Disney made us promise something big back in December 2020. Kathleen Kennedy stood up with Kevin Feige. Pandemic-era livestream. They dropped names. “The Mandalorian.” “Ahsoka.” “The Book of Boba Fett.” It looked like a plan. It looked like the plan.
Dave Filoni was going to direct a movie. A theatrical “climactic event.” An Avengers -style convergence where all those storylines from the Disney+ shows would collide. We had theories. Big ones. Maybe the Imperial Remnant gets kicked out of the known galaxy? Maybe they flee to the Unknown Regions and morph into the First Order? The writing seemed on the wall. Or at least on a PowerPoint slide.
Fast forward five-and-a-half years. That climactic movie? It’s not there. Instead, we got The Mandalorian and Grogu.
It’s out now. It’s in theaters. And it’s definitely not the movie Kennedy promised in 2020. It feels like a waste. A squandered opportunity to actually move the ball downfield during one of the most interesting eras in Star Wars history.
The Empire Is Still Alive. So Is the Boredom.
Let’s get real for a second. Did you think the Empire vanished just because Palpatine took a nosedive into the Death Star’s reactor core? No. The Expanded Universe used to call it that. Legends, now. But the lore always knew Grand Admiral Thrawn didn’t just pack up his toys. He waited.
In the new canon, it’s the same vibe. The Empire didn’t lose a war. It became insurgents. A ragtag bunch of warlords. A dark mirror of the Rebel Alliance back when they were just terrorists in cantinas. “Andor” showed us the crushing weight of bureaucratic evil. “The Mandalorian” season 3 introduced us to the Shadow Council. Even the father of General Hux was there, looking shady as hell.
And then Ahsoka came along. Eight episodes long. All leading back to Thrawn. The guy was coming home. He was going to reclaim the throne. The setup was perfect. Jon Favreau admitted this himself. In interviews, he said Season 4 of “The Mandalorian” was going to plug directly into Ahsoka ’s second season. Thrawn was the through-line.
Favreau wrote the scripts for that season. Then the script changed. The movie happened instead. And Thrawn? Gone.
Chasing Hutt Cousins Instead of Villains
The opening act of the movie isn’t bad. Actually. Din Djarin is sharp. He’s wearing the armor. He’s working for the New Republic. Sigourney Weaver is there as Colonel Ward. It feels competent. Fast. Mando captures two members of that Shadow Council we met on TV. One warm. One cold. It’s cool stuff. Classic Star Wars grit.
But then. Then the movie forgets who it is.
Right when you think we’re digging deeper into the Imperial conspiracy, the plot swerves hard to the right. Why are we fighting Hutt cousins now? Jabba’s twin relatives. Why did Mando steal their son Rotta? So now Embo the bounty hunter is mad. So that’s the villain now?
It feels like a weird creative choice. Like someone edited “Return of the Jedi” to cut Vader’s redemption arc so we could stay at Jabba’s palace longer. There are monsters. Cute alien frogs. Grogu nursing Dad back to health. It’s charming. Sure.
But you sit in that theater thinking about what’s happening in other parts of the galaxy. The Shadow Council is plotting. Thrawn is stirring up trouble in the Ahsoka universe. Meanwhile, Mando is busy playing tag with gangster molls on Nal Hutta.
Why Accessibility Didn’t Work
You might argue accessibility. Maybe that’s why Favreau made the pivot. Writer strikes. Actor strikes. Hollywood halted in 2023. They needed a movie, not another season. Maybe they wanted a standalone story for newbies? People who don’t have Disney+. People who haven’t binge-watched six hours of “The Book of Boba Fett.”
It’s an admirable goal. Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone is a lore-hunter.
But come on. If you buy a ticket for The Mandalorian, you know the Empire is bad news. The film tells you this in a title card at the very start. It assumes you know Baby Yoda needs to be kept safe from Sith. That’s baseline stuff. Everyone knows Hutts are criminals. But how many casual fans care about these specific twins? They debuted four years ago. Two episodes ago. Deep cut material.
You didn’t need to know everything. But you needed the big thread. The Imperial Remnant is the big thread. By ignoring it, the movie leaves the most compelling conflict on the table.
The arc is advancing slower than a Hoth glacier.
Ahsoka Season 2 isn’t until 2027. More time will pass between now and then than existed between “I am your father” and the Emperor’s defeat. We are watching a glacier move.
“Avengers: Endgame” worked because it respected the tension it had built. It didn’t pivot to a story about Iron Man fighting a random gang in Paris while Thanos was snapping his fingers on Titan. It stayed the course.
Lucasfilm started with a bang. Investors loved it. The universe is richer now. But if they don’t tie the Imperial loose ends soon, the momentum dies. Not with a bang. Not with a climactic showdown. But with a slow, frustrating whimper. The Remnant sits there. Waiting. While we chase Hutts.
