Films and Fiction

Star Wars is back on the big screen after a seven-year absence, but there’s a good chance you didn’t know, as Disney have chosen a strange beast to represent their return to cinemas. Rather than waiting for Star Wars: Starfighter which is due out next year, we’ve been given a spin-off to a streaming show which ended three years ago

I’m not really sure why The Mandalorian and Grogu was released in theatres. Jon Favreau has already confirmed that he reworked the scripts for season four into a movie, so why not simply release it in eight parts on Disney+, where it belongs.

It’s not as if the movie does anything to justify its big-screen ambitions. It’s basically just three or four episodes of The Mandalorian cut together, in fact you can almost see the cuts to credits, except it lacks any kind of plot, arc, or development–something even the unfortunate third season had.

To try and describe the plot, it’s just a series of quests. Mando has a job to do, he needs information, he has to find someone, shoot some bad guys, break out of jail, plenty of harmless fights, and cute Grogu moments, with only the barest story to reluctantly tie it all together. A story that hinges upon characters from The Book of Boba Fett and the long-forgotten 2008 Clone Wars movie. A strange choice for any story, but even stranger here. I might have expected a Dave Filoni movie to be so deep in his own Star Wars interests and personal lore that no casuals could understands it, much like Ahsoka. But there’s little of that here. It almost completely ignores the previous seasons of The Mandalorian; there’s no mention of Bo-Katan or Mandalore, the Darksaber, his Tribe or Moff Gideon. If you’d never watched the show before, you wouldn’t be much out of your depth here. So why Filoni thought bringing out Rotta the Hutt was a good idea a can’t guess.

It’s also one of those plots that manages to be both non-existent and incredibly convoluted, as Mando runs around from one place to the next, bumping into the people and finding the items he needs with no difficulty.

In some ways its disconnect from the series is a good thing, as that was starting to get really old. Mando no longer has any angst about his heritage, there’s no squabbling about the Darksaber, or dumb things like Force-sensitive clones, but after being cut loose to do its own thing, the movie doesn’t have a clue what to do.

It almost has a theme of sorts, where it’s mentioned that Grogu will outlive Din Djarin by centuries, and there’s a suggestion that he may die, leaving Grogu alone to fend for himself. That could have been interesting, if the film had been gutsy enough to kill of Mando or at least separate him permanently from Grogu, but there’s no chance of that happening.

There was a perfect opportunity too, with Rotta mirroring Grogu as a character who can live for centuries. Even if Din didn’t die, he could have realised that he needs to change his ways, and either leave Grogu or give up the bounty hunting so as to spend as much time with his ward as possible, and maybe ended with him throwing off the Mandalorian baggage that’s been dragging him back.

It would have been a good way to end The Mandalorian’s story for good, and put the character to rest.

It’s the same thing the show has suffered from since season one, where it’s never had the courage to really do anything bold or interesting, especially not since it was discovered just how much merchandise these two figures could sell.

I had low expectations for The Mandalorian and Grogu after so many dull trailers (and a confounding Super Bowl ad) and if I was being fair, it probably surprised me just a little bit. There is some sort of entertainment to be had from it. There are some fun scenes, a few good bits of action–though usually spoilt by some awful CGI–and the comedy isn’t as grating as I thought it would be.

It’s somewhere on the same level as The Rise of Skywalker or Solo, but without the character assassinations and legacy baggage. Not offensively bad or exasperating. To be honest, it’s not the kind of movie that inspires much emotional response, positive or negative. It’s almost apologetically tame, not doing anything that might upset anyone, and so satisfying no one.

My main reaction to it was a sort of shrug. It exists, it has “Star Wars” in the title and some familiar images, and it’s probably more enjoyable than season three.

What I can’t quite understand is why it exists at all? Is it just Disney playing it safe? In which case, why not release it as a full season?

If, on the other hand, this is what passes for a good Star Wars movie now, one written it must be remembered by the current creative head of Lucasfilm, then I don’t think they’ve learnt anything from the last seven years of streaming disasters and a galaxy far, far away will fare no better in its return to the big-screen.

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