The kid lifted the mudhorn. I never got over it.

Opinion, with an update from October 15: The essay below is a fan’s view, and the opinions in it are the author’s. The sections after it add what critics, audiences and the box office said about the film, which finished its theatrical run at $345.8 million worldwide. Two episode descriptions, from Chapters 2 and 7, were corrected to match what aired.

The kid, from cargo to protector

He arrived as cargo. A bounty. Fifty years old and the size of a toddler. The galaxy treated him as a prize for a lab. What I saw, from the second chapter on, was a small body that kept choosing to stand in front of someone larger. That is a kind of heroism I understand, and it never needed a speech, only a choice to plant himself in front of the bigger thing while his ears were still too big for the helmet.

Season 1, when the infant found the hero

Chapter 2: The Child. Jawas strip the Razor Crest. The only trade that will put the ship back together is a mudhorn egg. Din goes into the cave and the beast puts him on the ground. That is supposed to be the end of a man who took a bounty job. Then Grogu reaches out and holds the beast in the air so Din can finish it. No trick for the camera. Just a child who has known the man for a handful of days, deciding the man does not get to die in the dirt. I have rewatched that beat more than is reasonable. It is still the moment the show became a show about a father who did not know he was one, and a kid who already did.

Chapter 7: The Reckoning. On the way back to Nevarro, a winged reptile’s venomous claws wound Greef Karga at camp. The guild boss who tried to collect on the child is badly hurt. Grogu puts his hands on the wound and spends himself healing the man. That is not cute. That is a cost. Same episode, Cara Dune arm-wrestles Din and Grogu Force-chokes her because he thinks the match is a real fight, then lets go the instant he understands. The hero and the untrained kid live in the same body. Season 1 never pretended otherwise.

Chapter 8: Redemption. Moff Gideon’s troopers have them boxed in a building. A flametrooper is sent to cook the room. Grogu stops the fire and pushes it back. The same little hands that stole a knob off the Crest hold a wall of heat so the people who chose him can live long enough for IG-11 to finish the run. If you only remember the speeder-bike gif, go back to the doorway. That is the pint-sized hero, not the meme.

There are smaller beats I will not catalog like a wiki. The way he watches Din’s face the first time the helmet comes off. The way he reaches up and expects to be carried. Heroism in this series is often just refusing to be cargo, and Season 1 taught that before anyone said the name Grogu on camera.

Critics and audiences

As of October 15, Rotten Tomatoes lists the film at 60 percent from 335 critic reviews, and 86 percent from more than 10,000 verified audience ratings. The site’s critics consensus calls the film bountiful in action but threadbare in narrative thrust. Metacritic, which averages critics’ scores, puts it at 53 out of 100, according to Wikipedia; BrickFanatics notes that The Rise of Skywalker scored the same. CinemaScore, the poll of opening-night audiences, gave it an A-, per SuperHeroHype.

Praise, as Wikipedia and BrickFanatics collect it, went to Pedro Pascal, Grogu, the action and the score. The sharper complaints were about structure. Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent called it “the dullest and most inconsequential Star Wars ever made.” Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian found less of the humanity that makes Star Wars appealing, and John Nugent of Empire called it the least consequential chapter of the Mandalorian story. Those summaries come from the roundups, not from the reviews themselves.

Box office compared with earlier Star Wars films

The film opened over Memorial Day weekend to $81.7 million across three days in the United States, according to The Numbers, which also lists $345.8 million worldwide. ComingSoon reports a production budget of $165 million after California tax credits, so it is not directly comparable with the $275 million reported for Solo, which opened to about $84 million in 2018 and finished near $392 million worldwide. Wikipedia calls the new film’s opening the lowest for a live-action Star Wars release. The table runs from largest to smallest.

SuperHeroHype, citing Variety, reports that Disney chief executive Josh D’Amaro acknowledged the film underperformed and pointed to growth in Star Wars retail and gaming. Hollywood Reporter estimates, relayed by the same outlet, put the break-even point above the final gross. Opening-weekend numbers differ by a few million between outlets because some count the Memorial Day Monday and some do not.

The series before the film

The Mandalorian premiered on November 12, 2019, the day Disney+ launched. Season 1 earned 15 Emmy nominations and 7 wins, all in the Creative Arts categories, and lost the drama series prize to Succession. Season 3 ran from March 1 to April 19, 2023. As of April 11, 2023, Dark Horizons reported Season 3 at 84 percent from Rotten Tomatoes critics and 57 percent from its audience, against audience scores of 92 and 91 percent for Seasons 1 and 2.

Several writers spelled out what fans disliked. Rita Dorsch of Looper listed a loose focus, weak villains and cameos that distracted from the story, and the AV Club argued that Season 3 wasted Grogu. Some of the film’s reviews repeat them.

Streaming viewing and sequel talk

Nielsen counted 727 million minutes of viewing for the film in the week of August 31 to September 6, second among streaming movies behind Netflix’s The Whisper Man, according to Gizmodo. Wikipedia lists 366 million minutes for the following week, third place. No Disney figures were located.

No sequel has been announced. Jon Favreau told Entertainment Weekly the film is a wide open canvas, as The Popverse reports, and Inside the Magic describes a theatrical sequel as extremely unlikely, which is that site’s view. A fourth season of the series was scripted but never produced, according to Wikipedia.

Why the return still lands for me

The movie is a bigger sandbox now, with New Republic paperwork and Sigourney Weaver’s colonel in the story. I will watch it on the couch this week the way I watched Chapter 1, which is to say with the sound up and the rest of the house negotiating around me. If it is drivel to you, skip it. If you were waiting, he is home. The series never needed him to grow a foot and give a monologue. It needed him to keep choosing the man in the armor, and that started in a cave with a horned animal and a bounty hunter who should have been alone.

This is the Way is a creed. For me it is also a reminder that the smallest person in the frame can still pick up the thing that is about to crush you. I was anxious for the drop because I wanted that feeling back, not because Lucasfilm sent a calendar invite. Some of you will never get it. I got it in 2019 and I still have it. The kid lifted the mudhorn. I never got over it.

Editor written. AI used for spelling and grammar only.