The Mandalorian and Grogu

The Mandalorian and Grogu has hit the cinemas.

The Mandalorian.

And Grogu.

This is what Disney have reduced the mighty Star Wars franchise to: a guy in a helmet (the actor himself not under the helmet most of the time, and dubbing in his lines later) and a little green puppet.

The first season of The Mandalorian was solid but unspectacular and written much like an adventure game. Go here. Do this. Get reward. Now go here. Some episodes, that’s pretty much all the Mandalorian did.

The Mandalorian himself wasn’t that interesting a character. They traded off Boba Fett’s mystique to give us somebody similar, but with a more relatable code of ethics. In doing that, though, they robbed the Mandalorian of what made (the cinematic) Boba Fett so compelling: his badassery.

Grogu was the fascinating one.

Or “Baby Yoda” – as the fandom immediately nicknamed him.

A little green puppet – this is, arguably, the most popular and marketable character Disney has manufactured in their Star Wars era.

I think that says something.

Who was this sickeningly cute young version of Yoda? Why did the remnants of the Empire have an interest in him? Could he pierce the Mandalorian’s cold, hard façade?

I think, if we’re honest, that last question was the one that intrigued us least.

The Mandalorian did what it needed to do for Disney: ground Star Wars back into stability after the Sequels and other movies had disenfranchised so many.

It was neither bad nor good.

It was bland.

It was The Blandalorian.

I was happy to drop it off my viewing schedule, but my partner at the time wanted to watch the second season.

It improved as it went on, and the last three or four episodes ramped up the interest when it explored the payoff of the whole Grogu storyline.

But then the return of Luke Skywalker – even a CGI composite version of him – orgasmed the fandom. You had reactors who were crying. Everybody but the cynics loved it. This is what people had waited for!

Surely this would show Disney just how much they fucked up the Sequels.

Idiots will complain it’s fan service. But that’s sorta like saying putting James Bond in a James Bond movie is fan service. Dynastically, Star Wars has been about the Skywalkers. The Original Trilogy followed Luke, the Prequels followed Anakin, and George Lucas’s intended Sequels would’ve followed Leia.

And, the way they built the arc, it had to be Luke who came to the rescue. He’s meant to be out there in this timeframe rebuilding the Jedi Order.

The sense I got from that season two climax was that closed the Grogu arc. He’d train with Luke, make the odd guest appearance, but the Mandalorian would go off and have new adventures. There wasn’t much more for the two of them to do.

The show, after all, is called The Mandalorian.

But, come season three, Grogu pined for the Mandalorian, left Luke, and we’re back where we started. This totally undid season two’s climax, and renders that season (if not the entire series to this point) redundant.

I have no inside knowledge about this show, and haven’t read scuttlebutt about it (because since Disney took over, I have progressively uninvested to the extent I think they now owe me money), but it feels as if Disney was worried they were benching their one popular (and merchanidizable) commodity, so they asked for him to be written back in.

That third season feels astonishingly redundant, as if series creator, Jon Favreau, got bored with it and tried to find ways to generate interest because he was forced to rehash, rather than do anything new (which is a commentary on how Disney have handled Star Wars).

And now we have a movie.

Now it does become The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The Mandalorian.

And Grogu.

I watched an old Siskel & Ebert review of Return of the Jedi, and Ebert talked about how George Lucas planned six more movies, and lamented how them coming out every two years would be too long a wait.

Now, I don’t think many people would care if they didn’t come out at all.