this website, on the top right, you’ll see that the slogan is a nod to Mando’s iconic, “This is the way.” As a film, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is fine. It is a glorified version of 4 or 5 episodes of the show combined. But as an entertaining movie? It was awesome.