The Mandalorian And Grogu Made Me A Believer

I’m standing toe-to-toe with the Mandalorian and trying not to blink. It’s not that he’s pointed a blaster at my person — in fact, the shimmering suit of beskar before me lies empty and dormant, posed on a pliant mannequin and not on either of the performers who bring Din Djarin to life at any given time. (And that’s just fine by me: the presence of Lateef Crowder, Brendan Wayne, or Pedro Pascal would probably send my little Star Wars-loving heart — the heart that I was sure had gone cold and shrunk two sizes like the Grinch’s — into full-on fandom-induced arrest.)

Instead, it’s that Din’s armor is placed just so in a room filled with enough Star Wars paraphernalia to smother a bantha. I recognize creatures from the films, like the nexu that sliced Padmé Amidala’s back to ribbons in Attack of the Clones, or the head of a tauntaun that could very well date back to the original trilogy. The rest hail from the shows. If it appeared for even a second in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, or Skeleton Crew, it’s in this room: the floating heads of aliens and droids, blasters and blades, and models of ships. The creme de la creme (for this Naboo-obsessed writer, at least) is the N-1 starfighter that Din first pilots in Book of Boba Fett, built completely to scale in (almost) its full glory.

“We had to take the engines off of [that] to fit in here,” Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian’s biggest champion, will later admit, but that’s easily forgiven. That the filmmaker has seen fit to whisk myself and a handful of journalists to an undisclosed location, within touching distance of decades’ worth of memorabilia — all to roll out the red carpet for The Mandalorian and Grogu — delivers the thrill that three seasons of Mando never could. I’ve been quietly skeptical of this small-screen universe since it sparked to life on Disney+; the consensus towards it now sounds a lot more like my inner monologue. Plenty of ink has been spilled about the futility of a big-screen spinoff, but witnessing the work that went into it is enough to bring my own spark for Star Wars back. It’s enough to make me a believer.

My relationship with Star Wars is not unlike that of a lapsed Catholic. There was a time when I believed in the saga more than anything, studied its lore like ancient texts, and evangelized to all my friends. Disillusion came swift in the 2010s, the excitement over a new big-screen trilogy slowly choked out by the diminishing returns therein. I have not been shy with my disapproval since, whether it’s decrying the franchise’s fear of change or the insidious dominance of Clone Wars spinoffs (live-action or otherwise). When I head to IMAX’s headquarters to screen the first 20-odd minutes of The Mandalorian and Grogu, I’m prepared to let more criticisms fly.

There’s a thin line between a well-timed lore reference and unsubtle, bludgeoning nostalgia-bait.

I never truly liked The Mandalorian, despite finding parts of it vaguely compelling. Werner Herzog’s “I want to see the baby” was a staple in my arsenal of vocal stims for months, and I won’t deny losing my mind when the darksaber appeared in live-action for the first time. But there’s a thin line between a well-timed lore reference and unsubtle, bludgeoning nostalgia-bait — and The Mandalorian wasted little time crossing it. The series had lost itself in a vortex of self-reference; I didn’t expect that to change with its pivot to the big screen.

I see now I just needed a different perspective.

For what it’s worth, maybe The Mandalorian needed one, too. The adventures of Din Djarin and his young Force-sensitive ward were suited well enough to the small screen; if nothing else, they helped pioneer a newer, more efficient frontier in filmmaking. But The Mandalorian also made the mistake of taking Lucasfilm’s metaphorical sandbox in an all-too-literal direction: characters never felt like actual beings so much as figures on a holochess board. Consequences dissolved on a whim, clunky developments explained away either by characters or by Favreau himself. I could go on about the decisions that make no sense, the overshadowing of a fascinating character like Din in favor of a walking, gurgling excuse to sell more toys — but the second that I’m brought back into this world, all those quibbles fade away.

Because The Mandalorian & Grogu looks… good. It looks, dare I say, like a movie.

Of course, viewing said movie on a crisp IMAX screen will do a lot to quiet a dull roar of doubt — but Lucasfilm has claimed the film was “forged” for this very format, and seeing it in action, I’m inclined to agree.

There is the traditional jangling of keys one can expect from a franchise hellbent on “rewarding the fans,” like the extended fight sequence that takes place within the body of a roaming AT-AT. (“We’ve never seen the inside of one of those before!” the part of my brain trained to notice stuff like that pings, before I can stop myself.) So much of Mandalorian & Grogu has the capacity to sink the brand deeper into disarray, like the return of Rotta the Hutt (son of the famous Jabba, last seen as a squirming baby in Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Movie) or the Razor Crest (the ship that served Din in the first two seasons of The Mandalorian before being blown to smithereens… only to be conveniently resurrected for the film). In other ways, though, it’s poised to strip back the layers of fan service to return to the core premise of the show: What if there was a guy — part-gunslinger, part-samurai, part-medieval knight — who traipsed around the galaxy kicking ass and collecting bounties?

