The Mandalorian and Grogu is a fun and enjoyable entry in the Star Wars universe. However, it does feature one choice that’s so jarring that left me scratching my head by the end of the movie.
The Mandalorian & Grogu continues the story from the hit Disney+ series on the big screen. The movie sees Pedro Pascal reprising his role as Din Djarin/The Mandalorian, as he goes on a new adventure with his companion Grogu. The movie’s plot largely focuses on Mando Mando as he’s hunting down Imperial officers following the Empire’s disillusionment. Along the way, he’s tasked with finding Rotta the Hutt for Jabba the Hutt’s twin cousins.
It’s here where things get weird. Although not a completely unique occurence, the Star Wars movie makes the odd choice to have one of the Hutt twins, Rotta, and another character introduced later speak mostly entirely in English for the duration of the movie.
The Hutts and several other creatures suddenly speaking normally is an odd move
Without diving too much into spoilers, the Hutt twins are introduced fairly early in the movie. As Mando is looking for information on a former Imperial officer, the twins task him with finding Rotta, their nephew and Jabba’s son.
During the conversation, the twins first speak to Mando in Huttese, the language traditionally spoken by the Hutts throughout the entirety of Star Wars. However, the male cousin then switches to English, and frequently switches back and forth throughout the movie.
Likewise, when we are finally introduced to Rotta (played by Jeremy Allen White), he speaks fully in English from the beginning. The movie also introduces more of the Anzellan race, first introduced to us by the lovable Babu Frik in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In The Rise of Skywalker, Babu Frik is shown to speak his own languagewhich has to be translated by the smuggler Zori Bliss. However, in The Mandalorian and Grogu, the four Anzellan we meet all speak English, all of which is usually done for some comedic effect, which works well, to be fair.
The choice to have all these characters speak English (or Galactic Basic, as it’s known in the world of Star Wars) doesn’t ruin the movie. However, it does come as a jarring shock when watching. The move is even more surprising because there’s never an explanation for it in the movie. We’ve seen many of these species in past Star Wars films, and aside from one singular Hutt (Ziro, in The Clone Wars movie), none of them have ever spoken English.
Of course, one could argue that due to Rotta’s life offworld and the male cousin’s stature as a major kingpin, they learned the language for simplicity’s sake. That doesn’t really make the move any more worthwhile, though. The fact that creatures like the Hutts, or the Anzellan, were interacting with normal humans without issue is part of what gave the Star Wars universe its charm. Having everyone speak the same language, with no real explanation for the sudden shift, feels like it was done more to placate people’s annoyance at reading subtitles than anything, and only takes away from the charm of what makes Star Wars so fun.
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