LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 21: Pedro Pascal (C) attends a photocall for Disney’s “The Mandalorian” Season 3 in Piccadilly Circus on February 22, 2023 in London, England (Photo by Dave Benett/WireImage)
Dave Benett/WireImage
Dealing with passionate fanbases can be challenging in the best of circumstances. But fans of the Star Wars universe can be especially prickly, particularly when it comes to what has happened to the franchise over the past decade or two.
Discussions about Star Wars have inevitably gotten tangled up in complaints about diversity and whether recent TV shows drawn from the movies were somehow too “woke.”
Some fans want the theatrical films to concentrate on familiar characters and others want to break entirely with the cinematic universe established in the original three films. And then there are people like myself who continue to wait in vain for a movie that reveals Jar-Jar Binks to be the Sith Lord we all know him to be.
All of these discussions have converged with the release of Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu, the new theatrical film drawn from the Disney+ TV series The Mandalorian.
The movie opened in movie theaters this past weekend, and it had an opening of $165 million worldwide. Which is a solid opening for a film that costs less than $150 million after California tax credits are applied.
And yet, while audiences seem thrilled by the film, the majority of television and movie critics are treating Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu as if it were at the very least a modest financial and creative disaster. Industry reporters compared the performance of this movie to the grosses of previous Star Wars films and complained the movie felt more like four television episodes strung together instead of a real theatrical film.
Hardcore Star Wars fans argued the movie didn’t advance the Star Wars universe at all and that Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu was nothing more than lazy fan service that disrespected everything that has come before it.
And yet, people who have seen the movie seem to love it. The audience ratings have been uniformly positive and if you are lucky enough to see it in a crowded movie theater, you’ll hear a non-stop string of laughs and gasps throughout the film.
Even more importantly for Disney, the movie helps promote the Mandalorian/Grogu franchise, which has been generating enough merchandise sales to make it a billion-dollar business. Disney didn’t need this movie to be the Citizen Kane of Star Wars movies. It needed it to family friendly and fun. That mid-movie stretch in the middle of Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu which centered around Grogu might not have been as flashy as the action scenes in the movie. But it promoted the little guy in such a strong fashion that if you listened carefully, you could almost hear the cash registers jingle.
Don’t pay attention to what you’re reading in the industry trades or the commercial entertainment press. Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu isn’t a disaster. It is exactly what it was meant to be. A fun time at the movies.
And if you care about the future of theatrical movies, that should be what you’re looking for in a Star Wars film.