Star Wars latest entry into the franchise
Over the weekend, my sons and I watched the latest Star Wars franchise entry, The Mandalorian & Grogu, and honestly? My overall review is probably the most dangerous thing a modern franchise can receive:
It was fine. Not great. Not terrible. Not insulting to my childhood. Not a triumphant return to cinematic glory. Just… there. Existing. Like a decorative throw pillow with a Star Wars logo on it.
And somehow that feels stranger than if it had been awful.
The movie looked good enough. The effects were solid. The action moved along. Grogu remained aggressively marketable. The audience, sparse as it was, seemed entertained, which genuinely matters. If you’re eight years old and saw tiny green space wizard baby antics while spaceships and speeders flew by, you probably had a wonderful afternoon.
For adults who grew up with Star Wars, though, the experience felt oddly weightless. Not bad. Just… disconnected. Perhaps it lacked the lore, the continuity, the mythology.
It had sci-fi elements. It had blasters, helmets, droids, hyperspace, and enough merchandise opportunities to fund a small moon. But it rarely felt like Star Wars in the way the original trilogy did. The older films had this strange mix of mythology, grit, hope, decay, and earnestness. There was dirt on the walls. Desperation. Silence. Scale. Characters seemed tired before the story even began.
This movie often felt like it was trying very hard to be pleasant, even in swamps and waterlogged dungeons. And maybe that’s the issue. The movie sacrifices story and continuity for safety.
Somewhere along the line, modern franchise filmmaking started sanding every edge smooth. Every emotional moment gets interrupted by a joke. Every serious scene gets softened by something adorable. Every creature apparently now needs the vocal energy of a caffeinated cartoon sidekick.
At one point, I found myself thinking, “This is less of a space western and more of an expensive Saturday morning cartoon with exceptional rendering.” Again, that does not make it horrible.
I want to be clear here because internet discourse now operates on two settings:
- “This saved cinema.”
- “This personally ruined my life.”
I’m somewhere in the dangerous middle ground of: “I probably won’t think about this again in three weeks.” That may actually be worse. Vanilla, that’s it, this is vanilla ice cream. No, I’m not turning it down, but no, I won’t recall the ice cream either.
Because the original Star Wars trilogy stayed with people. The music stayed with people. The worlds felt ancient, and the lore felt massive. Even the quieter scenes carried weight. You could feel the loneliness of space and the exhaustion of rebellion. You felt the power of evil and the resilience of hope.
With The Mandalorian & Grogu, I mostly felt like I was watching content. Competently assembled content, certainly. Expensive content. Occasionally charming content. But still content. The media content, toy sales, and tie-ins with all things pop culture and fast-food, it is all clear on the screen.
And perhaps that’s the real challenge facing modern franchises. They know how to produce endless content and over-the-top effects, but they increasingly struggle to create stories that feel like they capture emotional investment and continuity. The machine is so efficient now that everything arrives polished, optimized, focus-grouped, meme-ready, and strangely disposable all at once.
Nothing offended me. Nothing amazed me either. The movie was a decent way to spend a couple hours. I didn’t regret watching it. I also wouldn’t rush to watch it again.
Which leaves me with the most New England possible review of a major blockbuster: “Eh. It was alright.” Not exactly The Empire Strikes Back.