Well, I just watched The Mandalorian and Grogu. I think this is your biggest challenge yet, Archbagel.
Alright… Let’s start to brainstorm here. I will Spoiler tag below, but non-spoiler review first. It’s a 5.5/10 from me (5 is average, NOT 7, so I thought it was very slightly better than average meaning I walked out with a barely more than neutral opinion of it). It is such a nothingburger of a story, like there aren’t even any attempted character arcs or journeys. It’s just… an adventure, a simple, fun, pointless adventure that barely moves a plot and doesn’t do anything new for the characters. If anything, the only character development is seeing Grogu mature a little and take care of a Din a bit more. That one line about that is really the only character movement in the entire film. There’s just… not a lot to love if you’re a fan of deep stories, and not a lot to hate if you can turn your brain off for a fun adventure. I can see why people would like it, I can see why people would be bored with it. For me, it’s just not what I want from Star Wars. I don’t want fun side quest adventures. I want an epic saga-style narrative with impactful character journeys and emotional payoffs, whereas this film doesn’t even attempt to do that. So overall, it’s exactly what I expected and everything I hoped it would not be, but I don’t loathe it as there’s just nothing in it to waste energy on loathing. I think it was a terrible decision from Disney to have this as the theatrical return after 7 years and will only further damage the brand and cause less people to want to see Star Wars in theaters the next time. It MIGHT break even on box office, but I would guess it’ll come up a little short.
General Thoughts (minor spoilers, but no specifics I think beyond the trailer):
- The movie holds up okay as a combo of about 3-4 episodes. It feels like they essentially did what you strive to do in your edits, knit a group of episodes together into something that makes sense, but it also doesn’t feel like the content was necessarily meant for that type of format.
Yes, it certainly 100% feels like series of a few episodes, and as far as how it would fit into TWoM it will be more like an Epilogue than a Book 7. But… I think I can make it a meaningful Epilogue. Anyone ever read the Witcher novels? That’s kind of what I’m thinking is the strategy here.
- The amount of action and creatures in the movie feels like overkill, especially in the first half (and even more in the middle third), where nothing has been built up. I would hope that any edit scales the action down and lets things breathe a bit more. The battles need to feel earned.
I agree here too, the first monster fight is cool. By the 8th monster fight with no emotional stakes I’m getting bored in theaters. The movie feels LONG too. Like I was shocked when I looked at my watch and it had only been 75 minutes and I would’ve guessed it was like 105 already. Too many pointless action scenes crammed in, so there could be some trimming so it doesn’t get stale.
- Rotta the Hutt. Wow. Interesting idea, but it’s hard to take him seriously. And all the English - I’m not sure it will work if you turn it all into Huttenese, but there’s just something off about it as-is. I do like the idea of his character in opposition to what we know of Hutts.
One million percent I will be removing ANY AND ALL lines of Hutts speaking basic, which means completely revoicing Rotta from the ground up. I would get drawn and quartered before allowing a Hutt to speak Basic in my film.
- Speaking of Hutts, I did like seeing the Hutt homeworld. It was more rural than I expected, as the EU had always kind of implied that it was more of a seedy industrial world, but I still liked it. I also really like their use of leftover prequel droids. Nice worldbuilding.
I thought the environments looked great all around! Maybe the Imperial warlord palace world was bland, but Nal Hutta looks great, and the other worlds were nice and lively and didn’t seem empty. They were simple but nothing bad there. I was disappointed in the VFX for the monsters, CGI characters, and ship models though. I thought it all looked cheaply rendered, and everything looked oddly oily/shiny. I can’t do much to fix that in mine though as I’m not a VFX master on that front. Maybe color grading will help?
- One of the biggest issues you’re going to need to deal with is that this all comes after the epic conclusion of your 6th movie. It’s just anticlimactic in comparison. One of my first thoughts was to re-arrange content to place it between movies 5 and 6, but there might be too many continuity issues to deal with - the new Razorcrest, again Grogu being there, etc.
I am certainly open to brainstorming ways to fit this in somewhere else in my saga… But nothing is sticking out as “Yeah that would fit great here!” I’d have to really tone down Grogu’s powers here if I do it in a different placement.
- If you split the content of this movie up and blended it with other content from the series, I think that the hunt for Imperial warlords might go nicely as a parallel story to the cut content about the Doctor on Coruscant.
That’s a decent idea, I still have a solid cut of the Pershing content that I never released. Again, I’d have to really think about what exactly to do with the timeline placement in that case though. There’s nothing really here that would lead to Moff Gideon. I was hoping to see more Shadow Council out of this movie. There’s just not a ton to work with.
Anyway, best of luck. I really do look forward to whatever you come up with going forward.
Alright, here’s my only idea to make this film actually have a meaningful arc. This will be controversial and some here will probably hate the idea. So my only inspiration for an edit as I watched this came from the Witcher novels… Spoilers to follow in my idea:
I’m just gonna rip the bandaid off… Din has to die. I think the entirety of Act 3 can be restructured so that Din eventually succumbs to the poison from the eel monster, and Grogu’s whole thing of “healing” him is instead a character arc for Grogu learning to “let go”. The inspiration from the Witcher novels is that after a massive journey of 7 books, Geralt finally concludes the mission a changed man, and then goes and dies in the most unceremonious way possible. This won’t exactly mirror that as I think I can give Din an epic last stand, but it’s the passing the torch to the apprentice moment. I’d flip the whole Act 3 so there is no Rotta recapture, and Din’s final rampage in the throne room and palace is to make sure no one will hunt Grogu down and then his victory is followed by him escaping there alone and dying to the poison out in the swamps. Then we get Grogu’s solo arc, then then NR comes in and rescues him. There are no such thing as these magic force healing powers in my edits. Rey doesn’t do it, Grogu never does it in mine, it’s just not a thing, it’s “not how the force works” and wrecks all kinds of canon. So that’s just not an option in mine. Grogu can still go to that Swamp creature guy (revoiced to NOT be Basic) and that can be part of his lesson to “let go”. I understand, Din dying here might mess up future storytelling, but we could cross that bridge if we ever get there. I think it will be a long time before we see Din Djarin again, MAYBE in Filoni’s Heir to the Empire movie? But that’s not even guaranteed and is still probably 3-5 years away. And even in that case, there is probably no reason I can’t just bump this movie to AFTER that movie. I don’t see anything set in stone how this would mess up future stories. I would venture to say we will never see Pedro Pascal as Din again. You might get some voicelines for a cameo but that’s probably it. Grogu will probably come back in a Post Episode 9 story at some point. But… Alright, give me your thoughts, throw your tomatoes, do what you gotta do. I’m just searching for ANYTHING to make this a story that is worth telling. There is no emotional reason to have this film as part of my saga without a meaningful event occurring. What are the initial reactions to that pitch of The Way of Mandalore - Epilogue: The Djarin Dynasty ?