JONESING FOR FILMS

Star Wars is back on the big screen with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu for the first time since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker left a collective bitter taste in the audience mouth back in 2019. 2019 was also the year that the first season of “The Mandalorian” came out and the world went gaga over Baby Yoda, which made the disappointment around Rise of Skywalker all the more pronounced. Since then, Disney has rapidly expanded the Star Wars universe on Disney+, launching several new shows, many of which were spun off from “The Mandalorian.”

The series is set about five years after the events in Return of the Jedi, and, to date, there have been three seasons of the show (and “The Book of Boba Fett” had important plot developments, as did “Ahsoka” to a lesser degree). Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), known by everyone as “The Mandalorian” or “Mando” is a bounty hunter putting his skills to use for the New Republic, tracking down wanted remnants of the Galactic Empire on the fringes of the outer rim planets. Along with Grogu, his ward, they are tasked with bringing in Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), the son of Jabba and the nephew of the Hutt twins, successors of Jabba’s crime syndicate, but things do not go as planned.

The show has always been modeled after the old westerns, and classic samurai films too given their influence on the western genre. Mando has always been heavily influenced by Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and the Mando-Grogu relationship strongly resembles that of the father-son in Lone Wolf and Cub. With the series operating on the outer rim of the galaxy, arid desert planets like Tatooine firmly established in the minds of Star Wars fans, and bounty hunters being part of the historical west, it was a natural genre for them to hew closely to with Mando. His boots even click like he’s wearing spurs.

Mando is something of a law figure now that he is working on collecting bounties for the New Republic, takes jobs and going into areas to extricate paydays or people (and other aliens) that are wanted. The opening set piece is Mando and Grogu, along with the Zeb (voiced by Steve Blum), a rebel pilot and fan favorite from the “Star Wars Rebels” animated series, taking out an Imperial warlord’s stronghold on a snowy planet to grab him for the New Republic while establishing his (and Grogu’s) bona fides for the audience. Taking a job to assist the Hutts doesn’t sit well with Mando, but he is told by the Ranger squadron leader Ward (Sigourney Weaver) that doing so the Hutt will provide valuable info on an elusive former Imperial commander.

Without getting into too many plot mechanics, the film follows a typical western storyline. In A Fistful of Dollars (and Yojimbo), the hero plays both sides, gets found out or betrayed, is nearly killed but manages to escape, recovers from his injuries in hiding, and then returns to exact justice in the end. That’s not the exact plot here, but it’s pretty close; very archetypal.

Being that he is a Mandalorian, most of the time Din goes around wearing a mask that hides his face. This allows the studio, director Jon Favreau, and producer Dave Filoni to get away with filming most of the movie without having to rely on Pascal giving a physical performance, save one scene. Not clear who does the majority of the physical acting, but Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder are stunt doubles and the on-set stand-ins for Pascal and they give a very good physical performance that is equal to the task of matching Pedro Pascal’s voice acting performance.

Grogu, always a fan favorite, is a character created mostly through animatronics and puppetry, as was Yoda back in the day. Yoda was a speaking role, so it is still impressive that they are able to use a non-verbal character like that and still create a connection with the audience. Jeremy Allen White gives a fine voice performance as well. And perhaps composer Ludwig Goransson steals the movie with a truly outstanding score. That guy does fantastic work.

Despite all of that, this movie did not really resonate with me. The storyline is familiar to the point of feeling underwhelming. I suppose that one does not need to be familiar with the all of the Star Wars backstory from the TV shows that Disney has produced, but it feels like there is a fair amount that will slip past you if you are not. Heck, I didn’t even remember that Rotta the Hutt had been kidnapped as a baby back in Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie that came out in 2008.

I could not shake the feeling that this feature length movie very easily could have just been a three or four episode arc of the Disney+ series. The beats of the story felt familiar and episodic in nature even, like you could make out where the credits would have started rolling roughly every 40 minutes. Was this originally going to be a three-episode arc, or did they not have enough story for it to be Season 4 of the series without seriously padding it out?

What was perhaps most alarming to me, though, was the lack of prestige and bigness that I’ve always associated with the Star Wars franchise. For the first time, the galaxy felt small and unsuited for the big screen. Even with the spinoff movies in the franchise, there was still that eager sense of anticipation that I always got when I’d see “LucasFilm” appear on the screen. This time, it was missing.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu sticks to the formula that has made it work as a series, for better or worse. While it can still entertain, it is unable to shake the air of just being an extended episode of the series ported over to the big screen and thus a money grab. The existence of so much of the Star Wars universe now existing predominantly in TV series form rather than blockbuster movies has saturated the market and an unavoidable byproduct of that is the brand being diminished as a blockbuster. Star Wars movies may someday go back to feeling like a capital-e “Event” but for now, it is lacking in that department.

Still figuring out exactly how it applies, but I can’t help but think of the famous Norma Desmond quote in Sunset Boulevard, “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small!”

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars