The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

“This Is The Way…”

…to the theater?

—

🎬 Let’s Start By Showing Y’all The Trailers Shall We?

The trailers made this look like Star Wars was finally returning to theaters with something big. Mando, Grogu, AT-ATs, Imperial remnants, space battles, practical effects, and the return of Star Wars to the big screen after years away.

This was supposed to be the grand comeback. The movie that finally made Star Wars feel cinematic again. The one that reminded audiences why this franchise belonged in theaters in the first place.

And after sitting through it?

I genuinely do not understand why this was the story Disney chose.

Not because the movie is offensively horrible. Not because it looks bad. Not because nobody tried. The movie looks good. The practical effects are strong. There are some fun action moments. But the actual story feels unbelievably small.

This does not feel like Star Wars returning to theaters.

This feels like three Mandalorian episodes stitched together and pushed onto the big screen because Disney needed a Star Wars movie.

—

⚠️ Content Warning ⚠️

Fantasy violence, gladiator combat, giant monsters, creature attacks, poisonings, people getting eaten alive, bounty hunters, crime syndicates, giant snake creatures, Imperial remnants, and approximately twenty minutes of Grogu doing survival chores while I slowly questioned every decision that led this movie to theaters.

—

🧭 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

The movie opens on a snowy planet where Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is hunting down an Imperial remnant leader. And honestly, this opening is easily one of the best scenes in the movie. Mando takes down Imperial forces, AT-ATs get destroyed, stormtroopers get wiped out, and an escape pod gets shot down in a way that actually feels cinematic.

For a brief moment, I thought:

“Okay. Maybe we’re cooking.”

Then the movie immediately starts shrinking.

Mando gets brought back to a New Republic base by Zeb from Rebels. Why is Zeb here? Don’t ask me. He’s just here. This movie has a habit of throwing in Dave Filoni characters and acting like that alone is supposed to make the scene feel important.

At the base, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) tells Mando that he was supposed to bring the Imperial target in alive. Mando asks if he’s still getting paid, and she tells him yes, but she also gives him another job.

The Hutt Twins want their missing grandson Rotta the Hutt returned to them. In exchange, they will give Mando information about another Imperial target.

So off we go to Nal Hutta.

And this is where the movie basically becomes Side Quest: The Movie.

Mando meets the Hutt Twins from The Book of Boba Fett, because apparently those two left such a massive impression on the world that they just had to come back. The Hutts show Mando a picture of Rotta, and the only picture they have is of him as a baby.

Which honestly made me laugh.

Imagine being missing for years and your family is still showing people your baby photo.

Anyway, Mando goes looking for Rotta and eventually finds out that Rotta is not exactly rotting away in a dungeon somewhere. He is a gladiator. A giant, jacked-up gladiator. A giant, jacked-up gladiator who now speaks Basic, which is honestly very weird to hear coming out of him.

The movie tries to turn Rotta into this big emotional return, but I kept asking myself one question:

Who was asking for Rotta the Hutt to come back?

No seriously.

Who?

—

🎭 Character Rundown

Din Djarin / The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal)

I hate saying this because I really liked Din back in Season 1, but he has become extremely boring.

In the beginning, Din worked because he had an actual arc. He started as a cold bounty hunter who slowly learned to care about Grogu. He had beliefs. He had rules. He had a code. Then Grogu came along and forced him to question those things.

That was interesting.

Now?

He mostly just accepts jobs.

Half this movie feels like watching a video game protagonist walk from objective marker to objective marker. Go here. Talk to this guy. Get clue. Go there. Fight thing. Get another clue. Repeat until credits.

Din does not feel like he is growing anymore. He does not feel like he is being challenged in any new emotional way. He is just Mando doing another Mando mission.

And at this point, even “This is the way” makes me groan.

I get it.

That is the way.

Can we find a new way?

—

Grogu

I am officially done pretending Grogu is a character.

He is a mascot.

There. I said it.

We are years into this story, and Grogu still functions almost exactly the same way he did when he was introduced. He still does not speak. He still makes baby noises. He still gets distracted by food. He still presses random buttons. He still does cute things. He still occasionally uses the Force when the plot needs him to.

At some point a character has to evolve.

Grogu does not.

The movie even has a scene where Din tries to explain spaceship controls to Grogu by telling him to press the button near the exhaust fuel.

Brother.

You are talking to a baby.

A baby who does not speak Basic.

A baby sitting in a cockpit full of buttons.

Why would Grogu know what exhaust fuel is?

Of course he launches missiles. That is not Grogu being silly. That is Din giving one of the worst instructions I have ever heard in my life.

The movie keeps trying to make Grogu cute, and sometimes he still is. I will be fair about that. Some moments are cute.

But cute is not character development.

And after this many years, “Baby Yoda does baby things” is not enough anymore.