The Din we meet at the top of Mandalorian & Grogu is very much that guy. He feels like the Mando introduced in Season 1, Episode 1 — same cool exterior, but with a new purpose. Where he once hunted the scum of the galaxy for sport, Mando is now a hired gun for the New Republic. Now only members of the Imperial Remnant are on his radar, but the film’s opening sequence, which takes place on a frigid ice planet (probably not Hoth), proves he’s lost none of his lethal force. He will still bring a bounty in warm or cold — though that doesn’t exactly fly for his New Republic contact, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver). She’s searching for the mysterious Commander Coin, the leader of a major Imperial cell, and she needs fresh intel to catch him. Having exhausted all other options, Din is forced to seek an audience with the Hutts. That’s where Rotta will inevitably come in, setting the stage for a fetch quest unlike any other.

Watching the dominoes fall into place for this new adventure, there’s a sense that Din and Grogu were growing too big for the guardrails of Disney+. The duo feels right at home on the silver screen, while Favreau likewise seems to revel in the return to a larger canvas. After the screening, he’s quick to say how lucky he was to have IMAX HQ on speed dial during post-production.

The film’s aspect ratio dramatically unfurls at least three times in its opening 20 minutes, and it’s never not breathtaking.

“It’s hard to see that in a smaller format,” the director says to Inverse and the small group of journalists in attendance. “[You] appreciate how much energy comes off the screen.”

There hasn’t been a new Star Wars film in theaters for seven years, and that absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder for The Mandalorian & Grogu. Blaster shots ring out like thunderclaps in IMAX, Mando’s armor looks sleeker — heck, even Grogu looks a little cuter. The film’s aspect ratio dramatically unfurls at least three times in its opening 20 minutes, and it’s never not breathtaking. From Din’s blistering AT-AT brawl against a small army of Snowtroopers, to shots of X-wing fighters flying in against a blood-red Adelphi sunset (which borrows as much from Apocalypse Now as it does from Top Gun), it’s clear this corner of the galaxy has been reborn.

Touring the sets that remain for The Mandalorian & Grogu feels a bit like being at Galaxy’s Edge, only without the needless attempts to slot that world into ours. Or the crowds. Instead, it just feels like we’ve stepped into that galaxy far away.

The Adelphi lounge, where Din gets his orders from Ward, is a showcase unto itself: empty trooper helmets line the beams of the room like trophies, while two friendly droids putter around and, occasionally, dance for us. A pool table — or whatever the equivalent of pool is in the Star Wars galaxy — rests in one corner; in another, a kind of jukebox. Staff serves up spotchka (which, in this galaxy, is basically just blue gin) and pomegranate margaritas. The only thing that’s missing is an appearance from Zeb Orrelios, an alum of the animated Rebels who now assists Din on his missions. As he’s nearly 7 feet of purple CGI-crafted fur, I don’t hold my breath for his arrival.

Then, to paraphrase a certain Corellian smuggler, the fun truly begins.

This fandom functions like an investment portfolio. You put your love and dedication in and hopefully get something out.

A gold bust of the late Carl Weathers, dressed up as his Mandalorian character Greef Karga, guards the entrance to a winding hall of memorabilia, from Din’s trademark helmet (complete with a mirror tilted up to see its inner workings) to miniatures from Phil Tippet studios and a wall lined with swords and spears. We follow the trail of props and weapons until it empties into a hangar full of even more props and weapons. The heads of multiple Hutts, Sandpeople, and miscellaneous aliens stare back at us as we marvel at the history of Lucasfilm laid bare.

Among Favreau’s personal favorites is a miniature rig for the Razor Crest modeled after Dykstraflex, the motion-control tech pioneered by John Dykstra for A New Hope. That’s not the only updated practical effect in the bunch: The Mandalorian & Grogu takes things a step further than its predecessor to embrace and update the effects of the “good old days” of filmmaking.

“For the film, we had more time, and we had the know-how,” Favreau continues. “We had years instead of a year, so we were able to do all the stuff that we’ve always hoped we could, and do it to a level for a new audience who might not care about that stuff, and [who] just want to see a fun movie.”

Favreau likens The Mandalorian & Grogu to the first season of a new show, an “outstretched hand” to Star Wars novices hoping to eschew all the franchise-forward homework. It’s a sweet sentiment — but standing amongst all the props created for the shows and films, listening as Favreau geeks out over miniatures and the Razor Crest cockpit, I’m reminded that that’s never completely been true.

There’s another question that nagged at the director and his team, which included Lucasfilm heavyweights like Dave Filoni, Doug Chiang, and John Knoll, throughout production. “For people like me who’ve been in it since the beginning, how do you layer stuff in? How do you have things in there that reward the people who’ve been there from the beginning?”

There’s that word again: reward.

Star Wars has always welcomed new audiences with open arms — any installment can be entry-level if you squint. But this fandom also functions like an investment portfolio. You put your love and dedication in and hopefully get something out. It’s also a franchise that honors longevity, placing veteran fans at the top of the food chain. It’s both a great thing and a dangerous thing that those fans are now calling the shots. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to see a sandbox filled with toys but no story to support it. But maybe that’s why Favreau has opened doors to the archives — not to blind skeptics like me with the creatures I grew up watching, or the characters I wear on T-shirts. Maybe it’s to remind us of the love that went into their creation, the love that clearly informed a great deal of The Mandalorian & Grogu.

It can’t singlehandedly bring this franchise from the brink, but it’s not a bad place to start.

The Mandalorian & Grogu opens in theaters on May 22.