“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will be released in theaters next month, but the first 17 minutes of the film were screened during Disney’s presentation at CinemaCon, an annual conference for movie theater owners in Las Vegas.
Din Djarin, better known as Mando, the Mandalorian warrior played by Pedro Pascal, and Grogu, the beloved green alien affectionately known as Baby Yoda, team up for their first big-screen adventure after appearing on the Disney+ series for three seasons. The film stars Sigourney Weaver as Ward, the leader of the New Republic, and Jeremy Allen White as the voice of Lotta the Hutt, the son of crime lord Jabba. The movie will be released in theaters next month on May 22nd.
Director Jon Favreau took to the CinemaCon stage to debut the first 17 minutes of the film, in which Mando infiltrates a secret meeting of Empire loyalists and blows up a bunch of AT-AT walkers on a snowy planet. The bounty hunters shoot, stab, and flamethrower their way through a base full of snowtroopers, with Grogu helping out along the way. The Empire’s leaders dispatch a recon droid, but the end is explosive when Grogu uses the Force.
The heroes steal a mini AT-ST walker and race down snowy cliffs, avoiding AT-AT footsteps and lasers. Mando uses a bomb to trip one of the logging mechs, causing it to crash down the mountain, and uses his jetpack to pull himself up to the hatch of another mech. The Imperial bad guy rides away in an escape pod, but Mando disables his AT-AT blaster and shoots him out of the sky.
After completing their mission, Star Wars Rebels’ Mando, Grogu, and pilot Zeb Orrelios return to the New Republic base and report to Weaver’s Ward. She chastises them for killing Imperial targets without any information, but gives them their next mission: rescue Lotta the Hutt from a rival gang. They board a shiny new ship and take off into space.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will be the first “Star Wars” story to be released on the big screen since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” The impressive footage included explosive Mandalorian action, adorable Baby Yoda gags, and plenty of new Star Wars enemies and technology. Snowtroopers wore different armor than the Hoth soldiers in The Empire Strikes Back, and Mando’s AT-ST was a smaller, more agile version of the one seen on Endor in Return of the Jedi. Rather than opening with the iconic opening crawl of past “Star Wars” movies, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” opens with yellow static text explaining where the emerging Republic stands after the fall of the Empire.
“The Mandalorian” was a flagship show on the streaming service Disney+ when it launched in 2019, spawning two more seasons and spinoffs “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Ahsoka” and “The Skeleton Crew.” All of this takes place during the same period after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi and 25 years before the rise of the First Order in The Force Awakens. The New Republic attempts to maintain order in the galaxy, but Stormtroopers and remnants of Imperial forces remain in hiding. Other Disney+ shows like “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Andor” and “The Acolyte” explored alternate timelines of “Star Wars” history as the series expanded on the small screen.
After The Mandalorian and Grogu, fans won’t have to wait too long for the next movie, as Star Wars: Starfighter will be released in theaters next year on May 28, 2027. Directed by Shawn Levy, the new solo film stars Ryan Gosling, Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams.