—

Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White)

This is where the movie fully lost me.

Rotta the Hutt is back.

Yes. That Rotta.

The baby Hutt from the 2008 Clone Wars movie.

The movie that a lot of people did not even like back then.

Eighteen years later, Disney somehow decided that Jabba’s son should be one of the central pieces of their big Star Wars theatrical comeback.

And I just have to ask again:

Who was this for?

The weird thing is that Rotta actually has one of the more interesting ideas in the movie. He does not want to become Jabba. He does not want to rule through fear. He likes being a gladiator because people cheer for him. For once, people are not afraid of him because of his family name. They are cheering for him as his own person.

That is actually a decent motivation.

The problem is the movie barely does anything with it. It brings up this idea, acts like it matters, and then runs off to the next objective marker.

There is a real story buried somewhere in Rotta trying to escape Jabba’s legacy.

This movie just does not dig deep enough into it.

—

Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver)

I like Sigourney Weaver. I always like Sigourney Weaver. She is one of the main reasons this movie is not rated lower.

Do I fully buy her as a veteran Rebel pilot who has apparently been around this whole time?

Not really.

That is one of those modern Star Wars things that always feels a little weird to me. A new character shows up, and suddenly the movie acts like they have been important forever even though we have never heard of them before.

But Sigourney Weaver has enough screen presence that I still enjoyed seeing her.

She is trying.

And honestly, I respect that.

—

Lord Janu / Commander Coin (Jonny Coyne)

Lord Janu is one of those villains where I understand his function in the story, but I do not think I will remember him very well later.

He is the crime-lord / Imperial guy connected to Rotta’s gladiator situation, and he works fine as an obstacle. But that is really all he is.

He is not intimidating enough to become memorable.

He is not interesting enough to carry the movie.

He is not ridiculous enough to be fun.

He just kind of exists.

Six months from now, I will probably remember him as:

“The bald Imperial guy.”

—

Embo

Dave Filoni cannot help himself.

Out of every character in Star Wars, out of every bounty hunter, out of every person he could bring back, we get Embo.

Again.

Not Cad Bane.

Not Hondo.

Not Rex.

Not Thrawn.

Embo.

The hat guy.

I am not saying Embo is a terrible character. I know Clone Wars fans like him. I know he has a cool design. But as part of the grand return of Star Wars to theaters?

Really?

This is one of my problems with Dave Filoni’s side of Star Wars. He remembers everything. Every obscure creature. Every background alien. Every Clone Wars character. Every little reference.

And sometimes that is fun.

But sometimes it feels like he is building stories out of trivia answers.

Rotta. Embo. The Hutt Twins. Dejarik monsters. Four Babu Frik aliens.

At some point I stopped feeling like I was watching a movie and started feeling like Dave Filoni was dumping out his Star Wars toy box.

—

The Hutt Twins

I could not care less about these two.

I am sorry.

They were forgettable in The Book of Boba Fett, and they are still forgettable here.

The movie acts like their presence matters because they are Hutts, but they are not interesting villains. They are not funny enough to be entertaining. They are not intimidating enough to be scary. They are just two giant slugs giving orders.

And when they eventually die, I did not feel shocked.

I felt nothing.

Actually, no.

I felt relief because at least they were gone.

—

The Visuals

This is where the movie earns most of its points.

The practical effects are genuinely strong. The creatures look good. The costumes look good. The sets look good. The movie has a nice physical texture to it, and I appreciate that.

The opening battle looks fantastic. The gladiator arena has some fun creature work. The Hutt palace has that classic dirty Star Wars crime-world feel. The movie does look like Star Wars.

And I do want to give credit where credit is due.

This movie does not look cheap.

It looks expensive.

It looks polished.

It looks like people worked hard on it.

I just wish the story had the same amount of energy as the production design.

Because visually, the movie understands Star Wars.

Narratively?

That is where I start having problems.

—

The Pacing

Oh boy.

Here we go.

This movie does not feel like a movie.

It feels like three Disney+ episodes stitched together.

And before somebody says:

“You just do not like slow scenes.”

No.

I love slow scenes.

Game of Thrones has slow scenes. Dune has slow scenes. Andor has slow scenes. The difference is that those scenes are building something. Character. Tension. Politics. Atmosphere. Mystery. Fear. Dread. Something.

This movie has a long stretch where Mando is poisoned and unconscious, and Grogu has to survive on his own. On paper, that could work. A quiet section where Grogu has to protect Din and prove he can survive without him could be interesting.

But that is not how it felt watching it.

It felt like watching Grogu do chores.

He builds a mud hut. He shoves Mando inside with the Force. Mando’s feet stick out. Grogu covers them with leaves. Grogu gathers water. Grogu feeds Mando water. Grogu steals fish. Grogu gets eaten by a frog. Grogu meets an old swamp guy. The old guy makes medicine. Grogu brings the medicine back.

