Lucasfilm’s theatrical “Star Wars” schedule has been barren since the less-than-stellar reception to “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” The studio wants to change that with the new movies announced at Star Wars Celebration — and a new rumor suggests a familiar Mandalorian could join them.
According to Making Star Wars, amidst the ongoing writers and actors strike, there’s fear within Lucasfilm that between working on “The Mandalorian” Season 4 and “Ahsoka” Season 2, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni won’t be able to flesh out the Disney+ shows in time to lead into Filoni’s upcoming New Republic movie. However, given the latter has yet to premiere its first season, Lucasfilm is reportedly exploring the option of sending Mando and Grogu to theaters, condensing “The Mandalorian” Season 4’s scripts into a feature-length film.
It’s an interesting idea that could pay off in a big way for Lucasfilm. Filoni’s New Republic movie doesn’t have a release date yet, but the studio would surely prefer to release it within the next few years, wrapping up the story of the Disney+ era of “Star Wars.” If that’s the case, there’s no way they will have time to write and film “The Mandalorian” Season 4, “Ahsoka” Season 2, and Filoni’s movie with the ongoing strikes. Sending Mando to theaters could be the only option, assuming the strikes continue into next year. Not only would it shorten Lucasfilm’s upcoming production schedule, it could also help fix some of the problems that plagued “The Mandalorian” Season 3.
A shorter runtime could be just what The Mandalorian needs
Following the climactic finale of “The Mandalorian” Season 2, the hype was at an all-time high for Season 3, but after a long wait, the final product didn’t live up to expectations. Fans reacted to the latest batch of episodes with complaints rather than praise, as a number of things in Season 3 upset them. If Lucasfilm does make Season 4 into a theatrical film, it could solve many of those problems.
First and foremost, a movie would streamline the “Mandalorian” story, removing unnecessary side plots and characters while ensuring a coherent plot from start to finish. A big complaint about Season 3 was that the show spent too much time on “side missions,” like the Mandalorians hunting a giant raptor or saving Nevarro from pirates, instead of focusing on and progressing the main story. There’s less time to waste in a movie, so if Lucasfilm has Jon Favreau edit the Season 4 scripts into a film, these “side missions” would be the first to go.
Another common complaint regarding “The Mandalorian” Season 3 — and many of Disney’s other interconnected streaming shows — was the required viewing commitment needed to get the whole story. If audiences didn’t watch “The Book of Boba Fett,” they couldn’t understand how Mando and Grogu had reunited after the Season 2 finale. With Dave Filoni’s upcoming New Republic movie set to be the culmination of everything Lucasfilm has been building on Disney+, there are already more than enough episodes general audiences have to watch in preparation. Shifting “The Mandalorian” Season 4 into a movie eliminates a chunk of episodes that will surely be mandatory viewing, making it an overall more accessible experience for audiences to get the whole story.
