Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.

It’s been three years since the last episode of the Mandalorian, enough that I kind of completely forgot where the characters were left. It’s been seven years since any Star Wars graced the big screen, so you would think there would be some hunger for it, but the force wasn’t quite pulling me in. I saw The Mandalorian and Grogu (little guy finally getting the name billing he deserves) not quite reluctantly, but definitely with a lack of enthusiasm.

And hey, it was fine. But I kind of want my big screen Star Wars epics to be better than fine.

Ostensibly, this was just a long, drawn-out episode of the show. It didn’t feel like a full season culled down, but an overstuffed season opener. The same western thematic was at work, with Mando and Grogu getting pulled into some shenanigans by a rep of the New Republic (Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward, easily the dullest Star Wars name in existence), which leads to a whole side quest with a bunch of Hutts (including Jeremy Allen White unrecognizable as the voice of Rotta the Hutt, which begs the question – what was the point?).

There are some decent action sequences. Though CGI-heavy, the opening battle with a bunch of AT-AT walkers was the right mix of nostalgia and big-screen epicness (not a word, I know). The Mandalorian, voiced by Pedro Pascal, and performed by Pascal and (in a credit to getting secondary billing) stunt performers Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, isn’t a character that gets a lot of opportunity for character, so I was hoping we’d see something resembling development with a side character, but alas, Weaver, White and another character voiced by Martin Scorsese (and nicely I might add) are really just extended cameos.

It was nice to play in the sandbox again, but I guess I’ll have to wait for the itch to really be scratched next year with the standalone Starfighter (with Ryan Gosling back in space).

Jonathan’s grade – C+