Why The Mandalorian and Grogu is a comfortingly predictable watch for fans of the Star Wars franchise

Picture this: the fort-like structure with the bad guy you were supposed to capture is filled with beeping explosives when you reach it. The bad guy is gone, escaping in a spaceship, and you only have a few seconds to aim that missile at his escape vehicle (okay, spaceship) before the space explodes. But your toddler senses the danger of the explosive and, in a bid to get your attention, decides to play the drumbeat on your Mandalorian steel helmet. “I know, I know, I just need to get the shot,” says Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, with the patience of saints. He gets the shot, and they escape with milliseconds to spare. But of course, they do. He is the Mandalorian, and the child is a mysterious alien species like Yoda. And the beginning credits have not even rolled yet.

The bounty hunter and his ward

Coming seven years after the Mandalorian’s first OTT outing (the last season was in 2023), this is also the first Star Wars film in as many years, coming after the 2019 big screen release Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.

This is a world where the “evil Galactic Empire has fallen”. Former warlords of the empire, however, remain scattered throughout the galaxy, plotting its return. The fledgling New Republic has begun to reunite the galaxy. And “in the lawless outer rim”, the Mandalorian and his young ward Grogu take bounties to hunt down these imperial fugitives.

As the action unfolds, we find out that the mission the Mandalorian was on, required him to bring back this villainous bounty alive. As New Republic’s Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) points out, if he keeps failing to bring back these people alive, they can’t get information on the Ex-imperial world’s warlords and fugitives.

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The next mission they get assigned is to rescue Rotta the Hutt, who happens to be crime lord Jabba the Hutt’s son, kidnapped as a child. The Mandalorian has reservations about working for “gangsters”. But as Ward points out, he has to take this mission because the Hutt twins have valuable information on an unknown, unidentified Commander Coin . Rotta, it turns out, has grown up and fights cage fights in planet Shakari for a gangster named Janu, and the Mandalorian has to rescue him and deliver him to the Twins.

From then on, the film is a blur of fight sequences and chase sequences, which keep the action moving from planet to planet, each with different topographies and climates. Where Shakari is like a busy Southeast Asian city (watch out for a funny street food vendor that’s been voiced by Martin Scorcese), the Hutt’s planet Nal Hutta is cavernous mountains and misty forests, and while the New Republic’s base looks like a US army base in Hawaii.

A story well told

The plot follows the obvious graph of any adventure story with the beginning hook, middle build and ending payoff so well that it feels seamless. And the story is neatly tied in a bow, but when it is so neatly tied that it is hardly surprising, but definitely pleasant. It delivers whatever it promised to be with more icky aliens and no Jedis. Badass Din Djarin more than makes up for the lack of Jedi and lightsabers, though.

The strength of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is a story well told; what it misses having is as many human elements as the other Star Wars films.

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When the first season of the Mandalorian landed on OTT, viewers had wondered how to star one of Hollywood’s best actors in a show where his face would never be visible. Here too it’s the same. Both the most recognisable stars of the film, Pedro Pascal and Jeremy Allen White, do without their faces. Pascal at least looks human (and is ably aided by his body doubles). White is just the voice behind Rotta.

But something about the universal themes and characters translates and connects with the audience. Rotta is not his evil gangster father. The Mandalorian is a mercenary but an honourable one, and with a child to protect. And the child in question. Grogu, mysteriously powerful and yet utterly vulnerable, naughty, getting into all kinds of mischief, yet managing to save the day, brings all the “awwws” into adorable.