And I am sitting there thinking:

What are we doing here?

This is not nuance.

This is not deep.

This is not character development.

This is errands.

My dad said after the movie that I just do not like movies with nuance and slow scenes.

No.

I love nuance.

I love slow scenes.

I do not love boring scenes.

There is a difference.

The movie kills its own momentum so hard during that sequence that I genuinely started wondering when the actual third act was going to start. And the wildest part is that by then the movie had already captured Lord Janu and brought him back to the New Republic.

That felt like the end of the main plot.

But nope.

The movie still had more movie left.

That is one of the biggest signs that this was originally a season arc. It keeps feeling like one episode ends and another begins.

—

✅ Pros

The opening battle is easily the best part of the movie. That snowy planet sequence has energy, scale, and actual cinematic weight. Mando taking down AT-ATs is exactly the kind of thing I expected from a Star Wars movie coming back to theaters.

The practical effects are also great. The creature work is one of the strongest parts of the film. Even when I did not care about the story, I could still appreciate the craft behind the monsters, aliens, puppets, and environments.

Sigourney Weaver is enjoyable. I may not fully buy Colonel Ward as a long-time Star Wars figure, but Sigourney Weaver brings presence. She helps the movie just by being there.

Some Grogu moments are cute. I know I spent a lot of time complaining about Grogu, but I am not going to lie and say none of his moments worked. Some were cute. The problem is that cute cannot replace growth.

The movie also avoids shoving Skywalkers into everything. And honestly, thank you. I am tired of Star Wars shrinking the entire galaxy around one family. At least this movie lets the Skywalkers sit this one out.

—

❌ Cons

The plot feels like a side quest. That is the biggest issue. This does not feel like a story that demanded to be told on the big screen. It feels like a mission Mando would do in the middle of a Disney+ season.

Din Djarin has become boring. I hate saying that, but he has. He does not feel like he is evolving anymore. He is just moving through the plot.

Grogu has stopped being a character and started becoming a mascot. The movie refuses to evolve him because keeping him cute and baby-like is safer. But safe is not interesting.

Rotta the Hutt is not a strong enough hook for a theatrical Star Wars movie. His motivation is interesting, but the movie does not do enough with it to justify making him the center of the story.

The Hutt Twins are forgettable. They were forgettable in The Book of Boba Fett, and they are forgettable here.

The third act does not feel like a third act. It feels like the middle of another episode.

Nothing important really happens. Nothing major changes. Nothing huge gets set up. No Thrawn. No massive Imperial threat. No major New Republic development. No real galaxy-shaking event.

Just Rotta is free now.

Cool.

I guess.

—

💭 Final Thoughts

I think the most damning thing I can say about The Mandalorian and Grogu is that I do not understand why it exists as a movie.

Not why it exists at all.

Why it exists as a movie.

If this had been part of The Mandalorian Season 4, I probably would have shrugged and moved on. It would still have been flawed, but at least it would make sense as a few episodes of television.

But as the grand return of Star Wars to theaters?

I genuinely do not get it.

Disney disappeared from theaters for years and came back with a movie about rescuing Rotta the Hutt. Rotta. The baby slug from the Clone Wars movie. And then they threw in Embo, the Hutt Twins, four Babu Frik aliens, Dejarik monsters, a poisoned Mando, and a long Grogu survival sequence.

This does not feel like the next major chapter of Star Wars.

It feels like a detour.

A side quest.

A movie with an asterisk next to it.

The movie is not a disaster, and honestly that almost makes it more frustrating. If it was a complete trainwreck, at least it would be memorable. Instead, it is just there. It looks good. It has some fun moments. It has decent creature work. But the story is so thin that I kept asking:

Why was this in theaters?

That is not the question you want audiences asking after the first Star Wars movie in years.

—

⭐ Rating

4/10

The visuals are good.

The practical effects are good.

Sigourney Weaver is good.

Some moments are fun.

But the story is not strong enough, the pacing is messy, the stakes are tiny, and the whole thing feels like a Disney+ side quest pretending to be a theatrical event.

—

🚨 Spoiler Warning 🚨

Everything below this point contains full spoilers for The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Seriously.

Turn back now.

Unless you also want to know how Star Wars returned to theaters with Grogu doing swamp chores.

—

☠️ Spoilers & Ending Breakdown

The movie opens with Mando on a snowy planet hunting an Imperial remnant leader. This sequence is genuinely cool. Mando fights through Imperial forces, destroys AT-ATs, and takes down the target in a way that feels like actual big-screen Star Wars.

Then he gets brought back to the New Republic base by Zeb from Rebels, because Dave Filoni apparently cannot go five minutes without reminding us he made Rebels.

