Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

Because I don't have a Disney plus subscription, I've never seen any TV episodes of The Mandalorian. So although I've seen every Star Wars feature film released in the cinema so far, this was my first outing for these group of characters. Honestly, I don't think it mattered as I felt right at home from minute-one.

Pedro Pascal reprises his lead role as Mando, the cool headed, gunslinging lead with his Force-wielding, bottomless-stomached side kick, Grogu - a constant and reliable pint sized ally. I wasn't that familiar with most of the actors in some of the major parts here but there were a couple of interesting cameos.

Sigourney Weaver shows up as the straightforward Rebel Base Leader and handler of Mando's missions and Martin Scorsese voiced a very talkative four-armed, primate-like street food vendor that reluctantly helps our main protagonists track down one of the ex-Empire war criminals. My favourite character though, was ultra reliable Rebel Pilot, Garazeb 'Zeb' Orrelios, voiced by Steve Blum. Obviously, I'd never seen him before but he reminded me of one of the early Ralph McQuarrie concepts for Chewbacca.

I was entertained throughout as the 2 hour 12 minute, easy-to-follow story moved along nicely. The action sequences are well choreographed with all the different exotic multi-planetary locations, various alien species (whether they be intelligent societies or the scariest monsters you could imagine) looking authentic for the Lucas-created universe. My favourite bits were the battle-scarred hardware and spacecraft. All created by top quality CGI, but looking as real and convincing on-screen as any Earthbound transport. It may all be seen as just an extended episode of the TV series but I would recommend it for fans of the franchise who miss seeing this fantastic fantasy world on the big screen.