Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Lucasfilm, Movies, Review, Star Wars, TV | Tagged: The Mandalorian and Grogu

The Mandalorian and Grogu Review: Fine, But Lacks The Season One Magic

The Mandalorian and Grogu is going to have a hard time rising above being a longer episode of the show, and if it were premiering on Disney+, no one would care.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is fine; it feels more like season one of the show than season three, but it just cannot capture the same magic of the early days and makes no attempt to be its own thing.

Director: Jon Favreau
Summary: Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.

The TV movie concept is not new, and we have seen plenty of shows use a movie as an opportunity to wrap everything up as they approach the end of their time on the small screen. Star Wars has also been missing from the big screen since the end of 2019, when The Rise of Skywalker failed to connect with audiences the way everyone at Disney and Lucasfilm likely wanted it to. While an idea like The Mandalorian and Grogu likely seemed like a safe bet for getting people into theaters to see a Star Wars movie after so many years, it doesn't appear to be working. People aren't excited even though the show was once a massive thing that everyone couldn't stop talking about.

No one has hidden the fact that the script for this film is essentially taking the storyline from a potential fourth season of the show and smashing it together to make a movie. The lines where you can tell that this was an episode or another are harsher in some places than others. The opening twenty minutes, in particular, feel like a completely separate film from the one we are watching. It renders the pacing and structure a little wonky, to the point that the movie's different acts feel more like short episodes of the show. There is a narrative throughline here, but it would make a lot more sense told over a few TV episodes rather than a movie, given how everything is laid out.

However, if The Mandalorian and Grogu is a potential season four smashed together, the smashing knocked out a lot of the things that people grew to dislike about the latter seasons of the show. While season one of the show was a Star Wars property that very much felt like its own thing, the latter two seasons focused heavily on bringing back iconic characters and reminding people of TV and movies of the past to the point that the Mandalorian himself didn't even seem like the central figure anymore.

But The Mandalorian and Grogu have too much going on to get lost in Star Wars lore. Zeb is here, and we have one of Jabba's sons running around, so he's getting name-dropped a lot, but aside from those two and some stuff that is hinted at in dialogue, this feels very divorced from the rest of the franchise in the same way that season one did. That's in no way a bad thing; one of the problems Star Wars has is the pathological need to connect everything and everyone. It makes the galaxy far, far away feel much smaller, not bigger, so the lack of fan service toward previous movies is a point in its favor. This is a movie about Mandalorian and Grogu; they are the primary focus, as they should be.

The reason the movie works at all is the dynamic between Din and Grogu. We've watched it grow and evolve for three seasons, but even someone unfamiliar with the two characters would understand what is going on right away. One of the problems with Force-sensitive characters is that the Force becomes a deus ex machina for almost all problems. However, The Mandalorian and Grogu makes sure to strike a balance between reminding us that Grogu is powerful while not making him the answer to all of the problems or having him take over all of the fights. For all of the problems that Grogu solves with the Force, he seems to solve just as many by using his size to his advantage.

We don't usually see Force users so conservative with it, but it's one of the best examples of "show, don't tell" in the movie. Grogu was raised by a Mandalorian human and didn't even meet anyone else with the Force until later on. He doesn't rely on the Force because he was raised by someone who doesn't have access to it. It's another element of the film that makes it feel grounded in the same way the first season did, and like other Star Wars projects where the Jedi play very small roles.

By far, the best part of The Mandalorian and Grogu remains Ludwig Göransson's score. At this point, I would listen to anything this man composes because it all kicks so much ass. We hear a lot of similar notes from the show, but he has also added some new elements that work extremely well. This movie is worth seeing in theaters just to hear that score in Dolby ATMOS alone.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is going to have a hard time rising above being a longer episode of the show, and if it were premiering on Disney+, no one would care. It's not, though. This movie is being released in theaters amid a cost-of-living crisis. This movie's existence is not the problem, but putting it in theaters might be. It's not bad, it's just fine, but expectations for movies and streaming are different. Lucasfilm and Disney have said they put more money and time into The Mandalorian and Grogu, but there just isn't enough evidence to justify a theatrical release, and the movie isn't strong enough to stand on its own.

The Mandalorian and Grogu

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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6.5/10

The Mandalorian and Grogu is fine; it feels more like season one of the show than season three, but it just cannot capture the same magic of the early days and makes no attempt to be its own thing.

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