There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding The Mandalorian and Grogu, however tentative, because of what the film represents to the Star Wars saga. It’s the first big-screen adventure the franchise has offered fans in seven years; if all goes to plan, it’ll keep the door open for the other films coming down the pipeline. But Din Djarin and Grogu’s lightspeed jump into theaters might also represent the closing of a door. These characters did, after all, get their start on Disney+. The Mandalorian delivered three well-received seasons, and almost got a fourth — one that, according to director Jon Favreau, would have set up the ongoing conflict in another Star Wars series, Ahsoka. But somewhere between Mando’s Season 4 renewal, the SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the WGA strikes, Lucasfilm opted to retool the show into a more standalone story.
Per Favreau, that retool took a lot of work. The scripts for the entire fourth season of Mando were already written, and, as he explained in the latest issue of SFX Magazine, “You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie.” Naturally, it picked up like the fourth season of any TV show would: “it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into [the second season of] Ahsoka.” More importantly, it would have featured Ahsoka’s Big Bad, Grand Admiral Thrawn, as a growing threat to this corner of the galaxy.
