Depending which corners of the web you haunt, your algorithms will attempt to feed you media based on other media you've consumed prior (with a strong dose of sponsorship). If you're not careful, I mean really careful, this can quickly swing to one extreme or another. Love-love-love! Hate-hate-hate! Love-hate-love-hate.... And on and on spins the media monster we've built. Mandalorian is crap! It's great! Disney is doomed! Star Wars is back! The truth often lies in the middle, and the film is no exception.
If you ignore the dozen or so Star Wars films since 1977, the myriad tv series, the hundreds and hundreds of spin-off novels, the Legos, the toy figurines, the model kits, the video games, the board games, the pajamas, the coffee mugs, the... and focus only on the original movie Star Wars: A New Hope, what do you have? You have a fun/cheesy spot of space opera for the family. Big evil vs. small good, 1D characters and equally 1D dialogue, snarky humor (“Oh Han, he's dreamy...”), a princess needing rescue, some mystical predestiny blah, and a big klabooey (to quote Calvin & Hobbes). It's not popular because of these elements, but in spite of them. It's the imagination, the big screen splash of shooty-shooty fight-fight—space ship battles, aliens, light sword duels, extraterrestrial planets, far-future architecture, and operatic drama. That is what puts asses in the seats. It's escapism of the purest variety, and given the lack of sex, swearing, and graphic violence, it is escapism for kids and adults alike. So while thousands of Gen Z students have undoubtedly attempted to write Master's theses identifying some existential core to the IP, but let's call Star Wars what it is: imaginative entertainment for the masses.
Wait, did I just describe The Mandalorian & Grogu? I did, I did. Sneaky, that.
The Mandalorian & Grogu is everything that Star Wars: A New Hope is, for better and worse. There are big, fun monsters galore. There is situational humor letting you know that for as dire as the circumstance are being painted, don't worry, everything will turn out ok for our heroes. There are blaster fights and fisticuffs every thirty minutes, with cool ships, aliens, droids, and assassins. There is an evil baddie—twin Hutts, in this case. Character relationships are simple, at best. Emotions are basic—good, bad, happy sad, etc. There are cutesy-wootsy scenes for the kids. All in all, it's solid, serviceable Star Wars that is both derivative and original.
Two things not present are: a political agenda or bad script writing. Where several recent tv series and films have fallen victim to these ills, The Mandalorian & Grogu does everything the old school way. Rather than telling viewers what they should believe, or subjecting them to piss-poor dialogue and scene setting, the film gives them what they want. And what do they want?
Unlike Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was a nostalgia generator through and through, Mandalorian & Grogu gives people Star Wars in fresh clothes. It's not a painfully overt corporate attempt to play it safe, to copy old motifs in the hope of generating new ticket sales. The Mandalorian and Grogu are not Obi-Wan and Luke, or even master and apprentice, and they do not need to defeat GALACTIC EVIL. They have a father-son relationship, and the story they get caught up in is low key—an underworld gangster plot that makes no mention of a Death Star or other such universe-sized threat. The film has a build-up and climax, and they are scaled appropriately to the story, not too big and not too small. The film begins as it ends, with some minor, feel-good character development between. Yeah! Now back to the real world.
To close this post, I don't get the so-called critics (looking at you Nerdrotic or The Critical Drinker or any of the dozen or so other such channels) who bash the movie. In fact, they seem to revel in the fact it's not as commercially successful as prior Star Wars films, putting clickbait titles to their videos about 'complete failure' and 'Disney is done'. I agree with a lot of what these creators have to say about Disney's treatment of prior Star Wars films and series, but when you're given a spade—a spade you've been clambering for in reaction to the politicized content Disney has put out recently—call it a spade. The Mandalorian & Grogu is good old fashioned Star Wars fun. Disney did the right thing. Kids will love it. Adults will feel their imagination has been allowed to be a kid again for two hours before going back to their jobs and homes. And that's it, really. Enjoy it for what it is.
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