THE MANDALORIAN and Disney's Unwillingness/Inability to Let Go

 As Lucasfilm begins to dive into the lives of preexisting characters in their new properties, the STAR WARS universe is starting to seem a lot smaller.

By: Josh McCormack

!!!!SPOILERS FOR THE MANDALORIAN SEASON 2 AHEAD!!!!

Before I dig into my issues with the current state of things, I have to make one thing absolutely clear; I love Star Wars, man.

I love Star Wars even when it's bad. As much as I shit talk Hayden Christensen monologuing about sand or Rey being revealed as a Palpatine, I will still eat all of it up in the moment because I am such a shill for this franchise. It's not just because I just love lightsabers, weird alien creatures, or massive shootouts with stormtroopers though. It's because such a large part of my relationship with my dad and our mutual love of film (ALL film) stems from those early, formative years watching Star Wars together. I can trace my love of practically any genre (horror, sci-fi, westerns) back to something that clicked with me as a little kid in the Star Wars saga.  According to my dad, I was 48 hours old when I had my first exposure to Star Wars. The story goes that he snuck into the nursery of the hospital and put on a VHS copy of A New Hope (the original cut, of course) above my crib. Even if this isn't entirely true, I like to think it is because it sounds like the perfect origin story for Josh McCormack.

I let you guys in on this now, because it might seem like I'm about to go hard on something you love in order to level some sort of superiority over a fan base. And this is certainly not my intent. I might revel in being harsher to most other mass conglomerate franchises (of which Star Wars is one), but not this time. Because however much Star Wars might mean to the fan reading this right now, I guarantee you it means as much–if not more–to me. If you just finished the epic finale to the second season of The Mandalorian and you loved it, I say "awesome"! There was a lot I enjoyed, myself.  Hell, even some of the elements that–in my opinion– truly diminished some of this show's previously great storytelling were still pure eye candy for my fanboy self. While many "toxic" Star Wars fans are leading the charge of praising Disney's latest content and disparaging previous attempts, I fully understand that many great, smart film writers and fans that I often agree with are fully on board as well. My own father cheered and even got choked up during this past episode and some of his joy was rather infectious and I wouldn't dare take that away from him or anyone else.

The great film essayist, FILM CRIT HULK, wrote a piece Friday morning about the difficulties of criticizing something the vast majority of people are loving without seeming like a buzzkill. It truly is difficult sometimes and not something I want to do, especially when such fanfare revolves around a character I adore. So–again–as much as some of my more cynical friends and fellow film writers might want me to be "done" with Star Wars, I need you to understand that I am not going to stop partaking in the tales of "a galaxy far, far away..." simply because of some bad executive decisions and strange script choices.

However, after years of watching new Star Wars movies and shows as well as seeing the discourse of fans grow to astronomical proportions on social media, it has come to my attention that Disney currently has no plans to introduce a new generation of young fans to new characters or new adventures, but instead its focus is to quite literally repackage the same ones and force these upon them. My feelings were only solidified by the return of Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian.

When The Mandalorian finished its first season almost a year ago, I was amazed at how it managed to make me care for a new group of heroes in a way that I hadn't since the original Star Wars trilogy. While I loved certain characters in the sequel trilogy (i.e. Rey, Kylo Ren, Rose Tico), there were a handful of characters that just didn't quite click with me. With The Mandalorian I found each core character to be fun, charismatic and each possessed strong motivations that never wavered from episode to episode. The finale of The Mandalorian's phenomenal first season was full of classic Star Wars tech and was dripping with the original trilogy's iconic aesthetic, but was focused only on the characters that the show introduced. Without even a single hint of legacy characters entering the picture, The Mandalorian still managed to be an absolute phenomenon which is in direct contrast to the rather icy reception of The Rise of Skywalker, a film that attempted to compensate for its glaring narrative faults with existing lore and characters from movies past. 

So as you can imagine, a certain level of disappointment began to set in as I began reading headlines stating that characters from past Star Wars media would start to appear in the second season of The Mandalorian. Ahsoka Tano, Bo-Katan, and even the iconic Boba Fett all soon appeared on the roster of characters. What made this all the more frustrating to me was that I thought The Mandalorian was getting along just fine amongst the often divisive Star Wars fan community and thus didn't need these past characters appearing in order to attract fans. However, I seemed to be in the minority as fans began chomping at the bit just to see Mando and Baby Yoda (now known to be Grogu) interact with iconic faces from Star Wars lore.

