‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Is About Making Mando One of the Good Guys

Back when The Mandalorian was first starting out, part of the intrigue—and part of its charm—was that the titular man himself was not really the kind of protagonist figure we see in Star Wars often. A flawed, compromised wanderer who was willing to play with all sides of the galaxy as long as it meant getting paid (and safeguarding the little green ward he picked up along the way), over the years, as The Mandalorian became increasingly enmeshed in a larger galactic scale, that character has slowly given way to what we have now: Din Djarin, the hero. And now that he’s going to be a movie star to boot, it’s time to have that climax play out on the silver screen.

“The Mandalorian has changed his priorities,†Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau told Empire Magazine of where Din is at coming into the new film. “One of the last things we say [in Season 3] is, like, ‘I don’t want to go out there and just be a hired gun. I want to work for the good guys.’â€

How that plays into what we last saw of Din—retiring not to the newly re-liberated Mandalore, but to Navarro to be a family man—but according to Favreau, now that Din’s made it to the side of the angels, so to speak, the focus on Din’s growth will give way to his bond with Grogu. “That central relationship, as they go off and face adventure together, that’s the underpinning of the film,†Favreau added. “Star Wars is always about progression and growth and characters evolving, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. It’s about apprenticeship, it’s about one generation teaching the next. There’s more growth that happens over the course of the film.â€

It’s an interesting acknowledgement of how far The Mandalorian has changed from the days of its first season, with the space-western bounty hunting vibes now giving way to the kind of stakes (and familiar characters) we typically expect out of Star Wars. The more important Din Djarin has become to the broader narrative of the galaxy far, far away, the more awkward it was to have him playing in those shades of grey—the kind of man who’d willingly take jobs from the Imperial remnant because the credits are good and beskar is beskar, regardless of whether it’s in the hands of your former oppressors, is not the kind of man who strolls into a New Republic base and takes orders from Sigourney Weaver (whose character is now confirmed by Empire as Colonel Ward).

Now that The Mandalorian has the uneasy burden of bringing Star Wars in general back to the big screen for the first time in years on top of continuing that growth, filing down Din’s imperfections to be the hero not just the galaxy, but Star Wars itself needs, is perhaps a necessary part of that process, even if it robs him of some interesting friction. But it’ll be interesting to see just what The Mandalorian and Grogu actually has to say about the impact of that change on one of its two titular stars when it hits theaters next year on May 22.

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