Mandalorian and Grogu
I skipped seeing the Mandalorian and Grogu movie in the theatre, waiting instead to watch it for free on Disney Plus. An all too common practice these days. And this, despite being a huge Star Wars fan.
Having said that, I was looking forward to watching it and I am glad I did. Disney has put out a number of Star Wars television series and by far, the Mandalorian has been the best.
But did the Mandalorian need a cinematic movie? I have some thoughts.
As the title suggests, this movie is about the Mandalorian and Grogu. The Mandalorian is not who he is but what he is. It is like describing someone as the Jedi. His name is Din Djarin, but is often called “Mando,” short for Mandalorian.
Grogu is the being that has popularly been called “baby Yoda,” that is because he is a baby and is of the same race as Yoda. He is also powerful with the force.
The setting is the wild times after Return of the Jedi. The Empire has fallen, the Rebels victorious, and the New Republic has been formed. But the remnants of the Empire still exist and some of its former leadership still have gangs of stormtroopers and are seeking to resurrect the Empire.
Mando is still a bounty hunter and is working for the New Republic, tracking down some of these troublesome Imperial leaders. Along for the ride is Grogu, looking cute and helping in his own way.
One of Mando’s jobs goes sideways, specifically one that includes rescuing the son of Jabba the Hutt. This leads to all sorts of fights and other adventures.
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The action scenes in the Mandalorian and Grogu are a lot of fun and are well done. It is everything we would want. There is some interesting backstory of the Hutt family. Grogu gets some nice scenes where he saves the day with the force.
But something was missing.
I think it was the story. It felt like a number of Mandalorian episodes back-to-back, designed just to showcase how tough the Mandalorian is and how cute Grogu is.
Please, do not get me wrong. I quite enjoyed the movie. It was fun. But there just was not much depth to the movie. I would say the Solo movie (which is widely considered a flop) had a much better story.
While entertaining, I do not see how this movie moved the overall Star Wars story or even the stories of the Mandalorian and Grogu to a new place.
I would be happy to rewatch it as a comfort movie, but more as I would rewatch the series. But if Star Wars wants to draw crowds to the theatres, they will have to do better than this.