Colonel Ward tells Mando he was supposed to bring the Imperial in alive, not dead. She still pays him, but she gives him another mission. The Hutt Twins want Rotta back, and in exchange they will give him information about another Imperial figure.

So Mando goes to Nal Hutta, meets the Hutt Twins, and gets sent after Rotta.

He eventually finds Rotta on Shakari, where Rotta is fighting as a gladiator. Rotta is not exactly being held in a dungeon. He is famous, he is cheered on, and he is one fight away from earning his freedom.

Rotta explains that he does not want to be like Jabba. He does not want people fearing him. He likes being cheered because it is the first time people see him as something other than Jabba’s son.

That is actually a good idea.

Then the movie barely does anything with it.

Mando meets Lord Janu, who controls Rotta’s contract. Janu reveals that Rotta’s final match is rigged and that he plans to keep sending monsters into the arena until Rotta dies.

Wow.

Who could have seen that coming?

Oh right.

Anyone who has ever watched a movie.

Mando tries to free Rotta, but Rotta calls the guards because he thinks Mando is interfering with his chance to win his freedom. Mando and Grogu get knocked out, and Mando wakes up in the arena.

Mando and Rotta fight. The crowd wants blood. Mando eventually gets the upper hand but refuses to kill Rotta. He yields, meaning Rotta technically wins.

Then Janu reveals that yes, Rotta is free.

Free to die.

He unleashes the monsters.

And yes, the monsters are based on the Dejarik chess creatures from A New Hope.

Because apparently Dave Filoni remembers every single obscure Star Wars thing and thinks that is enough to make a scene exciting.

Mando and Rotta survive, the arena collapses into chaos, and Janu runs. Mando captures him and brings him back to the New Republic.

And honestly?

This feels like where the movie should end.

The Imperial guy is captured.

The mission is complete.

Rotta has escaped.

But no.

The movie keeps going.

Rotta tells Mando that the Hutt Twins do not actually care about him. They want him dead because he is next in line and they want control. He also tells Mando that Lord Janu is the Imperial figure he was looking for.

Mando does not believe him at first because he says the Hutts would have told him.

No they would not.

They are Hutts.

They are mobsters.

They were using him.

Why would they tell him everything before he brought back Rotta?

That is one of those moments where the writing makes Din look weirdly naive for someone who has spent his entire life dealing with criminals.

Then Embo shows up and kidnaps Mando, because again, Dave Filoni cannot help himself.

The Hutts capture Mando, remove his helmet, and act like this is going to dishonor him forever.

Except this stopped mattering years ago.

Din has had his helmet removed multiple times by this point. This would have been a devastating threat in Season 1. Here, it just feels like the Hutts are several seasons behind.

They throw Mando into a water pit where he fights snake creatures and a giant underwater monster. He gets bitten and poisoned.

Then Grogu and the Babu Frik aliens show up to rescue him.

And this is where the movie grinds to a halt.

Mando escapes but collapses from the poison. Grogu finds him, heals the wound a little with the Force, and then has to keep him alive.

So we get the long Grogu survival section.

Grogu builds a mud hut.

Mando is too long for it.

Grogu uses the Force to shove him inside.

Mando’s helmet keeps banging against the hut.

His feet stick out.

Grogu covers the feet with leaves.

Ha ha.

Funny.

Then Grogu gathers water, feeds Mando, steals fish from an old swamp guy, gets eaten by a frog, gets spit back out, and eventually gets medicine from the old man.

And I am sitting there thinking:

This is the third act?

This is what Disney thought should be in theaters?

A baby doing errands?

Eventually Grogu gets the medicine back to Mando, and Mando wakes up. They decide they can either run forever from the Hutts or go back and fight.

They go back to the Hutt palace, rescue Rotta, and fight the droids. Embo is there too, because of course he is.

Rotta is freed, the Hutt Twins attack, and during the chaos they end up falling into the grate. They demand Embo save them, but Embo and his dog just leave.

The Hutt Twins then get eaten by the giant snake creature.

And honestly?

Good.

I did not care about those two anyway.

The New Republic finally shows up after the Babu Frik aliens bring them in. Colonel Ward and the pilots prepare to blow up the palace. Mando, Grogu, and Rotta escape through a secret hatch and jump into the water before the palace explodes.

They survive.

Zeb picks them up.

Rotta decides he does not want to become another Jabba and may join the New Republic. Even Din basically tells him not to take this the wrong way, but he probably will not fit in.

And he is not wrong.

Then Mando and Grogu leave.

At the end, Din lets Grogu sit on his lap and press the hyperspace button, which is supposed to show growth from the beginning where Grogu was told not to press buttons.

And that is the movie.

No Thrawn.

No huge twist.

No major setup.

No galaxy-changing event.

No massive emotional payoff.

Just Rotta is free now.

And somehow Disney decided that was the story that would bring Star Wars back to theaters.