One of the big questions that fans were asking leading up to The Mandalorian and Grogu was about whether it would feel ‘big enough’ for the big screen. Would it feel like it was worthy of being the next Star Wars movie, or would it feel more like a TV series?

The answer, I think, is both. It certainly feels like episodes of the series were mashed together into a longer story with a bigger budget, but I do think it feels big enough to justify the movie experience. But there were three things that this movie did differently than any other Star Wars movie that came before, and it certainly didn’t make it better. These changes have nothing to do with the story whatsoever, but about the presentation of the movie that didn’t really help make it ‘feel’ like a big-screen Star Wars adventure.

Already, we knew this movie would not have an opening crawl, as Lucasfilm has made the decision to reserve that for the saga films. So Rogue One and Solo did not have a crawl, and neither does this one. I don’t have much of an issue with this, as both Solo and The Mandalorian and Grogu (as well as shows like Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew) have featured an alternate style of text to set the stage at the beginning of the film. Even though there is something about that opening crawl that just immediately sets the stage for what is to come, I like this new format and think it works well. So we knew going into the movie that it would be different. But this film pressed being different a little too far for my liking.

Change 1: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”

Shockingly, The Mandalorian and Grogu does not begin with the iconic tagline “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” This has been an unchanging staple of every Star Wars movie released, from the nine Skywalker films to Rogue One and Solo to even The Clone Wars animated movie – all of them begin with these words. In this movie, however, we transition right from the Lucasfilm logo to the opening text setting the stage for the film.

This change is, admittedly, extremely minor in the grand scheme of things. It altars nothing about the plot whatsoever. And it’s something that audiences can very quickly move past, if they noticed it at all. But my point is: why the need to be different? There is no good explanation for why this movie needed to drop the tagline at the beginning.

Change 2: Opening credits

While omitting those words at the beginning of the film was hardly noticeable, this second change was extremely obvious. For the first time ever, a Star Wars movie featured credits at the beginning, on-screen, while the film was ongoing. After an opening action sequence of Mando and Grogu hunting down an Imperial warlord, the film’s title card and theme blasts on-screen, while the heroes travel to the Adelphi base and prepare to meet with Colonel Ward. While we watch this happening, with an extended version of Ludwig Göransson’s tremendous theme playing, credits come on-screen of the cast and crew that made it. This is extremely jarring for a Star Wars movie.

It is par for the course for many films, but it was Star Wars that bucked the trend. So insistent was George Lucas that these movies not have opening credits that it actually was the reason for him withdrawing from the Director’s Guild of America. For Lucas, this stylistic choice was about more than just how best to credit the actors, but about telling a space fantasy story the best way possible. And that, he concluded, was to have the credits at the end. Every Star Wars movie ever made (and the shows, too) have followed suit with this, until Jon Favreau decided to be different with this one.

Does it ruin the movie? Absolutely not. Is it jarring? For sure. Should this be the new normal? I really hope not.

Change 3: Closing credits

Given how Favreau messed with the credits by adding them into the film, it isn’t a big surprise that the closing credits are different either. For the first time in any live-action Star Wars film, the iconic John Williams fanfare is not included as the credits begin. Instead, we hear Göransson’s theme for The Mandalorian. Now, this movie can get away with this change a bit because of how beloved this new theme has already become, but this is the part that, I think, could have helped The Mandalorian and Grogu feel more like a ‘big screen’ movie.

In all nine Skywalker saga films, plus Rogue One and Solo, the same main Star Wars theme accompanies the end credits, even though not all of them were scored by John Williams and not all of them opened with the crawl. The end credits were all the same, with the Star Wars theme transitioning into the new themes composed for the movie. It would have been cool to hear how Göransson would work all of this together, but even more, it would have helped make this feel like a Star Wars movie instead of just a collection of episodes of a Star Wars show.

So, in summary, this movie is the first Star Wars film not to begin with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”, is the first Star Wars film to buck George Lucas’s wishes against opening credits, and is the first Star Wars film to not include the Star Wars fanfare in the closing credits. Taken together, it doesn’t help this movie avoid the ‘small screen’ feel, and I really hope that this is a lone exception for Lucasfilm rather than the new normal.