Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu Review
“This is the way.” – The Mandalorian (Din Djarin)
Is it?
This is the way?
Really?
As tradition dictates, a new Star Wars movie means I’m there for the first screening on opening day, so it was on Friday, May 22 2026 (or, as I write this, yesterday morning). And this movie has been on my mind ever since. In Star Wars parlance, I sense a disturbance in the Force.
It’s true that although I’ve been a firm Star Wars fan since I saw that Star Destroyer loom overhead from the top of the screen back in 1977 – I’m known to be more enthusiastic about some Star Wars movies than others. I still find parts of The Last Jedi to be problematic, but horses for courses – right? Overall, I love the whole Skywalker saga and that includes Rogue One and Solo. (I’m including Solo because this was his origin story and he is a vital part of the saga.)
But this one hits differently, and I’m not convinced that’s a good thing. I stress it’s not a bad film – it’s not what I expect from a Star Wars film. It feels “off”. Even the buildup to it feels strangely underwhelming, and for me, Star Wars films have always had great buildups that generate anticipation, speculation and excitement for what we’re about to see and experience.
Before opening day, I’m used to seeing a ton of tie-in merchandise on sale wherever I go. Breakfast cereals, magazines, TV spots, t-shirts, comic books, toys – everything you can slap a Star Wars logo on. By the time opening day hits, I should be crawling the walls with desperation to see the movie before the spoilers hit – a lesson well learned in 1999 with The Phantom Menace.
This time, the merch pickings are sparse. I’ve eventually found there will be a CD release in the film score in June, so there’s that. We’ve hit Burger King for our steel tie-in colour changing cups (but there’s no way I’m parting with £40 for an AT-AT popcorn bucket). There’s not even a tie-in film novelisation – and I always get those. Every one since 1977. I’ve been checking Amazon – but nada.
The times are changing, I guess.
It’s as if the studio doesn’t have that much faith in the product, and this time their lack of faith might be justified. This is the first time a Star Wars movie has been theatrically released that isn’t part of the Skywalker Saga. (I’m not including the two Ewok movies of the ‘80s because they were made for TV movies, okay?)
Star Wars: Mandalorian & Grogu continues the adventures of the bounty hunter and child apprentice of the Mandalorian streaming series shown on Disney Plus. And there, right there, is the problem I spotted when the film was announced. The Mandalorian series is a sort of Lone Wolf & Cub (Japanese film & Manga) or its American counterpart Road to Perdition (2002) – but set in the Star Wars universe. And as a TV show on the Disney platform, it works marvellously well. It has far higher production values than most streaming shows, the visual effects are awesome. It’s perfect Star Wars for the small screen while we wait for the next huge movie. But it ISN’T a huge movie.
Look at this – it’s the synopsis taken from the Internet Movie Database; “Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.” And that’s it in a nutshell.
It’s basically a two hour & ten-minute expanded TV episode.
There are no real revelations, nothing that pushes the characters’ stories forward, we learn nothing really new about them. It’s literally something that we could have seen as part of the show at home. For example, when Star Trek hit the cinemas in 1979, everything was bigger in scale, we could see details of the Starship Enterprise that we had never seen before, we got a sense of scale as to how massive a ship it was. As the films progressed, due to the bigger budget of a 70s movie against that of a TV episode in the 60s – everything just looked better by comparison.
The Mandalorian has such absurdly high production value and the visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic have been honed to such a degree that every episode has a cinematic look, so there’s nothing to visually improve upon. We get that in every episode. But I had expected some new plot twist, some as I said, revelation that would make the film more of a must see. All in all, this is more Star Skirmishes than Star Wars. I wish it was different, but sadly it isn’t. It lacks the scope and the epic feel of the Skywalker Saga and ultimately, there are no consequences to the film. It’s just another mission for the Mandalorian.
That’s not to say there aren’t high points – there are. Among them, Radda the Hutt – Jabba’s son, now a gladiator type cage fighter. He’s Hutt with muscles and a unique fighting style. Also, the sight of Sigourney Weaver, Ripley herself, engaging in combat, piloting an X-Wing is alone worth the price of a ticket. And an early action scene involving AT-ATs on a narrow cliff ledge. Great stuff, no doubt.
Frankly, I don’t think that transferring their small screen hits to cinemas is the way to go, especially in the current economic climate. It begs the question; will people pay movie theatre prices to see much the same as they’re paying to see at home?
Time will tell.
Rob Rating = 6