We are just weeks away from the premiere of the newest Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, marking the big-screen debut for Disney+’s most recognizable heroes. But I just can’t help but ask a question that has been nagging me for a while now: does anyone actually know anything about what this movie is about?
The official synopsis tells us that Din Djarin now works for the New Republic hunting down Imperial warlords. So he is basically still a bounty hunter, he’s just working for the good guys now. A bit of further information has come through some of the footage and interviews shown to select audiences, letting us know that in order to find a certain warlord Djarin must seek help from the Hutt twins seen in The Book of Boba Fett, who apparently want him to find Rotta the Hutt (Jabba’s son).
That is about all that we know of the movie. And that has me worried.
Now, Star Wars films in the Disney era have been notorious for trying to preserve secrecy, something true of a lot of franchise films nowadays. I certainly do not expect Disney to reveal any spoilers ahead of the movie’s release, nor fill in all the plot. We don’t have to understand everything about the character’s motivations. We don’t have to know if there are surprise heroes or villains who show up. We don’t have to know how everything will tie together in the end. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that you could ask someone “what is that movie about?” and actually have some sort of an answer beyond it being a fun adventure with Djarin and Grogu. But so far, it seems that Disney is banking entirely on people showing up for the characters even if they don’t know anything about the adventure they’re going to be on.
And I just think that’s a risky endeavor. I have written before about how the approach to marketing this movie has made no sense to me whatsoever, and I think that Disney/Lucasfilm are really banking on the Star Wars brand (and adorable little Grogu) to get people to theaters. That might work. It will work with some people. But for the first Star Wars movie in seven years, it sure doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of hype for this movie. The Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni combination means that the general fans often lose out in the hype process (they are both notoriously against showing much of anything for anyone who isn’t at a convention), and that’s a much bigger deal when you’re relying on people actually buying tickets to go to the theater to watch the movie.
Even for a die-hard Star Wars fan like myself, it’s hard to get super excited about this movie because we don’t really know much about the movie to get excited about in the first place, beyond this being just an extended episode of the show.
There’s been no real information about details about the plot. There has been absolutely zero tie-in material released leading up to the movie, unlike for past Star Wars films. There has been almost nothing to get fans intrigued by the movie outside of it being Grogu. I’m just worried that this movie won’t do as well at the box office, and that Disney and Lucasfilm will learn all the wrong lessons from it. This whole thing seems like it could be entirely preventable with a better marketing department, but so far, they’re taking the approach that “let’s not reveal anything and count on baby Yoda to get people there”. That’s a bold strategy. I hope it works – truly, I do. But I’m concerned about it.
Star Wars Thoughts 