Fast forward to about nine months later when I'm a little over halfway into the show's second season. The cameos are surprisingly not the worst. Bo-Katan's inclusion actually fits into some of Mando's internal conflict, Ahsoka's episode is actually beautifully directed and gives a lot of information on Baby Yoda without being pure exposition, and Boba Fett's inclusion is a little lame, but he's not too much of a distraction. Yet, I still started to get this sinking feeling that more and more emphasis is put on lore rather than the journey at hand and this fear grew stronger once Disney revealed their massive line of new Star Wars shows and movies just about a week ago.

Amongst this slew of announcements came a new Lando Calrissean show, a new Clone Wars spin-off, and most frighteningly, the return of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader in the new Obi-Wan series. The most disconcerting thing about that announcement is not that Christensen is returning (I am actually very curious to see a performance from him under a director who's better with actors than Lucas), but rather that Kathleen Kennedy promoted the show as a "rematch of the century". Which now means that Vader and Obi-Wan will duel sometime in between their two fateful matches in Episodes III and IV, respectively. If this is the case, it would truly lessen the impact of their battle in Episode IV and would be a fight in which there are absolutely no stakes, given the fact that we know neither of them will be injured in any substantial way. I thought I couldn't be alone in this fear. Alas, I was. As I looked at the overwhelmingly positive response from Star Wars fans at this news, it struck me that for many people context doesn't matter if you get to see beloved characters kicking ass. And that's when I had a horrible reminder. 

Grogu (Baby Yoda for you fake fans) sent out a message to some Jedi in order to be trained. For weeks I thought no one would answer.

But with all of these announcements it finally hit me that Disney is incapable of not exploiting a character for more subscribers.

Believe me when I tell you that the one thing I didn't want to see in The Mandalorian was the return of Luke Skywalker. Over the past few weeks of people theorizing who might be the Jedi who answers Grogu's call (a set up I already hate on its own), I told everyone I could be okay with anyone as long as it wasn't Luke Skywalker.

Why? Well, I'm so glad you asked loyal reader.

The main reason is because show creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni made it absolutely clear since this show's inception, that it was separate from the Skywalker Saga. This was a story about the Outer Rim of the galaxy. A story of pirates, bounty hunters, and monsters. Grogu works because he is the only force user on the show and the lack of understanding what in the hell the force or a jedi even is makes the relationship between Mando and Grogu all the better. I already don't like the concept of Mando meeting a jedi, but to have Luke involved just makes the universe seem so much smaller. As if Luke is the only constant in the entire galaxy and that every story eventually turns into a Skywalker story. Of course Luke is still around and the only real Jedi known to be around at this time, so it isn't technically canon breaking, but it's thematically destroying so much of what made The Mandalorian its own unique thing.

But another reason is that so much of the fan desire to see a badass Luke Skywalker is simply a direct response to Rian Johnson's portrayal of Luke in the very good, but very divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The fan's disdain for that interpretation of the character was strong and really led to an entire portion of the fandom misreading the film. I can't help but think in some way that seeing a more heroic, badass Luke who puts more emphasis on swinging his fucking lightsaber than the character ever has is a direct response to the more pacifistic view of the character in TLJ ( a view that fits more in line with the original trilogy, in my opinion). So that just really puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Of course it's all about the execution. Since some jackasses spoiled the reveal on Twitter for me, I really just wanted to see how it was done, given the fact that the very idea was so stupid. And to be honest, it didn't start off all that bad. The footage shown through the security cameras is kind of cool and the score was cool as always. When his face was obscured it was just dumb fan service that I could try putting up with, but once the hood comes down and we see the horrifying CGI monstrosity beneath, I just wanted to turn away from the screen. It lacks warmth needed for the scene and although it would not have been in continuity, it at least could have come across better if there was just a look alike actor in the role. 

It's a shame too because this cathartic moment for so many fans comes at the expense of our two lovable leads. The separation of Grogu and Mando should be tear jerking and while it almost gets there, it's undermined by the CGI Luke and the fact that what just preceded it was a fan service fueled battle sequence in which most of the viewers are still coming down from. 

So as Luke takes Grogu to train him leaving behind our main characters, we are now stuck with some Mandalore plot (which will be undoubtedly be flowing with Clone Wars easter eggs), a Boba Fett spinoff show setup (btw that post-credit scene was kinda cool), and the knowledge that CGI Luke Skywalker will probably make a few more appearances in the show, subsequently making The Mandalorian a part of the greater Skywalker Saga in a way I really didn't want it to be. With all of these on the table, it seems like all roads that could have led to unique, new piece of lore have been effectively closed off.

Star Wars now seems destined to go down this dark path for quite a while now in all their forms of media and it just seems like the equivalent of fast food to fans like myself. Sweet, sometimes filling, but with no nutritional value.