When The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters next month, it’ll be a very different story than the one director Jon Favreau was originally planning for the show’s fourth season.
The Mandalorian has been a staple series on Disney+, with three seasons of the beloved show serving as an anchor to a whole series of inter-connected stories set in the same New Republic era timeline. That included The Book of Boba Fett, Skeleton Crew, and most notably, Ahsoka. The era has been building toward the return of the long-lost Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, who will serve as the main antagonist threatening the New Republic and uniting the Imperial remnants. He made his live-action debut in the first season of Ahsoka, and a second season (which has already been filmed, but has no announced release date yet) will escalate his return into open warfare against the heroes.
Given this reality, the fourth season of The Mandalorian was going to explore Thrawn’s return and the implications of that on the galaxy, setting up the next chapter in Ahsoka season two. In a recent interview with SFX Magazine (h/t GamesRadar), creator Jon Favreau explained his plan:
“You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie. There were a lot of characters, it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into Ahsoka. It was about Grand Admiral Thrawn and following the larger storyline.”
That was originally the plan for these different shows, for them to all connect and work together telling one coherent story that would culminate with a movie, directed by Dave Filoni. This idea sounded similar to what Marvel has done in their cinematic universe, with different stories that work together and build off of each other, leading into a climactic event – like an Avengers film. It’s only natural that Star Wars would be following a similar pattern. The third season of The Mandalorian really made it seem like this was the plan, too, as it introduced the Imperial Shadow Council – a group of warlords suffering from disunity, waiting for Thrawn’s rumored return.
But then seemingly out of nowhere, Disney decided to make the next chapter in the story of The Mandalorian a movie instead. And, for Favreau, that meant doing something very different with it.
“This is a completely different medium, so I had to start from scratch, essentially. There were certain things I wanted to pursue, like the idea of Grogu being the Mandalorian’s apprentice. As long as you understand the archetypes of this hardened warrior with their vulnerable young apprentice, you’ll know these characters well, even if you’ve never seen the show. But there’s still a lot of Star Wars in there. You’re going to see where things are going, but that doesn’t diminish from the experience of watching it as a standalone film.”
In saying that he doesn’t exactly rule out touching on Thrawn’s return or the larger storyline, but he does make it clear that the story has completely changed. It has gone from being a series that would further the larger story to a tale about Grogu as the apprentice. From the sound of it, the story shifted from a galaxy-focused conflict to a character-focused adventure. I don’t hate that. But this does have me curious to see just how it fits in to the rest of the stories, or if this will feel too distanced from it. This is one of the big challenges of the streaming age: how do you tell an ongoing story that all fits together, without alienating fans who will not have watched all these different shows? That’s especially daunting when switching mediums from a streaming service to a movie theater.
So Favreau’s decision was, apparently, this: he’d make a movie that didn’t dive as much into those galactic stakes, and instead let Ahsoka season two do the heavy lifting for the galaxy-wide conflict. He commented:
“Anybody who saw the sequels knows that there’s a First Order coming in, like, 20 years from where we are now in the storyline. And then Ahsoka season 2 is coming out – which I’ve seen all of – and that’s definitely more dealing with the larger [picture], a higher level. That’s about the officers and we’re the enlisted men – this is more of a ground-level experience of what’s going on. You’re seeing the backdrop – which, by the way, is what the first Star Wars started off as.”
That’s exactly what started it all – a ground-level experience focused on these immediately beloved characters who weren’t the leaders of the fight – but it was a galaxy-wide fight seen through their eyes. Many people have wondered whether The Mandalorian and Grogu will feel ‘big enough’ to be on the big screen, and while I think it’s ok for Star Wars to release a fun standalone movie and not have it be totally essential in-universe, it’s a fair question. Favreau’s comments will only serve as fuel for the fire on that front. How will this movie fit in with the rest of the saga? Will it continue the story that’s being told, or will it feel more like a standalone entry when all is said and done?
What Jon Favreau is tasked with is an unenviable challenge: make the first Star Wars movie to hit theaters in seven years, which focuses on characters who have exclusively appeared on ‘TV’ (so to speak) making their debut jump to the big screen. That isn’t easy. He seems to have thought a lot about how to do this, and I’m hoping it works. But I’ll be honest: I was also hoping that this movie would feel more like a continuation of the larger story than it seems to be.
Hopefully there are some nods toward Ahsoka season two, and that a release date for that series is announced soon so the momentum can keep up.
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