The first clip for The Mandalorian and Grogu has been released, and it is entirely underwhelming.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, director Jon Favreau showed off a nearly minute-long clip showing Din Djarin, Grogu, and Zeb fleeing stormtroopers in a speeder. Zeb shoots at them, while Grogu tries to help… but instead fires rockets from their razor crest ship. They’re transporting what looks to be an Imperial warlord, so that’s presumably why the stormtroopers are after them.
And I’ve just got to be honest: this doesn’t look great.
(1) First of all, it’s another desert planet, with another chase sequence. In fact, the first clip released for The Rise of Skywalker was also a desert chase as the heroes were pursued in a speeder by stormtroopers. It doesn’t feel original. (2) Second, the clip treats Grogu like a baby, with him fumbling his way through the buttons – which is fine, except for the fact that it seems the way they’ve been treating Grogu is that he’s growing into this smart apprentice who listens. I’m wondering if this is the tone of the movie, or not. Is Grogu cute, or just dumb? (3) Third, the gags with Grogu seem too drawn out. The editing is a bit strange, as there’s a lot of time that passes with Din Djarin’s talking, Grogu pushing the button, and a rocket firing. It seems a more concise, condensed scene could have landed better. (4) Fourth, Pedro Pascal’s delivery of this line, which itself feels too dragged out, is wholly uninspiring. It’s a monotone delivery of a way-too-long line. (5) Fifth, the visuals of the clip are also uninspiring. The speeder design is pretty boring, as is the backdrop. It just looks like a low-budget film, which isn’t exactly what you want people thinking heading into the first Star Wars film to hit theaters in seven years.
Here is the positive, though: Zeb looks great. They’ve really done a good job getting the design and mannerisms down, from what we’ve seen so far. It’s never easy translating a character from animation to live-action, and there are particular challenges that come when the character is an alien. It seems they’ve done a good job with him, and I’m really excited to see Zeb in action on the big-screen.
All in all, I really don’t want to nit-pick, and to pull a clip out of context of the entire movie and judge it based on that is unfair. But that’s why it just seems so weird that this is the clip Jon Favreau pulled out to show off the movie. Why not show off a clip from the opening action sequence on the snow planet? That footage looks a lot better, and it would save Favreau from having to give one more crumb to the fandom. It’s entirely unfair to judge a movie based on a clip, but it’s certainly problematic when Lucasfilm releases said clip to try to get people to see the whole movie. This was a really interesting (questionable) choice. I’m hoping it was just an error in marketing judgment, and not a reflection of what the rest of the movie looks like.
I have confidence that this movie will be a fun adventure story (I’m really hoping), but the fact that we don’t yet know much about the story, and the fact that it has yet to really sell audiences on being cinematic in production quality, does raise some eyebrows. If this is the best clip they’ve got to show off the movie as they try to convince people why they should buy tickets to see it, that’s troubling.
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